Moving to Universal Credit area!

JustTheTwoOfUs

Hiya
My partner and I are currently in the process of moving to another area. My partner has spinal degeneration and fibromyalgia and I have mental health problems. Our current authority were unwilling to move us so we decided to apply to another local authority and we have been offered the property by them.
Last week, I realised it was in a Universal Credit area. Something I've never had to think about before but am now completely confused by as a lot of advice and calculators seem to contradict each other.
Currently, I am on ESA contribution based, DLA care high rate and mobility low rate and have been receiving these for years now. My partner left work a few years ago as I was incredibly unwell at the time so she claimed carers allowance and got a top up of income support. She started claiming PIP for her problems about 18months ago, standard rate for care and mobility. Her income support was increased because of this and that no one was claiming carers allowance for her. We then get housing benefit and council tax benefit on top.
I am really wondering how we would be effected if we did move to a universal credit area? I am pretty sure we will loose money but some things have said about £100/ month and others have said £500/ month :eek: which is an incredible loss that we would obviously struggle with. Would my ESA contribution continue or have to change to the new style ESA? My partner can still claim carers allowance for me I think, but would that deduct too much from the UC and would I be able to claim carers allowance for her?
Like I said, I am so confused by all the information I've seen. I am getting a call from a welfare advisor next week so that will hopefully help but any help I can get here would be greatly appreciated! I have even wondered if we were going to loose £500+ with the change in benefits, if we paid our own rent, would we be able to keep the benefits we are currently on and not claim housing benefit?
So many questions :rotfl:
Thanks

Alice_Holt

Are you in the ESA Support group?

It would help if you could break down your ESA & your partners IS monies. Do you both receive the Severe Disability Premium (c. £62pw) in your ESA & IS awards?

JustTheTwoOfUs

Thanks for getting back to me.
Yeah, I'm in the support group for the ESA.
Breaks down to :
Living expenses £73.10
Support group £36.55
Top up from moving from IB £2.40
Total £112.05
My partners IS breakdown is:
For you and your partner £114.85
Sick or disabled £46.40
Severely disabled £62.45
Caring for someone £34.95
Disability income guarantee £22.85
Total £281.50
Minus the ESA and carers allowance is £106.75/ week.

BorisThomson

JustTheTwoOfUs wrote: »

Thanks for getting back to me.
Yeah, I'm in the support group for the ESA.
Breaks down to :
Living expenses £73.10
Support group £36.55
Top up from moving from IB £2.40
Total £112.05
My partners IS breakdown is:
For you and your partner £114.85
Sick or disabled £46.40
Severely disabled £62.45
Caring for someone £34.95
Disability income guarantee £22.85
Total £281.50
Minus the ESA and carers allowance is £106.75/ week.

Plus DLA £105 per week
Plus PIP £77 per week

:eek:

Do you also claim housing and council tax benefit?

Are you fit to provide 35 hours care for your partner?

JustTheTwoOfUs

Yeah, plus them. But didn't include them as they aren't counted usually. We claim both housing benefit and council tax benefit too but did wonder if we move if paying the rent ourselves would help keep the rest of the benefits the same.
I have to be. Thankfully most of it's inside and manual stuff, then I get stuck doing stuff like this but I'm better doing this stuff myself with my autism or I'd be asking her constant questions. Definitely more depressed though so hoping moving to a suitable property will help that.

Alice_Holt

Thanks,

My understanding is that UC will look like:
Basic couple element £499;
Carer's element £151 (for each - times 2);
LCWRA, element £319; (this is the Support Group equivalent within UC)

See - https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Universal-Credit/Additional-Elements-of-Universal-Credit#guide-content

Giving a total of £1120 pm before Housing Costs and Disability Benefits (PIP & DLA).

Does this agree with the results you have had from UC calculators?

I'm basing two carers payments on the statement that "If you are making a joint claim you can get a carer element each if you both qualify for it, but you cannot be caring for the same severely disabled person."; and you are caring for each other.

JustTheTwoOfUs

I've done a few calculators and they've all said different things, which led to my confusion.
I've seen that, the basic breakdown of the UC rates but when I do calculators they end up all over the place. I did see that statement too, as we care for each other so not the same person, but at the moment I can't claim carers allowance because the ESA is an overlapping benefit or something so if it stayed the same if we moved, I was presuming I couldn't claim it. It would help if I could, would half the loss, which is fine for us.

bigbill

JustTheTwoOfUs wrote: »

I can't claim carers allowance because the ESA is an overlapping benefit or something so if it stayed the same if we moved, I was presuming I couldn't claim it. It would help if I could, would half the loss, which is fine for us.

A quick look:

Claim and backdate the carers three months its worth an extra £34 weekly to you partners IS plus arrears.

If your partner stops her carers they will add another £62 weekly to your soon to be claimed income based ESA and you will get more from this than she had from her IS, which would need stop anyways after 8 weeks of her stopping her carers so you would need to claim Income Based ESA instead.

On UC the same person cannot get either WRA component and a carer element at the same time.

JustTheTwoOfUs

I've been in ESA support group since the managed migration from IB several years back so if we didn't move, I wouldn't be changed onto IB ESA.
Thats good to know about the WRA and carers components at the same time, so thank you.

bigbill

I had thought you could do all these changes before you moved to a full UC area and then remain on IBESA without the need to claim any HB at your new address and area, with the extra £62 weekly to help toward your rent?

JustTheTwoOfUs

Would that work? I thought that IBESA was also included in UC so I wouldn't have been able to keep that if we move.
If we didn't claim housing benefit, could that help the rest of the benefits not being forced to change over do you know? If we didn't claim a new benefit (the UC to replace the housing benefit) it could end up just being a change of address.