ESA IR back payments

davilown

Hi
I've been looking after my BILs finances since March this year when he was significantly in debt and getting bank charges on an almost daily basis. This month was the first month that he had money left in his a/c after 6 months of pure scrimping and saving.

In august he was asked to fill a massive form about benefits and any income he may have received. He completed this and today has received a letter saying that he is going to be back paid a significant sum of money.

All well and good I hear you say but this amount will put him over the savings limit for means tested benefits (he has severe schizophrenic disorders), and although the letter says this is ok until he reapplies for benefits, we're worried that it may affect him in the future.

Would it be best for him to spend part of the money on himself? He still has a CRT TV and can only play DVDs, a tape play with an add on CD, sofa that has spring poking out and a bed that needs to go in the bin!

Also, I would like to confirm that this back pay is correct - God forbid they pay then want it back

Any advice and guidance gratefully appreciated.

antrobus

Backdated benefits are disregarded as capital for a year.

davilown

Thanks for your replies - should we phone DWP to get them to re-check?

davilown

Sunny_Intervals wrote: »

If he's sent them all the correct information and they've come up with a figure based on that, I'm not sure if asking them to check again will do much, since they'll just run the same calculations with the same information, but you could ask if that would give you peace of mind.


Considering his mental state, would he have been able to answer the questions they asked accurately?

Yes the forms were filled out by his nursing team and his sister