Universal credit top up if already working full time

jjcjjcjjc

Please can someone advise me if you can claim Universal Credit if you already work full time and already get a top up of £40 a week housing benefit. A benefits calculator website said I would get £55 a week under universal credit but nobody seems to know if you can voluntarily go over to Universal Credit if ironically you be better off. Nobody seems to know if you can do this without a change of circumstances, you see a claim for Universal Credit would shut down my housing benefit and you cannot go back on housing benefit - I just wouldn't want to be denied Universal Credit as well and then end up with nothing. I just want to know if you can 'jump the gun' and go on Universal Credit without a change of circumstances forcing you to and whether this claim might be rejected??

tomtom256

You can move to UC at anytime and close your HB claim.


You may be better off or worse off, but once HB is closed and UC has been claimed you cannot go back to HB if it makes you worse off.


Have you run your figures through one of the online benefit calculators like entitled to or similar?

jjcjjcjjc

I phoned up universal credit helpline a year ago and they said that people already working full time were not allowed to claim it, you see because I work full time nobody seems to know about this issue of claiming just the housing costs element of Universal Credit ONLY. I went into the jobcentre today and nobody knew the answer to the question of whether Universal Credit want you to wait until the 'migration stage' where the government move you on to UC or whether you can go on it straight away. You see what's holding me back is that housing benefit is closed to new applicants so if Universal Credit rejected my claim then I'd end up with nothing

calcotti

jjcjjcjjc wrote: »

.... if ironically you be better off.

Not sure why it’s ironic for somebody to be better off on UC. Some people are but others are not.

You can choose to claim UC at any time but once started you cannot go back.

Are you getting any Council Tax Reduction from your local authority. If you are bear in mind that whereas currently you only have to deal with your local if you claim UC you will have to deal with DWP for UC but still deal with local authority for CTR.

jjcjjcjjc

Yes but are they accepting claims from people who already work full-time

calcotti

jjcjjcjjc wrote: »

Yes but are they accepting claims from people who already work full-time

Yes. UC is for anyone on a low income (with some exceptions but working full time is not one of them).
https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/eligibility

Ineededaname

Yes. You can claim at any time.

You probably phoned before the full roll out in your area. The UC before that was just a trial system that had various restrictions on who could claim, one of them being earnings above a certain amount.

jjcjjcjjc

There is one bit of reassurance that a woman at the housing benefit office said to me today - she said if UC rejected my claim then that would probably leave my current housing benefit untouched, UC would probably only shut down my HB if they actually ACCEPTED the claim, that would be a failsafe so has anyone else heard this

calcotti

UC are not supposed to notify other agencies until the claim has been accepted (although it does happen). Note also that accepting the UC claim is not the same as determining a claim. Accepting the claim means that the claim is technically valid, when determined it could still potentially result in a nil payment.

jjcjjcjjc

So your saying that if UC rejected my claim for just a 'top up' of housing element then they wouldn't shut down my current HB award

calcotti

jjcjjcjjc wrote: »

So your saying that if UC rejected my claim for just a 'top up' of housing element then they wouldn't shut down my current HB award

No I am not saying that. Once your claim for UC is accepted as technically valid the local authority will be notified and your HB will stop two weeks from the date you claimed. Having been accepted as valid your UC claim will then be determined. Even if for some reason you are found not to be entitled to a UC payment your HB claim will have closed and you will not be able to reapply.

Having a valid claim and being entitled to a payment are not the same thing.

To be clear also, you will not be applying for just the ‘housing top up’. You will be making a full application for UC. Your maximum UC entitlement will then be calculated as your monthly standard allowance plus the allowable housing costs. Your wages, as notified to DWP by HMRC, will then be taken into account with 63% of the wages deducted from the maximum UC amount to arrive at your UC payment entitlement. The end result may be that you get slightly more money than from HB because in the HB calculation 65% of your earnings are deducted from your maximum HB entitlement (although HB also has a small earnings disregard which UC does not have so that can offset the difference in % rates).

Here’s a checklist of information you may need in order to support your UC claim https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Documents/Advice%20(public)/beta/uc-checklist.pdf