ESA now paying my rent?

Kris35

Hiya. I'm in Support Group of ESA. My landlady recently put my rent up and I contacted UC to see if they could help. Today I received a letter from my local council saying they have stopped my housing benefit and the DWP would be sorting that out now. I also got a letter from the DWP today saying about my new ESA payments. It looks like I'm going to be £100 better off than I was when I was getting HB. Do I have any reason to be nervous? I just don't understand why this has been done, although obviously it's better for me financially.
Thanks.

calcotti

The reason this happened is because you claimed UC. If you had simply contacted the benefits team of your local authority your Housing Benefit would have continued.

When you claimed UC this replaced your HB so your HB has now ended. UC will pay more than ESA - £100/month sounds about right. If your ESA included contribution based payments you will still get fortnightly ESA payments but will also get also monthly UC payments. If your ESA was income based it will have stopped and you will only get UC payments.

Your UC will go up by another £100 (approx) /month from the middle of May.

Kris35

Thankyou. I don't understand why I get extra money though on UC. Shouldn't someone have moved me over to it before then? 

Kris35

My ESA is income based so now UC are paying my HB is that right? The letter I have though is telling me my payments are still ESA..

poppy12345

Kris35 said:

My ESA is income based so now UC are paying my HB is that right? The letter I have though is telling me my payments are still ESA..

If all your ESA is Income based then this will stop and transfer to UC. As calcotti has advised, if part of your ESA was Contributions based then this will continue.

Your housing benefit will now be paid as part of UC with the housing element.

The reason you receive more money with UC is because LCWRA pays more than the support group for ESA. No, only a change of circumstances would have prompted a move an an earlier time.

Kris35

Hmm, thankyou both but I wish they would make it a bit easier to understand. 

poppy12345

UC standard allowance is also increasing again due to Covid19 so you will have another £80ish per month from about middle to end of May. This extra money is to last for 1 year as per Government announcement.

Kris35

That part, although great, doesn't make sense to me. I'm holed up at home more or less all the time anyway so that extra £80 or so isn't needed for anything I'm doing differently. I'll Google this later as am curious about the extra cash. I can certainly start to breathe easier now though. 

poppy12345

Kris35 said:

That part, although great, doesn't make sense to me. I'm holed up at home more or less all the time anyway so that extra £80 or so isn't needed for anything I'm doing differently. I'll Google this later as am curious about the extra cash. I can certainly start to breathe easier now though. 

See link and scroll down to "changes to how much you'll get" https://www.understandinguniversalcredit.gov.uk/coronavirus/

Also LCWRA for UC has always paid more than ESA Support Group (for those not claiming SDP)

Kris35

Poppy and Calcotti, thanks.

Robbie64

Kris35 said:

That part, although great, doesn't make sense to me. I'm holed up at home more or less all the time anyway so that extra £80 or so isn't needed for anything I'm doing differently. I'll Google this later as am curious about the extra cash. I can certainly start to breathe easier now though. 

The extra cash essentially brings the UC standard allowance level for a single person aged 25+ to roughly the same as SSP. I assume that is the reasoning behind why the increase is £20 per week as otherwise it's a random amount.

Of course anyone aged under 25 will receive a much smaller amount but I assume that the majority of new UC claimants are 25 or more. However many new UC claimants will have a partner so the £20 per week increase still makes little sense if the intention was to try and match the SSP amount for single people aged 25+.