UC - asking a vulnerable lady of state pension age to attend interviews and look for work?

calcotti

tomtom256 said: The age itself isn't relevant, its the date she actually reaches state pension credit age that matters. Have you run her DOB through the checker at gov.uk to see if she has reached that date?

Although all legislation refers to pension credit age this is now the same as pension age because ages have been equalised. Pension age in this case will have been 66.

Lililoo

calcotti said:

Lililoo said: I think G was under the impression that L couldn't apply for her state pension whilst they were both on UC. I will advise him to contact AgeUK and also about AA. 

L should be having her State Pension entitlement deducted from the UC regardless of whether or not she has claimed it.

I’m not sure if this is happening, they appear to be having L down as working age, hence all of these work related requirements on her. I think they’re both very confused about the whole thing. 

Hoping AgeUK can sort this out for them, the MP has also got back to G’s daughter and he’ll be contacting the DWP. So, whatever happens, there are people involved now. 

I appreciate the advice on this situation. 

Alice_Holt

calcotti said:

Alice_Holt said: I'm not sure if SP can be backdated in these circumstances. They may wish to discuss this situation with the Age UK help-line.

You can backdate a claim for up to 12 months - but obviously not to a date prior to reaching pension age.

        Thanks calcotti.

        OP, they should definitely backdate the claim to her SPA (Nov 2020), as this money can then be used to settle the UC over-payment debt that will arise when the DWP apply the notional income rule. (See my earlier post and calcotti's post re notional income).

       UC will recover all overpayments - even those arising from official error.  (It could be argued that UC ignoring journal statements about L's SPA were official error - unfortunately that won't prevent UC from recovering the overpayment).

    Keep the MP appraised of the situation. It is often this prompt that forces DWP to rectify errors that can't be appealed.  

       

Robbie64

Prior to L reaching SPA was she not contacted by the Pension Service? I thought they invited a claim to State Pension when the person is 6 months away from SPA.