ESA And Carers Allowance

Dan27

I sadly lost my mother 2nd November. I have being getting the 8 week run on after her death. But I am wandering am I right in thinking that my esa should go back to payments as before I claimed carers allowance. I am in the support group. Some help on this query would be great and much appreciated. I do hope I'm right in thinking this as don't want to claim UC unless I need to. 

calcotti

I infer you are receiving Carer’s Allowance and income based ESA with the ESA including the carer Premium but with a deduction for the CA. If that is correct then you are correct, ESA will revert to what is was before you claimed CA.

Dan27

calcotti said:

I infer you are receiving Carer’s Allowance and income based ESA with the ESA including the carer Premium but with a deduction for the CA. If that is correct then you are correct, ESA will revert to what is was before you claimed CA.

Thank you 

Robbie64

Although it shouldn't be necessary as ESA should pick up on the CA stopping, I would contact ESA to report that the CA has ceased. Give them the date it was last paid and what period it covered.

xxxxxxxx

You must report the CA stopping to ESA and ask them to ensure they have noted your call on the claim notes.  You must do this within 1 month after the last CA payment. 
If you fail to report it to ESA within 1 month of the CA stop date then ESA will not owe you any arrears.*
Until ESA ends the CA deduction.. ESA will be paying you less than you are "entitled to".  I put "entitled to" in quotes because you are only ENTITLED TO the increase of ESA, if you have informed them within 1 month of the CA last pay date. 

* The only time this different is if an ESA Decision Maker is notified of the CA stopping from another source.  If the download does not happen then ESA have not been notified. If the download does happen but it is cleared in ignorance by mistake then ESA have not been notified.   In order to be notified as said above, the download must reach the correct handler, an ESA Decision Maker, who is trained in acting upon the downloads and removing the other benefits. 
This is because you cannot assume infallible lines of communication between benefit offices.   

xxxxxxxx

Do you receive ESA Contributory ? 
If you do not have ESA Contributory, do you have any need for it? 

i.e. if you have savings over £6,000  or over £16,000 or you get Occupational Pension income? or your household has other income like a working partner..

Because you have had Carer's Allowance there may be a possibility for you to get ESA Conts.  But if you have no need for it then there is not much point.  

Dan27

Ok I will try to ring them. They are usually busy. But sounds as if I need too. 

poppy12345

To be clear, it's no longer possible to claim the old Contributions based ESA because it's now New style ESA, which doesn't have the Income Related top ups.

Dan27 said:

Ok I will try to ring them. They are usually busy. But sounds as if I need too. 

The best time to ring them is as soon as they open and even then you could still be waiting anything up to 1 hour for them to answer.

calcotti

xxxxxxxx said: Because you have had Carer's Allowance there may be a possibility for you to get ESA Conts.  But if you have no need for it then there is not much point.  

Although having been in receipt of Carer’s Allowance relaxes the first NI condition to qualify for contribution based ESA I can’t see how this would allow contribution based ESA to be added to an existing income based ESA award. The relaxation is for an ESA claim made after CA whereas in this case the existing ESA claim was made before the CA award.

xxxxxxxx

Dan27 said:

Ok I will try to ring them. They are usually busy. But sounds as if I need too. 

*ring them after your last payment of CA.  to be safe

You can ring them before, to announce CA will be stopping but it is not as legally sound as ringing them after the change has occurred.

xxxxxxxx

calcotti said:

xxxxxxxx said: Because you have had Carer's Allowance there may be a possibility for you to get ESA Conts.  But if you have no need for it then there is not much point.  

Although having been in receipt of Carer’s Allowance relaxes the first NI condition to qualify for contribution based ESA I can’t see how this would allow contribution based ESA to be added to an existing income based ESA award. The relaxation is for an ESA claim made after CA whereas in this case the existing ESA claim was made before the CA award.

We don't actually know yet if there is an ESA IR claim.  

But if there is an IR claim with no Conts,  You make a good point and it would all have to be discussed as to whether it was worth it and how it might be possible. I can see these  possible ways...to be open for discussion.

It should have been applied to the ESA claim at outset but it wasn't.
or
Ask for the modification rule to be applied
or 
End the ESA and reclaim after 12 weeks