£300 top up for winter fuel allowance.

sammyjammy

The payments for a household are not necessarily paid at the same time as you can see from posts above, hers will come in due course

rubble2

sammyjammy said:

The payments for a household are not necessarily paid at the same time as you can see from posts above, hers will come in due course

Thanks, my 'concern' is that having paid me £500 they are not now going to pay the £250 into my wife's account. As I say it makes no overall difference as the total payment is the same, but I wondered why a payment of £250 each has now changed to a single payment of £500 to only one party.

sheramber

https://www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/how-much-youll-get  clearly states only one payment will be made

If you and your partner jointly claim any of the benefits

One of you will get a payment of either:

• £500 if both of you were born between 26 September 1942 and 25 September 1956
• £600 if one or both of you were born before 26 September 1942

rubble2

sheramber said:

https://www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/how-much-youll-get  clearly states only one payment will be made

If you and your partner jointly claim any of the benefits

One of you will get a payment of either:

• £500 if both of you were born between 26 September 1942 and 25 September 1956
• £600 if one or both of you were born before 26 September 1942

Thanks for the reply but our situation is that we are both eligible for state pension, neither of us claim any other benefits, so reading the document you linked to, we should both get a payment of £250 each as per the original letters we received.

I still don't understand why that has changed to a single payment to me for the full £500. As I say it makes no difference financially but I am trying to understand why they think our situation changed between the letters we each received  dated 21st October and the updated letter I received dated 24th November?

calcotti

rubble2 said:... I am trying to understand why they think our situation changed between the letters we each received  dated 21st October and the updated letter I received dated 24th November?

No way for us to know.

p00hsticks

rubble2 said:

sheramber said:

https://www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/how-much-youll-get  clearly states only one payment will be made

If you and your partner jointly claim any of the benefits

One of you will get a payment of either:

• £500 if both of you were born between 26 September 1942 and 25 September 1956
• £600 if one or both of you were born before 26 September 1942

Thanks for the reply but our situation is that we are both eligible for state pension, neither of us claim any other benefits, so reading the document you linked to, we should both get a payment of £250 each as per the original letters we received.

I still don't understand why that has changed to a single payment to me for the full £500. As I say it makes no difference financially but I am trying to understand why they think our situation changed between the letters we each received  dated 21st October and the updated letter I received dated 24th November?

It is a bit strange - as I said a while back in either this or another similar thread, as the WFA is payable per household and varies with age, working out the eligibity and the amounts to be paid each year must be quite complicated for DWP.

As far as I'm aware, unless you are a couple claiming Pension Credit they won't have a record of what constitutes a State Pensioners household. Presumably there is some sort of address matching that goes on in order to identify households with more than one OAP living in them and to then allocate the correct amount of money to each depending on their dates of birth, but it can't be straightforward and I can see how mistakes could easily be made.

What is unusual in your case though, is that the initial analysis appears to have correctly identified that there are two eligible people in your household and written to say that they are splitting  the payment between the two of you, but have then amended that later.

desthemoaner

dealyboy said:

Sorry to hear that dessi ... they are still grinding through.

I actually received mine today, a day or two before my SP. I hope you you get it soon. 

Thanks, dealyboy. Still no sign, though we had the Welsh government's £200 energy support grant paid into our account yesterday.  I've called the Winter Fuel Payment advice line several times, but there's no facility to talk to a person, just a sequence of recorded messages after which the line goes dead. My MP's office has promised to chase the payment for me should it not arrive by the cut off date in January, so the big guns are training their sights on the DWP as we speak.. ;0)

dealyboy

... I'm an ex army marksman ... if I can help

Silvertabby

p00hsticks said:

rubble2 said:

sheramber said:

https://www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/how-much-youll-get  clearly states only one payment will be made

If you and your partner jointly claim any of the benefits

One of you will get a payment of either:

• £500 if both of you were born between 26 September 1942 and 25 September 1956
• £600 if one or both of you were born before 26 September 1942

Thanks for the reply but our situation is that we are both eligible for state pension, neither of us claim any other benefits, so reading the document you linked to, we should both get a payment of £250 each as per the original letters we received.

I still don't understand why that has changed to a single payment to me for the full £500. As I say it makes no difference financially but I am trying to understand why they think our situation changed between the letters we each received  dated 21st October and the updated letter I received dated 24th November?

It is a bit strange - as I said a while back in either this or another similar thread, as the WFA is payable per household and varies with age, working out the eligibity and the amounts to be paid each year must be quite complicated for DWP.

As far as I'm aware, unless you are a couple claiming Pension Credit they won't have a record of what constitutes a State Pensioners household. Presumably there is some sort of address matching that goes on in order to identify households with more than one OAP living in them and to then allocate the correct amount of money to each depending on their dates of birth, but it can't be straightforward and I can see how mistakes could easily be made.

What is unusual in your case though, is that the initial analysis appears to have correctly identified that there are two eligible people in your household and written to say that they are splitting  the payment between the two of you, but have then amended that later.

We are both State pensioners but don't claim pension credit (or any other means tested benefits).  We each received £250, with the payments being nearly 2 weeks apart.  Must involve some sort of address matching.

desthemoaner

 I actually managed to speak to someone on the Winter Fuel Payment line yesterday. A very nice lady with a North Eastern accent, who checked my account and told me that due to a glitch on the system, I was listed as not qualifying for WFP or the additional cost of living payment. She promised to escalate the matter to a higher authority and that I should hear something within the next 10 days, which hopefully means that the payment will be in my account soon. So hope springs eternal.

For anyone else who is still waiting, it might be worth ringing the WFP line prior to the13th Jan ( the date after which the DWP advise those who have not been paid to notify them) in case the same thing has happened to you.