AFFINITY WATER -SOCIAL TARIFF IF INCOME LESS THAN 21K (If in London Borough)

HUMBUG

I am going to apply for the social tariff via Affinity Water website as per link below 

Low income fixed tariff (LIFT) - Affinity Water

I phoned them up and they couldn't confirm whether 'Gross yearly household income'  must also include interest on ISA savings (which is a non-taxable income) .  The customer service representative also said that the threshold would be 21k if I was based in London and not the 17k on the website. Anyhow I tried to complete the application forms online having made scanned copies of my company pension statement (my only source of income apart from interest on savings and share dividends ) which will go up to 10.5k pa . I assumed they would require a copy of my P60 , etc  or copies of my bank statements or some proof of interest earned on savings and dividends.

When I completed the online form, they finally asked for some supporting documents to be uploaded, but not what I expected (see below).

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Supporting documents

Please upload a copy of the latest 'notice of entitlement' for benefit. This must be in the same name as the water account holder and should also show their address. Without the supporting documents your application can not be processed. ---------------------------------- I haven't got a clue what a 'notice of entitlement ' for benefit is or where to get a copy . Does anyone know what this is and who I need to contact? Is it HMRC?

Cardew

Your income from interest, dividends and capital must surely affect your entitlement to any social payments. I am sure that there are many multi-millionaires with no income other than their interest and dividends.

It seems they are looking for entitlement to something like Universal Credit.

Spoonie_Turtle

It appears from the eligibility criteria that you can chain on the basis on October below a threshold, or solely based on claiming certain benefits.  The notice of benefit entitlement would therefore refer to the latter, irrelevant to you if you don't chain any of them.

If there is no other facility to upload supporting documents then perhaps the proof of your pension income should be uploaded there anyway, regardless of what it says.

HUMBUG

I've sent them an online query asking a few questions:
1. Confirm the threshold income if based in a London Borough
2. Confirm what they mean by gross household income and whether it includes interest on ISA's (which I don't think is classed as income from a tax perspective). I am assuming dividends and interest on non-isa savings will be included.
3. What a notice of benefit entitlement is and where can I get hold of one. 

I think Spoonie_Turtle could be correct that maybe all I need to do is upload my company pension statement for this coming financial year. Although I can't really do anything until they answer point 2 as I don't want to risk any illegality on my eligibility.

[Deleted User]

I would opine that ISAs are a part of your Gross Income. If the supplier was negating ISAs from its applicability criteria it would be asking for details of your Nett Income.

HUMBUG

For anyone interested, I now have a reply from Affinity Water:

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The Household income threshold for London Boroughs is currently £21,749 per year.

Gross household income consists of Salaries, wages, pensions and benefits (including housing and child benefit but excluding disability benefit). We would ask you to provide details of the your last 3 pay slips if working or the notice of entitlement for pensions and benefits. Certain benefits automatically qualify you for the LIFT tariff and negate the need to provide evidence of total income however I would recommend sending in any proof you have as you may also qualify for the Thames water help tariff which gives 50% off your sewerage charge.

A notice of entitlement is a letter sent to you by the DWP confirming your entitlement to specific benefits. You may also receive something similar to this from your company pension indicating how much you will be receiving for the year ahead. We also accept bank statements showing income entries and would ask to see 3 consecutive months of these.

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So it looks like interest on savings and dividends is not included in the £21,749 income threshold unless they are regarded as 'salaries or wages'  (which by definition is related to income from work).

[Deleted User]

Interesting. I have just downloaded the form from my water supplier and it asks for details of Other Income. Work; pensions etc are listed separately. 

Cardew

HUMBUG said:

For anyone interested, I now have a reply from Affinity Water:

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The Household income threshold for London Boroughs is currently £21,749 per year.

Gross household income consists of Salaries, wages, pensions and benefits (including housing and child benefit but excluding disability benefit). We would ask you to provide details of the your last 3 pay slips if working or the notice of entitlement for pensions and benefits. Certain benefits automatically qualify you for the LIFT tariff and negate the need to provide evidence of total income however I would recommend sending in any proof you have as you may also qualify for the Thames water help tariff which gives 50% off your sewerage charge.

A notice of entitlement is a letter sent to you by the DWP confirming your entitlement to specific benefits. You may also receive something similar to this from your company pension indicating how much you will be receiving for the year ahead. We also accept bank statements showing income entries and would ask to see 3 consecutive months of these.

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So it looks like interest on savings and dividends is not included in the £21,749 income threshold unless they are regarded as 'salaries or wages'  (which by definition is related to income from work).

Interesting!

So (hypothetically!!) I have neither a salary or a pension. However I invested wisely over the years(again hypothetically) and manage to exist on £100k pa derived from dividends. I assume money my poor wife gets from capital gains also doesn't count toward the income threshold?   I know we can use food banks without restriction, although we give the food to our head gardener.

Seriously though it would not surprise me if you were correct. The way these 'social tariffs' are funded is at zero cost to the company of the Government. Guess who pays?

HUMBUG

[Deleted User] said:

Interesting. I have just downloaded the form from my water supplier and it asks for details of Other Income. Work; pensions etc are listed separately. 

I asked them again and this was their reply:

Thank you for your email regarding your water bill.

We do not need details of savings, dividends or shares. However we will still require some proof of annual income for both the LIFT and Water help tariff.

This can be a notice of entitlement which is a letter sent to you by the DWP confirming your entitlement to specific benefits. You may also receive something similar to this from your company pension indicating how much you will be receiving for the year ahead. We also accept bank statements showing income entries and would ask to see 3 consecutive months of these.

I hope this answers your questions but please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any further queries.

Grumpy_chap

HUMBUG said:

I phoned them up and they couldn't confirm whether 'Gross yearly household income'  must also include interest on ISA savings (which is a non-taxable income) .  

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Supporting documents

Please upload a copy of the latest 'notice of entitlement' for benefit.

I suspect that if you have savings generating interest at a level that makes a meaningful difference to income, then the social tariff is not intended for you.

Whether the rules have been written to capture this in the same way as the rules for UC is a different matter.  I suspect the Water Companies put less due diligence than the Government - there may well have been an expectation by the Water Companies that the social tariff schemes would only be applied to by those that genuinely need the schemes.

The entitlement for benefits would be a letter confirming JSA, UC, etc...

HUMBUG said:

Gross household income consists of Salaries, wages, pensions and benefits (including housing and child benefit but excluding disability benefit). 

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So it looks like interest on savings and dividends is not included in the £21,749 income threshold

That list of what makes up household income is clearly not an exhaustive list.
Does the application form also include a section for "other income"?

Based on what has been said in the preceding post, an entrepreneur with a large business portfolio taking income as dividends or a landlord with a large property portfolio rental income.
Clearly, that would not be what is intended.