No longer eligible for ESA (Contribution based - support group)

Alice_Holt

See if your local advice agency is able to help you.

You also need to know why ESA are saying no ESA was due to you from 6/8/21.

And you need to know the breakdown of the £5,762 UC payment.
Write out the full chronology of ESA / UC payments & events to take to the advice agency, along with all paperwork / UC screenshots. This will help them better help you.

For ESA raise a mandatory reconsideration request in writing challenging the overpayment demand and asking for a full explanation.
https://www.gov.uk/mandatory-reconsideration

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/benefits-introduction/problems-with-benefits-and-tax-credits/benefit-overpayments/#:~:text=You can also contact the,don't agree with it.

AdamPD

Thanks Alice, was doing just that for the past hour or so.

I've been going through my bank statements from 2021 onwards.

Looking over the amounts, I was originally on UC only in 2021 and receiving £411.51 per month

I must have applied for ESA on the 6th of August 2021 and the first payment I received was for £757.68 on the 21st of October 2021.

I was receiving £149.40 every two weeks and my UC amount dropped down to £1.14 a month, I cancelled my claim to UC around the 5th of April 2022 as it seemed pointless for the £1.14 a month just to keep attending phone appointments to say I'm sick, can't work and am still waiting on the medical assessment results.

On the 27th of May 2022 I received a lump sum payment from ESA for £1074.23, I believe this is when  I was added to the support group and it was backdated to when I first applied
My payments then went up to £235.20 every fortnight.

I reapplied for UC on/around the 5th of October 2022 based on advice from my job coach and was awarded £104.59 a month after deductions were made due to receiving ESA.

This remained the same until I created this thread when ESA was suddenly stopped.

According to my spreadsheet calculations I've received a total of £11,314.71 since applying for ESA, so close to their overpayment figure.

It's still a mess though, I can't believe they're demanding all of it back like this out of the blue.

Jyana

This still seems like such a strange outcome. They are still saying that it's due to the 2019/20 tax year they are basing this on?

Having the wrong kind of National Insurance credits before you started claiming UC is still the only thing that makes sense in all this. You never did answer my question about Tax Credits by the way, did you transfer from them to UC in 2021? That's one way it could have occured. Another could possibly be down to the PAYE work, but as I said earlier in the thread, I really don't know enough about it to understand the NI rules on that circumstance. I don't think it's down to your property/mortgage at all though. 

AdamPD

Hi Jyana.
Sorry for not answering you, yes i believe I was moved from Tax credits to UC
I was self employed for many years before this issue, but I can't remember the exact dates.
I just checked my bank app and I was receiving UC at £317.82 from November 2019 onwards.
It went up to £409.89 in May 2020 and dropped to £1/14 in November 2021 when my ESA claim started.
I think the 2019-2020 period was when I was converted from tax credits to UC, I'm not sure/

Jyana

Ahh, so maybe you have Class 3 credits for that tax year? Are you able to check your record to see whether it says you have contributions from paid employment or credits for that year online?

I did go back and have another read throughthe post after commenting earlier, and the only other thing I could think of was if that year was one you were late paying. You did mention in a didferenf thread that you had difficulty paying one year once, but it does seem that it wasn't that 2019/20 year which was effected, so I don't think that reason is too likely. 

AdamPD

It took me a bit to login to the HMRC system, but it shows:

2023 to 2024 Your record for this year is not available yet

2022 to 2023 Full year

2021 to 2022 Full year

2020 to 2021 Full year

2019 to 2020 Full year

2018 to 2019 Full year

2017 to 2018 Full year

2016 to 2017 Full year

2015 to 2016 Full year

2014 to 2015 Full year

Not sure if I need to check elsewhere? Says I have 22 full years, 5 non full (early 2000's)

Jyana

It will say full year either way, the only way to tell which class is to click into each year to see how it is made up, either of credits or paid employment. 

It's the years ending 2019 and 2020 that you have said they have mentioned being the issue.

AdamPD

Ah I didn't think to click on details.

2017-2018 - Self-employment: 9 weeks

National Insurance credits: 43 weeks

2018-2019 - Self-employment: 52 weeks

2019-2020 - Self-employment: 26 weeks

National Insurance credits: 27 weeks

2020-2021 - National Insurance credits: 52 weeks

2021-2022 - National Insurance credits: 52 weeks

2022-2023 - National Insurance credits: 52 weeks

Jyana

Ahh, so it looks like the 27 weeks credits in 2019/20 from Tax Credits are the issue. You don't have enough Class 1/2 NI to be eligible for ESA I am afraid, so it looks like the decision is correct after all. 

AdamPD

Ah I wish they'd explained that a bit clearer.
Ok so not being eligible is fine, I can understand that, but, shouldn't my UC payment be back dated to when I first received ESA?
When I was approved for ESA, my UC payment dropped to £1.xx per month and I closed the claim as per their advice.
If I'd carried on and not claimed ESA, I would've been receiving UC, with the Limited capability for work and work-related activity addon which I'm receiving now, but that only goes back to September 2022