Migrating to UC problems

HillStreetBlues

5) As you are clearly disabled you have a right to ask for an "reasonable adjustment". Personally with your situation I think that solution is reasonable.
6) Part ownership isn't a straight yes or no, will depend in the share amount and ease of sale. The reason it's not straightforward is that to force a sale could need a court order. This can be costly  so a DM would need to factor in if the capital is available to you.

Spoonie_Turtle

HillStreetBlues said:

6) Part ownership isn't a straight yes or no, will depend in the share amount and ease of sale. The reason it's not straightforward is that to force a sale could need a court order. This can be costly  so a DM would need to factor in if the capital is available to you.

But moot if other savings are over £16,000 anyway.

xxxxxxxx

Whether you have ESA Conts, I cannot say, unless you tell me perhaps, how much is your ESA fortnightly payment amount?  If you get £259.00 then you almost certainly have ESA Conts.  If you get/got more than £259 then you had ESA IR (and possibly ESA Conts included within that payment).  

1. If you have ESA Conts, it will continue at £259 a fortnight until you have another health assessment. It will continue no matter what you do to UC.
If you do not have ESA Conts, this means you have/had ESA IR, and ESA IR will close as soon as ESA is told about your UC claim. However, if you have more than £16,000 you cannot have been lawfully in receipt of ESA IR, which is why I assume you are on ESA Conts.

2. UC could miss the fact you have ESA Support Group it is best if you tell them in the journal. The first 7 or so lines of my suggested JM above, should do the trick.  (also see No.3)

3. On UC you can continue to be self employed. but you have to declare your self employed accounts to UC every month online and if you don't, they will threaten to close UC.

4. Even though you get money from your ex, you are guaranteed to get UC for 12 months at the same rate as your tax credits was paying you.  If after 12 months of UC, you still have more than £16,000 UC will close.  or if you have less than £16,000 UC will then take into account all your savings and income and pay you the amount you are due or close your UC claim if there is no entitlement.

5. Correct, your savings will not invalidate UC for the first 12 months, but after that period they would invalidate the UC claim.  Although they have no legitimate reason to see the proof - explaining that to organ monkeys would be pointless.  Asking the senior manager "Why?" could, however, yield results.

6. Probably 

7. Correct

8. some are computer generated, the ones from a named individual are not.



I would make the complaint... I do not believe it will do you any harm, because you have LCWRA, once they acknowledge you have LCWRA they will massively change and leave you alone, however, still chasing you every month to input your self employment accounting. 

HillStreetBlues

Spoonie_Turtle said:

HillStreetBlues said:

6) Part ownership isn't a straight yes or no, will depend in the share amount and ease of sale. The reason it's not straightforward is that to force a sale could need a court order. This can be costly  so a DM would need to factor in if the capital is available to you.

But moot if other savings are over £16,000 anyway.

True, but as questions were numbered thought best to deal with each separately.

Spoonie_Turtle

xxxxxxxx said:

4. Even though you get money from your ex, you are guaranteed to get UC for 12 months at the same rate as your tax credits was paying you.  

Do we know this for certain?  Because the experiences we've heard from here don't seem to indicate that's always the case. 
The TP element is applied to a notional calculation to get the max UC award, then income deductions are made.  The government's claim that nobody would be worse off seems, unsurprisingly, not to be entirely holding up.

DressingDown

Spoonie_Turtle said:

xxxxxxxx said:

4. Even though you get money from your ex, you are guaranteed to get UC for 12 months at the same rate as your tax credits was paying you.  

Do we know this for certain?  Because the experiences we've heard from here don't seem to indicate that's always the case. 
The TP element is applied to a notional calculation to get the max UC award, then income deductions are made.  The government's claim that nobody would be worse off seems, unsurprisingly, not to be entirely holding up.

This is my concern. If they do it like that, I will receive nothing despite all the hoops I have to jump through. Is there any official guidance as to how it has to be calculated? 

DressingDown

xxxxxxxx said:

Whether you have ESA Conts, I cannot say, unless you tell me perhaps, how much is your ESA fortnightly payment amount?  If you get £259.00 then you almost certainly have ESA Conts.  If you get/got more than £259 then you had ESA IR (and possibly ESA Conts included within that payment).  

1. If you have ESA Conts, it will continue at £259 a fortnight until you have another health assessment. It will continue no matter what you do to UC.
If you do not have ESA Conts, this means you have/had ESA IR, and ESA IR will close as soon as ESA is told about your UC claim. However, if you have more than £16,000 you cannot have been lawfully in receipt of ESA IR, which is why I assume you are on ESA Conts.

2. UC could miss the fact you have ESA Support Group it is best if you tell them in the journal. The first 7 or so lines of my suggested JM above, should do the trick.  (also see No.3)

3. On UC you can continue to be self employed. but you have to declare your self employed accounts to UC every month online and if you don't, they will threaten to close UC.

4. Even though you get money from your ex, you are guaranteed to get UC for 12 months at the same rate as your tax credits was paying you.  If after 12 months of UC, you still have more than £16,000 UC will close.  or if you have less than £16,000 UC will then take into account all your savings and income and pay you the amount you are due or close your UC claim if there is no entitlement.

5. Correct, your savings will not invalidate UC for the first 12 months, but after that period they would invalidate the UC claim.  Although they have no legitimate reason to see the proof - explaining that to organ monkeys would be pointless.  Asking the senior manager "Why?" could, however, yield results.

6. Probably 

7. Correct

8. some are computer generated, the ones from a named individual are not.



I would make the complaint... I do not believe it will do you any harm, because you have LCWRA, once they acknowledge you have LCWRA they will massively change and leave you alone, however, still chasing you every month to input your self employment accounting. 

I believe I’m on ESA (cont). I receive £259 every two weeks. 

Newcad

I'm also slightly concerend about how they may treat #4, the money from your ex.

If they do decide that it should be treated as 'Unearned Income' then that would reduce UC £ for £.
In that case it will then depend on how just how much your UC, with both LCWRA Element and the Transitional Element added, comes to before they start deducting for Unearned Income.

And the one thing that we cannot say with any certainty is just what the TE is going to be, even if they do calculate it correctly first time.
(That is why Citizens Advice and the like will not do TE calculations for people, at the moment it's a bit too mich of a black art predicting how UC will calculate them).

HillStreetBlues

Newcad said:

I'm also slightly concerend about how they may treat #4, the money from your ex.

If they do decide that it should be treated as 'Unearned Income' then that would reduce UC £ for £.
In that case it will then depend on how just how much your UC, with both LCWRA Element and the Transitional Element added, comes to before they start deducting for Unearned Income.

And the one thing that we cannot say with any certainty is just what the TE is going to be, even if they do calculate it correctly first time.
(That is why Citizens Advice and the like will not do TE calculations for people, at the moment it's a bit too mich of a black art predicting how UC will calculate them).

Spousal maintenance  is deducted £ for £,  but unsure how it works with TP

EDIT how it "should" work is OP gets a larger TP to take into account SM and lower UC, but if it works that way I'm unsure.

DressingDown

Newcad said:

I'm also slightly concerend about how they may treat #4, the money from your ex.

If they do decide that it should be treated as 'Unearned Income' then that would reduce UC £ for £.
In that case it will then depend on how just how much your UC, with both LCWRA Element and the Transitional Element added, comes to before they start deducting for Unearned Income.

And the one thing that we cannot say with any certainty is just what the TE is going to be, even if they do calculate it correctly first time.
(That is why Citizens Advice and the like will not do TE calculations for people, at the moment it's a bit too mich of a black art predicting how UC will calculate them).

Shouldn’t there be some rules written down about this? I can’t find any but thought they had to comply with written rules - as otherwise it’ll be down to what a random assessor thinks and this will differ. I can’t face going through all their hoops if someone is going to say at the end of it that I’m not going to get anything due to “spousal maintenance”