Universal Credit award higher than Tax Credits award

lstar337

We have just been given details of our UC award after applying a few weeks back, due to receiving a migration letter and deadline date.

We were fully expecting to be worse off (in spite of UC claims that you initially wont be), but it seems to have gone the other way.  In fact, our UC award is nearly double what our combined benefits were before.  We are sceptical about the award, but at the same time don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth! Especially since it took them so long to calculate it in the first place!

We have gone through the breakdown multiple times, starting with the "allowances" and then taking off the "deductions", but it all adds up.  All of our provided figures are correct in the breakdown, so any mistake can only be in their "allowances", if there is a mistake at all!

Are we right to be concerned? Or is this something that can happen? 

poppy12345

Some people are better off by claiming UC than they were claiming Tax credits. You haven't given any information for anyone to be able to advise you on whether your award is correct or not. 

We would need to know your circumstances, such as any children, do you rent your home, earnings, any disabilities for yourself, partner or children? You can also use a benefits calculator to check if the figures are correct. 

Newcad

It can and does happen.

It happens particularly if there was another benefit (or more than one) besides Tax Credits that you could have been claiming but weren't claiming.
That is a lot more common than many think, there are billions of pounds worth of benefits going unclaimed each year. Often simply because people don't know that they could claim them.

Some of those unclaimed benefits are now a part of UC, so when you claim UC you are claiming the lot at once including those you could have claimed before but for whatever reason hadn't done.

lstar337

poppy12345 said:

Some people are better off by claiming UC than they were claiming Tax credits. You haven't given any information for anyone to be able to advise you on whether your award is correct or not. 

We would need to know your circumstances, such as any children, do you rent your home, earnings, any disabilities for yourself, partner or children? You can also use a benefits calculator to check if the figures are correct. 

I wasn't sure what details would be safe to give. I don't like posting financial info anywhere.

lstar337

Our entitlement says:
Standard allowance: £---.--
Housing: £---.--
Children (x2): £---.--
Disabled Children (x1): £---.--
Carer: £---.--
Transitional protection: £---.--
Total: £----.--

Deductions are:
Take-home pay: Which is calculated correctly as by their definition.
Carer's Allowance: Correct value
Money & Savings: Also calculated correctly as by their definition.

I cannot find a fault in the numbers.
What I can see, is that we are getting a housing payment now, whereas when we were on TC's we were told we do not qualify for housing support of any kind.

poppy12345

Not sure I understand the TP if your UC is almost double to what your TC were. I'm sure others will comment further on this. 

andrewmp

I'm guessing they're possibly confusing the total of their allowances with their award.

Maybe there's deductions that will take it back down to the normal amount?

Yamor

This is very common in cases where the claimant is entitled to a housing element, but was not getting Housing Benefit.

This is because the transitional element is calculated assuming no housing element even though you will have one in practice.

allison445

My universal credit was also more than double what I was getting on tax credits this was due to the housing element I did not qualify for housing benefit due to savings, My transitional protection is £0 presumed this was due to the award being more.

lstar337

andrewmp said:

I'm guessing they're possibly confusing the total of their allowances with their award.

Maybe there's deductions that will take it back down to the normal amount?

No.

The allowance, minus the deductions is still double what we had previous with TC and the replaced benefits.

It's a nice surprise, I just wanted to see if there was precedent because I don't want UC coming after us for shed loads of overpayments because they made a mistake and we didn't catch it right away.

lstar337

Yamor said:

This is very common in cases where the claimant is entitled to a housing element, but was not getting Housing Benefit.

This is because the transitional element is calculated assuming no housing element even though you will have one in practice.

Thanks.

We were told when receiving Tax credits, that we didn't qualify for housing benefit, though I guess they could have got that wrong.  UC award certainly seems to state that we do currently qualify.  I guess that means that we missed years of housing benefit because we were incorrectly told we didn't qualify.