Universal Credit award higher than Tax Credits award

lstar337

allison445 said:

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.

Thanks. So there does seem to be precedent, rather than just a wildly inaccurate calculation on our award. 

poppy12345

lstar337 said:

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.  

It's not been possible to make a new claim for housing benefit for most working age people since end of Dec 2018 so the advice may have been correct depending on when it was. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Also it will have been correct if you have savings/capital over £16,000; if you have then you would have not been eligible to claim HB (nor UC) and are benefiting from the transitional protection of that being disregarded for a year.

Hermann

lstar337 said:

Our entitlement says:
Standard allowance: £578.82
Housing: £780.01
Children (x2): £584.58
Disabled Children (x1): £146.31
Carer: £185.86
Transitional protection: £284.64
Total: £2560.22

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.

Is it possible you have enough savings to have meant you could not get Housing Benefit previously?
Then with the switch to UC your Transitional Protection means those savings are disregarded for a year and that meant you qualify for the housing element whilst the TP is in force for the year?
If so then possibly the Housing Element will only last a year and then your award will reduce, assuming your savings were still above £16k.
EDIT: Slip of the mind - if you have over £16k then after one years Transitional Relief then your UC claim will end completely not just reduce!

If thats the case then its not so much you wrongly missed out in previous years but more that it's a quirk of the Transitional Protection that will give a years worth of ignored savings.

poppy12345

If you do have capital of more than £16,000 and it drops below this amount and then goes back up within that year then your UC will end. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Hermann said:

lstar337 said:

Our entitlement says:
Standard allowance: £578.82
Housing: £780.01
Children (x2): £584.58
Disabled Children (x1): £146.31
Carer: £185.86
Transitional protection: £284.64
Total: £2560.22

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.

Is it possible you have enough savings to have meant you could not get Housing Benefit previously?
Then with the switch to UC your Transitional Protection means those savings are disregarded for a year and that meant you qualify for the housing element whilst the TP is in force for the year?
If so then possibly the Housing Element will only last a year and then your award will reduce, assuming your savings were still above £16k.

If thats the case then its not so much you wrongly missed out in previous years but more that it's a quirk of the Transitional Protection that will give a years worth of ignored savings.

If savings remain above £16,000 beyond the 12 month disregard then they would no longer be eligible for UC and the claim would end completely, not just the housing element.

Hermann

Spoonie_Turtle said:

If savings remain above £16,000 beyond the 12 month disregard then they would no longer be eligible for UC and the claim would end completely, not just the housing element.

Yes you are right of course, will add an edit!

lstar337

Thanks for the advice all.  We do have capital above the £16k as we were/are saving for a house.  This wasn't a concern with TC, but we knew it would be for UC until we were told about the Transitional Protection by our UC advisor.  Hopefully our house will be bought within the 12 months. We don't plan to continue with UC after that as my partner will be able to reduce her caring hours enough to work.

This post was really more for reassurance for ourselves, we didn't want to get a huge overpayment and then have to pay it back at a time when we were more financially vulnerable.  Since it seems this has happened to others, and is likely a quirk of the system, we can assume all is ok and proceed.

Many thanks. 

Newcad

Yes it's a consequence of the savings disregard on migration from TC's to UC.

I don't know if it was intended or not, it would have been complicated to write the transitional savings disregard in a way that would stop it from happening so they may just have decided to let it ride.

If you have savings above £16k then that would have disqualified you from claiming Housing Benefit.
It will also normally disqualify you from claiming UC.

But in a Managed Migration from TCs to UC savings above £16k are disregarded for 12 months, meaning that UC can be claimed and so UC Housing Element can be paid for those 12 months.

So it's a benefit (HB) that you weren't entitled to claim because of savings above £16k, but because of Managed Migration those savings above £16k are now being disregarded for 12 months so you can now be paid the UC Housing Element for 12 months.

Yamor

The SSAC recommended disallowing housing costs in these circumstances, but the government rejected the recommendation, mainly on administrative grounds.

See recommendation 10 here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-universal-credit-managed-migration-regulations-2018-ssac-report-and-government-statement