Advance Payment

kkkklinky

Asking for my neighbour again..
Can you get an advance payment if you are migrating from ESA to UC( due to ESA being paid for 2 weeks after claim). I never bothered claiming an advance payment so no idea how it works. If so what is the maximum you can have taking previous Budgeting Loans into account? Thanks.

poppy12345

Yes they can request a new claim advance payment. Previous budgeting loans are irrelevant. The maximum is usually based on your maximum UC entitlement. 

grrrrrrrrrowl

The absolute maximum of a new claims or benefit transfer advance is currently £1416.42. If your monthly entitlement (basically what you get now from ESA and any HB) is below £1416.42, then that amount will be the maximum amount. Having an outstanding Budgeting loan will not affect the advance amount.

You need to have accepted the claimant commitments before you can get the advance. This comes after the interview, which you should get within the first 2 weeks of UC application.

I'm currently in the process of moving from IR ESA + HB to UC, had the advance and should get my first UC payment in a few weeks.

My post on this is here if you want to see the full details regarding benefit transfer advances :-

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6569264/uc-advance-payment-query#latest

Newcad

Just to confirm that an existing Budgeting Loan is not taken into consideration for a Migration Advance.

When I migrated from ESA to UC I had some of an existing BL that Iwas still paying off and it did not affect what I could take as a UC advance.

In fact UC didn't ask or even know about it until I queried why the repayment for the BL had not been taken from UC as well as repayment for the UC advance that I had taken.
They replied- "Thanks for being honest and mentioning it but it's nothing to do with us, it's Debt Management who will deal with it."
Sure enough it was later added as a deduction from my UC once DM had sorted themselves out.