Transitional Protection on UC - Help!!

blacklabradors2024

I moved from child tax credits to UC in Jan. Low income household. I was pregnant so very little commitments, husband had some as he is part time. He adhered to all his work commitments. We are home owners and have savings over 16k which we explained were to pay for home repairs. Anyway, suddenly in June our payments were stopped and they said we owe the payments they made since Jan-May and started taking it back from my husband's salary. I kept trying to find out why and they gave multiple different reasons. Eventually I requested a Mandatory Reconsideration. They basically ignored what they said previously and came up with the final reason why payments stopped being that my husbands earning didn't meet the threshold for 3 months. None of the Job Coaches mentioned anything about this threshold so it was a complete surprise to us. It does seem to be a Regulation now I've looked it up. But he has been on this salary since he started UC but as he was paid 4 weekly he must have met the threshold at the start due to probably being paid twice in one period. Is this acceptable that just because your salary is 4 weekly you can be penalised like this? The only thing the Job Coach mentioned was we would have Transitional Protection for 12 months nothing about thresholds and losing protection, only mentioned the bit where if he didn't earn enough he would just have to come into the job centre. The only good thing is that they cancelled the debt saying it was an error. We'll see though if they have done this in his next pay packet. Thank you so much to anyone who can help. 

tacpot12

Did the Job Coach know that your husband was paid every four weeks? I suspect that as this was a new claim, the pattern wasn't know to the Job Coach, so they couldn't warn him. 

However, now he is aware of the threshold, he will have to meet it or do more work seeking. 

It sounds like the DWP have done the sensible thing in cancelling the debt. 

blacklabradors2024

Thanks so much for replying as I'm lost. They stopped our payments in June so only had them from Jan to May. He was attending all the meetings he was asked but our claim was closed in June. I'm not sure they asked. But what I don;t understand is why we weren't warned this might happen. The transitional protection sounds like a bit of a con as clearly they didn't want to pay out to people like us. I just don;t know whether it is worth fighting through an appeal.

Yamor

If the situation is as you suggest that:

a) you had earnings over the AET in your first Assessment Period due to your husband receiving two sets of 4-weekly wages in that AP, and

b) you then had 3 APs with earnings below the AET because each AP only had one set of wages included

In that situation, UC would be technically correct to remove your transitional protection from the AP following the 3 APs.

However, I would strongly advise you to approach your local CAB or law centre, and ask them to refer the case on to CPAG. This is precisely the sort of case they would likely want to take on and fight in court for you.