In a panic please help. AET self employed carer transitional protection ending

kazzyb123

NedS said:

HillStreetBlues said:

NedS said:

Yes, unfortunately this is correct.

This is about entitlement to Transitional Protection. If there were earnings above the AET in the first assessment period (which may be implied by the partner being gainfully self employed), then transitional protection will end where earnings drop below the threshold for 3 consecutive assessment periods.

If transitional protection ends, the claim will also close where the claimant(s) have more than £16k in savings as there is no longer an entitlement to UC.

If the OP's partner is gainfully self employed and subject to minimum income floor or the start-up period then would they be classed as earning above the AET whatever their ernings?

For the purposes of 'earnings falling below the AET for 3 consecutive assessment periods', it is the couple AET rate that applies as it is a couple claim to which said transitional protection applies, even though only one member of the couple may be working.

This is crazy

kazzyb123

huckster said:

No harm in raising a mandatory reconsideration appealing the last statement that you were not entitled.

This is quite complex and I doubt that many understand how entitlement to UC can be lost in the way explained in this thread.

If enough people raise mandatory reconsideration appeals about this. It should get picked up by DWP that there is an issue that needs addressing. 

Yes I agree, we have written some points on the journal today and my partner will go on to see them. Even if the claim ends it’s important that people point things out so they can be changed. It is as you say a complicated situation that probably wasn’t thought of when designing the system. For us we will be OK obviously because of savings but I have heard from others who have lost their transitional protection but the claim stays open (no savings) but they have lost £400 a month which when one of you can’t work it’s a hell of a lot. 

kazzyb123

8dayweek said:

So my understanding is… (and it may not be correct)

- For UC you have no AET / CET as you are both No Work Related Requirements (Carer / LCWRA) so no Jobsearch requirements etc. 

- For WTC you would have had to have one party working at least 16hrs p/wk to qualify (other member of the couple exempt, due to ESA - so removing the “normal” couple hours threshold for WTC down to 16 from 24 - so similar to AET / CET thing on UC)

- For TP on the UC claim, based on WTC entitlement you’d need to meet the AET (because the basis of WTC entitlement is a min. work amount - so the min. number of hours effectively becomes the AET for UC purposes)

- TP ends after 3x AP’s with Earnings below AET as this broadly mirrors WTC run-on rules (as in, in theory if the same were to have happened under WTC it could / should(?) have ended the WTC part of the claim)

Whether it’s correct or not in line with the finer reading of Regs I can’t be sure, but the “theory” of why it behaves like it does I’ve tried to explain. 

It doesn’t help that WTC is bundled up with an annual renewal, so for those Self-Employed it smooths over gaps, quiet periods etc. whereas someone Employed with a similar gap / unpaid period would have lost WTC (perhaps forcing a natural migration to UC earlier). 

I think, if prior to moving to UC your Husband was on Carers Allowance and you just had CTC alongside it (with or without HB) then your TP would have just been based on any difference between CTC (& HB, if applicable) with no removal of TP if falling below AET… because the AET (or a min. amount of hours) was never a 

Thanks for the detail reply, I appreciate the effort! I can see what you are saying regarding the 16 hours but he does work over 16 hours. It seems more that self employed have problems as you say. The most expensive expenses of the year come in Nov and Dec and also a lot of tax was taken out CIS and quietest time for work is on Dec too (can’t work outside, people don’t want work done at home in Dec). Enough hours were worked, enough money came in but it went straight back out again! 

At the job centre they look at you like they don’t believe that you don’t know when you will be paid or what expenses you will have eg how much Van mot and repairs will be. Like I say if we had claimed any other month of the year this wouldn’t have happened. It just seems unfair that it takes away transitional protection when we have no control over any of it.
I can see why the policy is there with the 1st month & 3 lower months but it doesn’t suit self employment and if carers have no work commitments for UC they should be exempt from the transitional protection rules too in my opinion.
we will do an MR and probably wrote to the MP because a lot of carers are going to get caught out and lose a lot when they weren’t even aware of it and have no control over most elements of their work either.
so much for you will always be better off in work, if he had done less in month 1 this wouldn’t be happening.
Also I can see the 16 hours point from tax credits but it’s still double the single person AET when one of us can’t work.

kazzyb123

NedS said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

^ I think you're overcomplicating it.  This has only happened because their earnings happened to be above the AET for the first AP.  It wasn't a requirement for migrating or to have transitional protection in the first place, they just happened to earn that much during that month.

This is exactly it. The regulations state that entitlement to transitional protection will end under certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is where earnings are initially above the AET and subsequently fall below the AET for 3 consecutive APs.

The additional issue here, is that the OP has capital above £16k which would otherwise have prevented them from being able to claim UC without transitional protection. With transitional protection, they can claim UC for 12 months, but the moment that their circumstances changed such that they were no longer entitled to transitional protection, so did their entitlement to UC due to capital over £16k.

Anything else is not relevant and is just noise.

To me it is relevant. All of what you are saying is correct about the regulations, what I am questioning is whether the regs as they stand are fair to carers, or fair to the self employed in general of no one tells them what they need to do to maintain the claim. You can see why it’s confusing when you have never even heard of AET before, I can see now what all the regs are and the difference between no AET for UC but AET for transitional protection but when we looked on his account and had meeting at the job centre there is no mention of any of it which doesn’t seem right either. People looking for work etc have commitments showing what they need to do, the self employed aren’t told anything and job centre staff don’t seem to understand anything about self employment at all.
There are people without savings who are losing £400 a month because of this which just isn’t fair in my opinion.

kazzyb123

huckster said:

For the self-employed, it does underline the importance of trying to smooth out the income and expenses where this is possible, to fit in with how UC works. This might for example be agreements with clients on how payments are structured and with expenses to try to spread out payments where possible.

You would think so but that’s exactly what we tried to do, we didn’t want to pay for the van ins and breakdown cover and mot and repairs all in one month so we split it over two to “even it out” this is what made both months go below the AET in stead of just one . If we had done it all in one month the claim wouldn’t be closing. Same money in, same money out, just timing. That’s the frustrating thing

kazzyb123

I just wanted to say thanks for all the replies and help on this thread, it did help me to understand things. 

As the regs stand the claim will probably end but we will do an MR so that things might be changed for other carers in the future and hopefully some others might see this and it will raise awareness of the AET rule.
There are already carers losing hundreds a month because of this and it’s obviously not what the intention of the policy was when the website says carers shouldn’t need to work at all, I guess we aren’t all better off on UC.
I still also think it should only be the single person AET if you one person in the couple is a carer as one can’t work. Whoever designed the system must have not thought of all the scenarios.
For us, we have savings to fall back on but others don’t