Please can someone help me with the new UC changes, I do not understand it :(

samantham06

Hi all,

I do not understand this, the DWP said I must change to UC but this is a complete nightmare with no help from the DWP, they told me the wrong information last time I rang their helpline. I am really struggling with this. Can someone please help me?

The money I currently get is first, and my questions are below. I have tried to make it very clear.

Please do not comment about how much I get. I get these comments often, and it upsets me- I would much rather be well. I live with autism, ADHD, OCD, fibromyalgia, early onset arthritis, Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism, spine degeneration and loss of curvature, Raynaud's, lumbar and cervical radiculopathy, chronic migraines, I am always in pain and I have issues with using my hands and just all sorts and I am young to have all this (but there is always someone far worse off). I also provide for a family member who is not entitled to any support from the DWP. 

Current income and savings: 

• ESA support group of £228 a week. This is contribution-based and income-related; they take some off for savings. I started getting this in Jan 2017.
• Housing benefit of £93 a week and I pay bedroom tax of about £30 a week
• Council tax fully paid which is £24 a week
• I earn £150 a week doing some permitted work from home. They let me keep this, and it does not affect my other benefits. 
• Savings are currently £18000, but £6500 of this has been disregarded until June 2025 because I was hurt so it is a personal injury payment and I am in the process of setting up a trust for it, so it is actually £11,500 and ESA took off another £1500 for the cost of living payments so they only see me as having £10,000 (so they wrote on a letter to me) This is locked away and I do not touch it. 

Sorry I meant to add: I have decided to do a part time masters degree from home this coming October, because I cant really do much else anymore away from home. And my mind works! I have disability aids to help me sit at a desk and type and a mentor who supports me. 


My questions are: 

1) I am allowed to do some work with old style ESA and permitted work, I do not understand the new style ESA and whether I will be allowed? And if so, is this totally disregarded from all like old style ESA is, or do they take it off the UC? as this is not fair, they said they would ensure I did not lose money but the UC work allowance is only £404, so I lose rather a lot per week if they do not let people earn the full permitted work allowance like old style ESA does. 

2) Will they honour the disregard until June like ESA have? I am worried the trust may not be set up by then, what will happen if I have not managed to get it set up by then please? I have really struggled to set it up. The UC helpline said they will disregard it for another year, but surely this can't be true as you can only have 16k?! 

3) How do I claim the new style ESA please? Do they do it when you claim UC?

4) I have just set up a self employment sole trader on HMRC, because it is increasingly hard to sustain even working from home employment for a few hours a week. This seems a good option, will they let me do this as permitted work? It will likely be some freelance writing work and hopefully dog boarding at my home, but when I spoke to ESA before to ask if I could do dog boarding (once licensed from the council), they said no as although I would only earn £35 a night caring for a dog I would be classed as working for over 24 hours?!

5) Which brings me to this- do I have to claim new style ESA as I paid contributions in 2017? because I would really like to do dog boarding and I do not think they will let me as they will say it is over 16 hours. 

6) How will throwing a master loan into this mess it up? a part time one over 2 years? It will either be that or I possibly may receive a scholarship which pays the course fees and pays £7500 a year to the Scholar... what will I do then?! Even more complex. The scholarship is for disabled people and academic excellence, as despite being very unwell I am good at academia. 


Thank you so much for your time. 



I feel so trapped; everything I try to do to better my life, it seems they say no and take it off me. The government want disabled people to work, but I can only work from home, and it looks like now I cannot work at all because they will not allow me to keep the earnings because they are forcing me to move to UC. Some work keeps me going mentally. I do not know what I will do without it, mentally or financially  

I did a calculation on entitled to and put it for UC and new style ESA that put that I would still earn £150 a week doing permitted work, and it said I would lose over £100 a week once I have changed to UC and new style ESA, so I do not think they will honour the permitted work I do now, and if I lose £100 a week I cannot afford to run my home, I already struggle to put the heating on. 

justwhat

I am sure someone will answer your main questions. 

Can i just point out the goverment is moving more and more benefits over to means tested. Your savings may cause you issues in the future.  

Also are you allowed to set up a trust for the personal injury payment or is it deprivation of capital ?

huckster

1) yes permitted work would continue under New Style ESA. Same permitted work rules as under old version of ESA.  Yes permitted work under ESA is more generous than the work allowance under UC.

2) Yes UC will honour disregard of capital over £16k in line with ESA decision. I thought the 1 year capital disregard was for tax credit migration claimants to UC. Other people replying will confirm if this 1 year disregard also applies to ESA/HB migration claimants.

3) After you have claimed UC, the ESA claim will just continue and ESA will change the version of claim to New Style. The Job Centre will contact you via UC claim to book a phone appointment to talk about New Style ESA and issue a New Style ESA claimant commitment.

4) You will need to confirm details of self employment to both UC and ESA. The issue with dog boarding would be the hours, as under ESA you cannot exceed 16 hours per week under permitted work rules.  UC would not have any interest in how many hours you completed self employment for , as UC just has work allowance used as part of UC benefit calculation.

5) You don't have to continue with New Style ESA claim once you have claimed UC, if you will find permitted work rules too restrictive. Once you have claimed UC, you could phone ESA to close the ESA claim.

6) you would need to inform benefits of University course and if entitled to student finance (even if you don't take it up) for a post graduate masters UC would take into account 30% of the finance amount, as a deduction from UC. This is because part of the finance would be considered as maintenance towards living costs  With regard to scholarship payment, depends on what this is for. Is this a type of employment earnings or just payment towards some educational related costs?

I am not sure whether Entitledto would be correct for these migration calculations. But in theory, as work allowance is less generous than permitted work, it could mean you are worse off following change.

Nb. If you do dog boarding as self employment, you should consider whether this could affect and complicate future reassessment of health related benefits. 

TimeLord1

With your circumstances, I would suggest getting help with setting it up. Make an appointment with Citizen Advice, just to help with the money side of things because I see the universal credit system is going to cause you an issue. You seem like you have a great understanding of the process and what should happen and be allowed, it's imputing this information into UC and getting the same outcome. I think you will need help in getting it accepted by Universal Credit system. I think it's the disregarded money and self employment you will need help with and time limit on disregarded amount.

KxMx

Personal Injury Compensation is disregarded for one year. After that it will be included in calculation of your capital. 

samantham06

huckster said:

1) yes permitted work would continue under New Style ESA. Same permitted work rules as under old version of ESA.  Yes permitted work under ESA is more generous than the work allowance under UC.

2) Yes UC will honour disregard of capital over £16k in line with ESA decision. I thought the 1 year capital disregard was for tax credit migration claimants to UC. Other people replying will confirm if this 1 year disregard also applies to ESA/HB migration claimants.

3) After you have claimed UC, the ESA claim will just continue and ESA will change the version of claim to New Style. The Job Centre will contact you via UC claim to book a phone appointment to talk about New Style ESA and issue a New Style ESA claimant commitment.

4) You will need to confirm details of self employment to both UC and ESA. The issue with dog boarding would be the hours, as under ESA you cannot exceed 16 hours per week under permitted work rules.  UC would not have any interest in how many hours you completed self employment for , as UC just has work allowance used as part of UC benefit calculation.

5) You don't have to continue with New Style ESA claim once you have claimed UC, if you will find permitted work rules too restrictive. Once you have claimed UC, you could phone ESA to close the ESA claim.

6) you would need to inform benefits of University course and if entitled to student finance (even if you don't take it up) for a post graduate masters UC would take into account 30% of the finance amount, as a deduction from UC. This is because part of the finance would be considered as maintenance towards living costs  With regard to scholarship payment, depends on what this is for. Is this a type of employment earnings or just payment towards some educational related costs?

I am not sure whether Entitledto would be correct for these migration calculations. But in theory, as work allowance is less generous than permitted work, it could mean you are worse off following change.

Nb. If you do dog boarding as self employment, you should consider whether this could affect and complicate future reassessment of health related benefits. 

Hello, thank you so much for this. And for making the response accessible 🙏

With the ESA permitted work (new style) if I work under the hours and limits, would UC take earnings off my UC elements? Because currently it's disregard for housing benefit and I'm concerned that ESA may let me continue to work but UC will just take it straight off me to cancel any "permitted work" out. Which makes it pointless being allowed to do permitted work. 

I do but know what the scholarship payment is classed as, I may not receive the scholarship as it's very hard to get, but I will ask them just in case.

Dog boarding I did worry about this, but it's from home however it's a constant fear they will take everything anyway. It's upsetting ESA will not let me because it's classed as over 16 hours despite earning £35 if I did it. I'm unsure if I could refuse ESA and get the same on UC?

Thank you again. 

samantham06

TimeLord1 said:

With your circumstances, I would suggest getting help with setting it up. Make an appointment with Citizen Advice, just to help with the money side of things because I see the universal credit system is going to cause you an issue. You seem like you have a great understanding of the process and what should happen and be allowed, it's imputing this information into UC and getting the same outcome. I think you will need help in getting it accepted by Universal Credit system. I think it's the disregarded money and self employment you will need help with and time limit on disregarded amount.

Thank you, you are right.

I only have a week left to claim UC as typically I left it all until last minute. I'll try to get a CAB appointment 

I'm not self employed yet I just set it up so I could be as I thought it was easier to go into UC with it set up. 

samantham06

justwhat said:

I am sure someone will answer your main questions. 

Can i just point out the goverment is moving more and more benefits over to means tested. Your savings may cause you issues in the future.  

Also are you allowed to set up a trust for the personal injury payment or is it deprivation of capital ?

Yes they've put on letters I'm allowed to, it's just a very complex process and I'm struggling to get it set up.

Thank you 

teaselMay

Slightly different aspect to your question but I would have thought, speaking as someone with a gaggle of silly hounds, that dog boarding would be difficult if not impossible to do and also to gain a license for if you're confined to working from home. You'd need to be able to exercise them, unless you're going to employ someone else to do that. Also would you be permitted to run a business from a housing association property?

I don't know about the complexity of your finances but as someone in the UC equivalent of support group I've found it a straight forward benefit to get my head around and manage. I've not managed to find work, yet hopefully, but the way earnings are treated by UC seems pretty straightforward and fair.

HillStreetBlues

huckster said:

2) Yes UC will honour disregard of capital over £16k in line with ESA decision. I thought the 1 year capital disregard was for tax credit migration claimants to UC. Other people replying will confirm if this 1 year disregard also applies to ESA/HB migration claimants.

Your thought is correct, the capital disregards apply only migration from TC,  but if a person already has disregard that carries over.
With a personal injury payment  it's disregarded for 12 months that give a person time to set up a trust where it's disregarded indefinitely

kaMelo

The problem I see with setting up a personal injury trust is that the costs of setting it up and running it are going to take a fair chunk of what is, at £6500, a relatively small amount.

The flip side of not setting one up, once the disregard ends so will UC.

Have you made any enquiries as to setting up a PI trust and the likely costs?