Universal Credit Capped month.

jocarl011

Hi, 

I've just signed into my UC account to view this months statement with payment due 20th June. It's been capped £1511.87!! 

Our situation - 

We claim for myself (working), my partner (homemaker), 6 children all born before 2017 so unaffected by the 2 child benefit cap. We usually receive somewhere around £2350 which includes £580 rent and a deduction £94 for an advance payment we took last August when we first claimed UC from tax credits. 
I work and usually earn around £1500 a month take out. Last month however, I worked 1 week of the month and 3 weeks sick pay due to illness and an unwelcome brain scan result. This meant my take home pay was £821.64. 

With help from Chatgpt I've realised that the lower wage is the result as it falls below the benefit cap earnings total of £846 a month!! I had no idea this was a thing?? Now chatgpt seems to suggest that's irreversible as we fell under, that's that. When I read through the benefit cap FAQs on the UC website though, it looks more likely that the UC team are ASSUMING I now earn less than £846 and perhaps I should have notified them I was sick for 3 weeks??

Please can anyone clear this up for me? I'm now so anxious as, not only is my wage down £700 this month, our UC is also taking a hit of £1511!!! We absolutely could never live the month with this lower pay. I really hope UC will be able to clear this up and pay us the rest! The issue is they're closed till Monday so I have the full weekend to be incredibly worried!

Thank you Jo.  

Spoonie_Turtle

Don't use chat bots as a search engine, and don't rely on search engines' AI overviews.  The chat bots are language models designed to sound good, and the AI overviews aggregate all the info available, there is no filtering for reliability of sources or anything.  Just do it the old-fashioned way(!) of searching and looking at the web results yourself.

With that out of the way, here is a source for actual information: 
https://www.gov.uk/benefit-cap/when-youre-not-affected

Even if your earnings dipped once, there is then a 9-month grace period in which it doesn't apply if your earnings have been consistently above the threshold
"If you’re already claiming Universal Credit, the grace period will start on the first day of the assessment period in which your earnings went below the earnings threshold. The threshold was £793 up to 31 March 2025 and is £846 from 1 April 2025."

I thinking for any members to help work out what's gone wrong we're going to need more information about the makeup of your UC award.  Can you post screenshots of this month's statement and last month's, with personal info redacted?

HillStreetBlues

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Even if your earnings dipped once, there is then a 9-month grace period in which it doesn't apply if your earnings have been consistently above the threshold
"If you’re already claiming Universal Credit, the grace period will start on the first day of the assessment period in which your earnings went below the earnings threshold. The threshold was £793 up to 31 March 2025 and is £846 from 1 April 2025."

I know next to nothing about the benefit cap, but looking at the claiming dates wondering if it's down to the move to UC in Aug 24 rather than last months less wages.
Moving over in Aug 24 (if I've worked it out correctly)  the 9 months would finish in May, that would mean June's would be the first AP the cap would be applied.

huckster

Correct 9 month grace period from date claim made is over and the earnings in the last assessment period were below the level where any exemption from benefit cap would be enabled.

So the UC payment statement is correct.  Never seen examples of the benefit cap being incorrectly applied by UC.

peteuk

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, you 6 children are over the age of 7/8.  Now seems a good time for the wife to look for employment.

Im guessing your living hand to mouth (like so many others) and have no savings to cover the drop in wage.  Although I’d check your contract for what they pay during sick leave.  There’s usually a period of pay prior to SSP.

Spoonie_Turtle

huckster said:

Correct 9 month grace period from date claim made is over and the earnings in the last assessment period were below the level where any exemption from benefit cap would be enabled.

So the UC payment statement is correct.  Never seen examples of the benefit cap being incorrectly applied by UC.

I don't understand why they would have been in a grace period before when their earning were well above the threshold?  Not challenging you, just genuinely wanting to understand.

"I work and usually earn around £1500 a month take out. Last month however, I worked 1 week of the month and 3 weeks sick pay due to illness and an unwelcome brain scan result. This meant my take home pay was £821.64. "

HillStreetBlues

If you feel it's wrong then you need to give a full breakdown on why it's wrong, it's up to you to show it's incorrect. You do this via the journal. The most you can so is complain, there is no appealing the decision to a Tribunal.

huckster

I am making a presumption ( we don't know all information) , they gained grace period at the beginning of the claim due to earnings every month over the required amount in the period before they made the UC claim.  This is why the confirm previous work earnings to-do is completed during the first UC assessment period of a UC claim.

Once they claimed the grace period only ran for 9 monthly assessment periods. After that, if they don't meet the earnings threshold during a monthly assessment period for the benefit cap exemption, the cap is applied to stop them receiving benefits in excess of the benefit cap amount. This takes into account UC payments received so far, as well as child benefit they receive separately.

Perhaps @jocarl011 can read the following link and tell us whether the UC statements before the benefit cap was applied show a grace period for the benefit cap.

Benefit cap: When the benefit cap affects your Universal Credit payments - GOV.UK

Spoonie_Turtle

This is what I understand from the post:

- They (managed) migrated from Tax Credits, they didn't claim UC due to lowered earnings.

- They were earning, up until last month, c.£1500 so well above the cap exemption threshold.

So my question is why would they have needed a grace period before the earnings drop last month?

Yamor

As @Spoonie_Turtle says, you should have been given a 9-month grace period if your earnings have indeed been around £1.5k per month until now. Has there been any month in the 12-month period leading up to 13th May 2025 when you earned less?

The most likely cause of the grace period not being applied is due to UC not having earnings information from before your UC claim was made. This could have happened in one of three ways:

1. UC didn't ask for that earnings information after you claimed (does sometimes happen)

2. You didn't respond to the request for that information

3. You responded wrongly to that request, and didn't confirm that you were earning at least the relevant amount each month prior to your claim.

Edit to add: although the decision to apply the benefit cap is not appealable, you can still request a revision, and there is no time limit for such a request.

jocarl011

Hi, thank you all for your replies. Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough with my post. 

I earn around £1500 take out per month min. I’ve never dipped below in any of the assessment periods since being on UC (August 24). Before, I was on tax credits and still earned the same wage which I have for years. 

What I failed to mention, when I first logged into my account yesterday there was a ‘To do’. It was a request for earnings from the last 3 months before claiming UC, so May, June, July 2024. They’ve NEVER asked for this before or when I first claimed. I’ve completed it for them and all the payments are £1300 - £1600. 

So could this amend my benefits cap? Or is falling under it in May for that one month enough to trigger the cap for this period?? It seems so harsh that I lost over £700 in earnings due to sickness only to find my next benefit to be £1500 down on top of that. 

The reason for my sickness has already left me in a mess. Back in April I was becoming very dizzy with blurred vision. Every morning I woke up with severe sickness which lasted till around lunch time. The doctors first told me it may be Labrythitis, but some of my other symptoms didn’t fit. I was sent for a brain scan which came back with showing grey areas on both sides of my brain! I’ve been for 3 more scans, one of them an advanced MRI at Preston Neurology hospital. I’m still waiting for the results on it which has been incredibly stressful. I’m STILL suffering sickness in the mornings (not pregnant!) and dizziness but it’s not half as bad as it was last month when I couldn’t work. I’m back working now taking it steady. My boss has been good with me giving me lighter duties. As I say, it actually started in mid April. I took 2 weeks of holidays to cover my sickness that month hoping I would be better! I wasn’t! So May I went off sick. 

Sorry if it’s a little long. I just wanted to give some context as to what’s going on, why I was off and why this seems yet another nail in the coffin!