Migrating from ESA to UC after receiving backpayment

HillStreetBlues

Yamor said:

I don't agree.

I agree with your disagreement and have amended my post.

MrHeisenberg

In terms of an update, I completed the online forms last night, and added a journal entry. Got a journal message back almost first thing in the morning asking me if I still have the "arrears letter". Strangely, I didn't get any kind of notification (i.e. no text message and no e-mail) that that message was sent to me via my "journal", which is very disconcerting. Why don't they notify people? The only reason that I checked was because I missed a call from a 0800 number mid afternoon, which I have discovered was the UC team after calling the UC helpline. Hopefully once I send them the letter I received, that will be the end of this overwhelmingly stressful issue.

I've also sent the ESA team 3 recent bank statements, but worry that I may have opened up a can of worms there.

MrHeisenberg

Turns out that I was receiving contribution-based ESA, which has no capital limits. 

What is worrying is that my Universal Credit payments are being delayed whilst the DWP is looking at my capital, even after sending them a copy of the backpayment letter. I haven't had a single Universal Credit payment, and was due my first yesterday. Anyone experienced anything like this?

NedS

MrHeisenberg said:

Turns out that I was receiving contribution-based ESA, which has no capital limits. 

What is worrying is that my Universal Credit payments are being delayed whilst the DWP is looking at my capital, even after sending them a copy of the backpayment letter. I haven't had a single Universal Credit payment, and was due my first yesterday. Anyone experienced anything like this?

Some outstanding administrative tasks on a claim are "payment blockers". Verifying the amount of capital someone has is such an example. If they were to pay a claimant before verifying the amount of declared capital, this may result in an overpayment that would need to be recovered, or worse yet the claimant may not even be entitled to receive UC. Once your capital has been verified and the task cleared from the system, any due payment(s) will automatically be released to you.

This has the advantage that in the mean time you are able to live off your capital and run down it's value, and any arrears of UC you eventually receive will be disregarded for 12 months.

MrHeisenberg

NedS said:

MrHeisenberg said:

Turns out that I was receiving contribution-based ESA, which has no capital limits. 

What is worrying is that my Universal Credit payments are being delayed whilst the DWP is looking at my capital, even after sending them a copy of the backpayment letter. I haven't had a single Universal Credit payment, and was due my first yesterday. Anyone experienced anything like this?

Some outstanding administrative tasks on a claim are "payment blockers". Verifying the amount of capital someone has is such an example. If they were to pay a claimant before verifying the amount of declared capital, this may result in an overpayment that would need to be recovered, or worse yet the claimant may not even be entitled to receive UC. Once your capital has been verified and the task cleared from the system, any due payment(s) will automatically be released to you.

This has the advantage that in the mean time you are able to live off your capital and run down it's value, and any arrears of UC you eventually receive will be disregarded for 12 months.

Many thanks.

Hopefully the delay won't be for an additional one or more months, as that is quite disconcerting. I suspect they have got their work cut out for them given all the possible capital disregards, such as cost of living payments, and they haven't asked me to produce any bank statements, so that begs the question as to how they are going to properly work out my capital. I wonder if, in these circumstances, they can access that information directly from my bank though.

I am also in the process of trying to move, and I can't do that if I have no Universal Credit income.

MrHeisenberg

Still waiting to receive a UC payment, believe it or not. I have called the helpline twice, and was told a "case manager" would call me in a few days, however, I never heard a thing, which I think is very discourteous and concerning. I think it has been around 2 months now. 

NedS

MrHeisenberg said:

Still waiting to receive a UC payment, believe it or not. I have called the helpline twice, and was told a "case manager" would call me in a few days, however, I never heard a thing, which I think is very discourteous and concerning. I think it has been around 2 months now. 

I wouldn't bother phoning. Telephony services have been outsourced, so they can't do anything other than pass a message for the Case Manager to call you back which they never do as they are rushed off their feet, so pretty much a waste of time.

Far better to leave a journal message (under Payment) which the Case Manager will have to look at, and hopefully action.

Back in the day, before Covid, telephony was great. When you called, the software would recognise your phone number and route the call to your case manager, so you had a direct line to the person dealing with your claim. But as case loads ramped up and case managers couldn't keep up with the 1500 claims they'd be managing, they outsourced telephony and we ended up where we are today.

MrHeisenberg

NedS said:

MrHeisenberg said:

Still waiting to receive a UC payment, believe it or not. I have called the helpline twice, and was told a "case manager" would call me in a few days, however, I never heard a thing, which I think is very discourteous and concerning. I think it has been around 2 months now. 

I wouldn't bother phoning. Telephony services have been outsourced, so they can't do anything other than pass a message for the Case Manager to call you back which they never do as they are rushed off their feet, so pretty much a waste of time.

Far better to leave a journal message (under Payment) which the Case Manager will have to look at, and hopefully action.

Back in the day, before Covid, telephony was great. When you called, the software would recognise your phone number and route the call to your case manager, so you had a direct line to the person dealing with your claim. But as case loads ramped up and case managers couldn't keep up with the 1500 claims they'd be managing, they outsourced telephony and we ended up where we are today.

Sincere thanks.

beanielou

Keep us posted.

MrHeisenberg

They sent me a decision letter today, and they didn't make any deductions, so that's a relief. I think the journal message did the trick.

Sincere thanks to everyone for your invaluable help. You are all godsends.