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Back payment of PIP
Son recently went to tribunal and as a result of it being a very long wait for tribunal he is due to get a very large sum of money in back pay.
he is on Universal credit. I know PIP is not means tested but this payment will be sitting in his account making him over the limit to have his UC stopped. The lady from the DWP who was at the tribunal said not to worry as it will show as PIP and so will not affect his payments.
However, surely after a period of time am I right in thinking the balance will be questioned?
Comments
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It's disregarded for 12months.
If he wants to cover himself he could send a journal message to say he's received X amount in (disregarded) PIP backpayment so his capital amount is only Y. That's what I did, and received a message saying it was fine and they didn't need to know - but I didn't trust them not to flag up my account balance and accuse me of being overpaid from not telling them about savings.
He should be fine if he doesn't, anyway, but it depends how worried he is.
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How large is very large? If over £5k it's disregarded as long as the UC award lasts (indefinitely), so if your son kept on UC then it's disregarded, but if he came off UC then back on it would be counted after 12 months).
The "indefinitely" is only as long as the legacy benefits are in existence, but they are keeping Housing Benefit, which is a legacy one, so a rewrite of the Regs would be needed to change that.
Let's Be Careful Out There2 -
You can report a back payment of benefits in the report a capital change in UC now (only found out yesterday).
Let's Be Careful Out There0 -
Hmm can't seem to quote part of the comment. You said… "If over £5k it's disregarded as long as the UC award lasts (indefinitely)"
This only applies to official errors. If this Tribunal was challenging an incorrect PIP decision then I don't think that's treated as an official error.
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The new quote system is terrible.
The DWP classes Official Error
It was an mistaken assessment and OP's son was paid incorrectly (underpaid), which the tribunal has now corrected.
Let's Be Careful Out There1 -
This is interesting. As Mrs got over £5K 31 March 25 due to delay in PIP reassessment.
Org 2019 for 3 years, Dec 23 review started (form sent back) Dec 24 advised who was dealing with claim. 15 Mar call with result.
On informing UC of payment, this started financial assessment. Result was a figure less the payment. So was expecting a reassessment some time soon.
Fingers crossed above is true. on pip. 👍
Life in the slow lane0 -
It also mentions "a delay", a back payment by it's very nature is a delay.
Let's Be Careful Out There1 -
The legislation, as written, is here:
10A.—(1) This regulation applies in relation to the calculation of an award of universal credit (the “current award”) where the claimant has received a payment of arrears of benefit [F2or armed forces independence payment], or a payment made to compensate for arrears due to the non-payment of benefit [F2or armed forces independence payment], of £5,000 or more, and the following conditions are met—
There is no mention of official error or otherwise, just where the claimant has received a payment of arrears of benefit (my emphasis), but do read and understand the "following conditions".
Our green credentials: 12kW Samsung ASHP for heating, 7.2kWp Solar (South facing), Tesla Powerwall 3 (13.5kWh), Net exporter1 -
Received a message from UC today. Check on statements… 4 months required…
So does this relate to just UC payments?
Life in the slow lane0 -
Hmm, I'm not sure this is such a hard-and-fast rule (regardless of how DWP classify underpayments in their statistics). See for example the ADM at para. A3103.
At many PIP tribunals (if not most?), the claimant presents new evidence which wasn't before the original DM, and as per point 5 in A3103, the DM do not have a duty to try to obtain such evidence from the claimant before making a decision.
Furthermore, as per point 1 of that ADM paragraph, it has to have been a "clear mistake" for it to qualify as official error.
This is a really interesting point.
I wouldn't say that there is no mention of official error at all, as one of the conditions (Reg. 10A(1)(b)-(c)) is that the payment would have been disregarded for legacy benefit purposes, and for legacy benefits, an indefinite disregard has to be official error, or an error of law.
However, Reg. 10A does not say that the disregard under legacy benefits would have had to have been an indefinite disregard, and since ALL underpayments are disregarded for legacy benefits for at least 12 months, they would all seem to qualify for the indefinite disregard provided for by Reg. 10A.
This indeed is how the Sweet & Maxwell commentary understands it.
However, the DWP, when inserting Reg. 10A explicitly said that the intention is for it to only apply in cases of official error or an error of law. See paras. 6.4 and 7.6 here:
The question therefore becomes, does the textual wording of the Regs trump what would seem to be the clear intent of Parliament when making Reg. 10A or not (both from a logical perspective, and from government documents published at the time)?
The authors of the Sweet & Maxwell commentary evidently believe that to depart from the plain meaning of the Regs requires extreme circumstances and to avoid absurdity, and this doesn't qualify.
Whether that is correct or not, I suppose, would have to be decided on some future appeal!
I would just add to this last point that once Reg. 10A has applied to a particular underpayment, then it will be indefinite, even if all legacy benefits were then abolished.
The abolishment of all legacy benefits would only mean that underpayments received after that date were no longer disregarded indefinitely.
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