help with pension credit and carers allowance

diane118

hi could some one please help me to help a friend and her husband they are both 61 and my friends husband has not long been make redundant and he is claiming pension credit housing benefit and council tax benefit, he has a mum who is 92 and lives on her own and he was thinking of becoming her carer can he claim carers allowance?
if so how much is it?
would it reduce the amount of pension credit he gets?
if so by how much?
by the way his mum gets attendance allowance and i think a disablement benefit would it affect any of her benefits if he claim carers allowance? thanks.

Jules

Hi,
Your friend can indeed claim carers allowance for his mother and in fact he will get the £27.75 carer addition on his appropriate minimum guarantee (AMG) of the pension credit.

The carers allowance will be taken into account for income purposes for the pension credit but without full figures I can't do the calculation. If he goes along to his local citizens advice they will do a full calculation for him.

As for his Mum, again hard to know without the full facts but if she is getting pension credit (which she should be depending on her circumstances), chances are that she is getting the severe disability addition in her AMG, she will lose this if someone claims carers allowance for her.

I would definitely get your friend to nip along to CAB and get a full benefits check done for both him and his mother on both scenarios.

What is Pension Credit?
Pension Credit can be claimed by anyone 60 and over who is resident in the UK. Even if you are 60 and over and working it can be claimed. It does depend on your income but if you are entitled to it, Pension Credit is a passport benefit and means you automatically get 100% housing benefit, NHS costs paid and access to the social fund. So even only being entitled to £1 benefit opens up all those others.
65's and over can also claim Savings Credit another part of Pension Credit.

Even if you have savings these can be claimed. Lots of people aren't claiming and they should be.

Jules