ESA to Pension Credit

Client reached PC age in January 2014 but has been on IRESA with age-related top-ups instead. Single man so not in a mixed age couple.

His capital increased to over £16k at some point after 2014. Obviously this is a worse overpayment on IRESA that it would be if he had transferred to PC. Could it be argued that DWP failed to transfer over so overpayment should be calculated as if he was on PC? Even as I write this, I suspect it won’t wash but what do others think? He will also have a HB overpayment due to upper capital limit on IRESA but if he had been on GPC in 2014 there would have been no overpayment.

“DWP failed to transfer over” - PC has to be claimed, so I don’t see how an argument could be made on this basis at all. He failed to claim PC would be the more accurate statement on the reading of your post, or so it seems to me, unless there’s evidence that he made enquiries about claiming PC and was told that he couldn’t by DWP staff for example?

I have seen in other posts on here that some people were automatically transferred over so wondered if that was standard practice, as opposed to the client always having to claim.

I think the automatic transfers relate to when PC was introduced back in 2003.

Ah, thank you.

Any idea why he didn’t claim PC when he turned 65 or why he didn’t disclose savings? Are there issues around his mental capacity for example? Might not help with failing to disclose as such, but might offer some scope for making a case for discretionary non-recovery perhaps?

There are mental health issues so it may be possible to make a case for non-recovery. Thanks.