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Income Support single parent & grounds of disability
I thought that a single parent can no longer claim on IS on the grounds of disability unless they have submitted evidence of their incapacity for work before 30 12 2009. But one of my clients has been getting strange letters from the Incapacity Benefit section.
She is getting IS as a single parent and has a 9 year old child who will be 10 in April 2011. She had submitted sick certificates for the period from 21 10 08, but in January 2009, she wrote to JC+ to tell them she wants to claim as single parent and not as a person incapable of work.
She has now received 2 letters from JC+ Incapacity Benefit section, both dated 18 10 10. One letter (B/ 77 08/09 tells her ‘you are claiming, have made a claim or applied for IS’ and that she’ll have to submit medical certificates and undergo the PCA for her claim or application to continue.
The other letter just tells her that she cannot get IB because she has not paid enough contributions, but that she might get Incapacity Credits or Income Support.
It is not clear what caused JC+ to send these 2 letters in the first place. Client says she has not contacted them recently, all she did was show a letter from her GP (relating to her DLA appeal) when she had a pathways to work or similar interview recently. She does not think that she ever submitted another medical certificate after the 08 claim.
Do you think it would be worth her while to get a sick certificate now and try to get on to IS on the grounds of disability (and stay on it until after child is 10 until migration to ESA), or is it more likely that Incapacity Benefit sent some out of date letters?
My client has now been accepted for IS on grounds of disability - she had a letter from Jobcentre Plus telling her she can continue to get IS as long as she remains disabled. This is the 2nd one now. Both of them had been receiving DLA(LRC) but not either not submitted any sick certificates at all, or stopped submitting before 29 December 2009.
Has anyone else had the same thing happening?