Forum Home → Discussion → Universal credit administration → Thread
Final earnings, new claim
Claimant leaves work, final salary pay day does not arrive for a few days. Claimant claims UC immediately. This means the final earnings are paid in the first assessment period and will therefore count as earnings in that period - right? I cannot find anything to say otherwise. It is going to be an awful long time before the claimant sees any UC isn’t it? Won’t be entitled to a decent amount of UC until AP2, and the payment won’t be made until the end of AP2.
So the claimant knows this and decides to delay the UC claim until the day after the final salary payment. Now the claimant has no earnings in AP1 and will get some UC a month sooner than s/he would have done if events had played out as first described above. Right?
Only snag would be if this happens within six months of a previous UC award and the surplus earnings rule applies. But if this is a “clean skin” new claimant, the later claim date is advantageous. Right?
Or wrong?
yes I agree with you. Delaying the claim means should get full UC in the first AP - providing completely new claim.