Mixed age couples

Hi,

Wondering if someone could help me please? I am working with a mixed age couple who are in receipt of a small amount of income related ESA and State pension. There are also 2 private pensions. I understand that there may be a possibility of a backdated GPC claim if there was entitlement in the last 3 months? If this is the case, my query is whether they could claim GPC if the amount of ESA, state pension and private pensions they received during that time was more than their maximum allowance for GPC (because it is). Or, is a GPC claim not a possible for them now?

Many thanks
Fflur

See this thread from earlier today.

You can be entitled to GC if income exactly equals the AMG, but not if it exceeds it.

Out of interest, how come their income exceeds the AMG and yet they are entitled to ESA(ir)?

Thanks for this.

I’m trying to work out why she’s having so much IRESA. If there is an overpayment of ESA and this is why they are over their maximum allowance for GPC am I then to assume that they can’t claim GPC and will have to stay on ESA?

Thanks again.

Re the assessment of ESA, the only income would be the pensions, state and private, and the AMG should include the Pensioner premium. although that shouldn’t take over the GPC.

When you work out the reasoning for the irESA i’d love to know.

Written answer yesterday comfimes that between May 2019 and August 2019 there were 1,800 new claims to universal credit by mixed age couples.

Hi everyone
Just had this email enquiry:

The issue is that I have received a letter saying the ESA will be reduced by £38 per week starting June 3rd. When I asked DWP why they said it is because my husband has reached state pension age. I told them he has not claimed pension so they said he would have to and to ring pension service.

We rang pension service who said they have no rule on how long you can defer pension for. It is down to DWP.

My query is does he have to claim the pension?
Can we stay on ESA
If he doesnt claim pension will DWP still take £38 per week?
If he claims pension will ESA go down even further than £38 (DWP said that is a projection)
If he claims state pension (if he is forced to) will we lose our housing benefit?
Will this constitute a change in circumstances and will this trigger us being put on Universal Credit

We don’t want to end up on Universal Credit.

We want to stay as we are but don’t seem to have a choice.
We didn’t know about pension credit. We didn’t claim this as was on ESA as a couple with me as claimant.

Best advice please? I know that deferring a SRP doesn’t effect HB in that they are not treated as receiving it but cannot find anything for ESA & mixed age couples.

I assume 3rd June is date husband reaches pension age but bit about Pension Credit confuses me because it reads as if he has been of pension age for some time. Have no idea how they have arrived at a figure of £38/week. The ESA entitlement would presumably go up by whichever rate of pensioner premium applies but the SP will be deducted in full as income.

I think that if partner does not claim SP that he is entitled to he is depriving himself of income that is available to him and it falls to be taken into account as notional income when calculating ESA.
See https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/865728/dmgch51.pdf Paragraphs 51496 and 51500.

Note that if he does defer pension he will get any enhancement to his future pension because he is married to someone claiming income based ESA. https://www.gov.uk/deferring-state-pension/extra-state-pension-and-lump-sum-payments.

I still haven’t got my head around mixed age couples for HB but reading this it appears from the second paragraph that provided wife still qualifies for income based ESA they can continue on HB.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-benefit-adjudication-circulars-2019/a92019-mixed-age-couples-further-guidance#existing-hb-claimants-under-pension-age-on-15-may-2019.

“Couples who are under State Pension age and have an award of HB assessed under the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/213), ‘working age HB’, will become a mixed age couple once one member reaches pension age. At this point rather than re-assessing the claim under the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/214) ‘pension age HB’, the couple should be advised that they need to claim Universal Credit (UC). The relevant provision is Article 6(2)(b) and (3)(a) of SI 2019/37. See Annex A for additional operation guidance.

5. Where the younger partner is in receipt of Income Support (IS), Jobseeker’s Allowance (income-based) (JSA(IB)), Employment and Support Allowance (income-related) (ESA(IR)), the couple will not be required to claim UC and can continue to receive working age HB if they have an existing claim until there is a relevant change in their circumstances which ends entitlement to those benefits. They will have to claim UC if they need further help with their housing costs.”

I am not clear whether it makes a difference who is claiming the HB. Hopefully others will be able to confirm this one way or the other.

Thank you for this - it gets a bit odd as the husband reached pension age in December 2018.  I’ve asked her to provide the before and after ESA letter showing £36 deduction.  Surely as he deferred there would have been a deduction from December 2018…

The notional income applied to the ESA award should have been applied from the date that the husband reached SPA so if that hasn’t happened, they should count themselves lucky.

Depending on how much ESA they receive, there’s little reason to not claim the State Pension as I’m assuming the amount of notional income that is going to be applied is equivalent to what he would get if he claimed so they’re losing money for no reason. As Ian notes, because she claims ESA, the deferral isn’t increasing his SP entitlement.

Provided they retain some entitlement to ESA, then the HB award is untroubled.

Yes, that’s what I thought and have told them it was just odd why the deductions were not from December 18 - they as you said have been lucky!

After all that it was a mistake by the DWP - apparently they had received a number of calls relating to this.  The caller emailed me her ESA breakdown and there was a deduction for her husband’s SRP but nothing for the additional £30+ deduction.  Why they couldn’t have told her when she first spoke to them I have no idea!  Thanks anyway Paul and Ian as it helps with mixed age couple queries.

I’m reaching that point in the day when my brain is struggling to cope with home working. Am I right in thinking that if a claimant on ESA with an SDP moves in a PC age claimant who would also qualify for an SDP, then the latter can just be added to the former’s ESA claim? No need for a UC claim, right? And similarly if there is no SDP entitlement for the latter, also no need for a UC claim?
Many thanks.

I think you’re correct here.

Thanks Paul.