three children

HI not sure if im losing the plot but have a lady going round in circles and would just like someone to confirm that she is being misadvised by DWP.  This lady has twins (born first) and then a third child born march 17. she has separated from partner and was not previously in receipt of any benefits. she has a mortgage.

before meeting with me on Monday, she had made a claim for UC.  She said that the screening questions told her she wasnt eligible for UC so she called tax credits (she works) and they told her she wasnt eligible either (they failed to ask how many children she had) she then called UC or spoke to someone on a facebook group who told her to set up a UC account - no idea how she did this or by passed the screening questions but she did and was able to claim.

she attended her UC interview today and the adviser told her she was able to claim UC as twins only count as 1 child? I am aware that for the 2 child policy a multiple birth counts as one (if it is the second birth) makes sense that if you have one child and plan to have another, you cant control how many you give birth to. However, would think that if you already have 2, having a third still takes you over the 2child limit and they will only pay for 2. For this reason it was my understanding that tax credits will pay for more than 2 children if all children born before april 2017, whereas UC will only pay for more than 2 if the claim was made prior to april 2017. I understood that this was the reason that the bar on people claiming UC where they had more than 2 children was introduced (until the whole of the country was UC full service to prevent such geographical discrepancies)

so I think that for the purposes of deciding which benefit, she has 3 children and therefore should be claiming tax credits; for the purpose of how many children they will pay for, in tax credits, all children born before april 17 so will pay for 3, but if she does manage to get the UC claim processed, they will only pay for 2 as she claimed after april 17

hope this makes sense - if anyone can confirm, I would be very grateful of a speedy comment as this lady is waiting to cancel her claim for UC (she would rather be on tax credits and would be better off )

thanks everyone

She is only able to claim legacy benefits as she has more than 2 children. 

The UC adviser is wrong about twins only counting as one - hypothetically if the twins were children 2 and 3, then UC would pay for all three on the basis that a multiple birth is an exception to the 2 child policy. So they would “count as one” in that scenario as it were.

But (a) this isn’t the case and (b) even if it were, she would still be a legacy claimant because she has more than 2 children.

... as I thought. I think the adviser is confusing the 2 child policy which is different to the question of who can claim (and even then she is incorrect). I think the claimant is going to withdraw her claim to UC and claim WTC/CTC. Thanks for your speedy reply