Mixed age couple claimed UC - can they withdraw claim?

Apologies if this has been answered in another thread.

Client came in for advice on 30/5/19 as her ESA had stopped following WCA. She had been advised by JCP to claim UC - after logging into account I can see that claim was started on 21/5/19. Her husband receives £165.25 SP per week so UC award will be roughly £35 per month. (1 non dep charge & bedroom tax at 25% on housing costs)

As the claim isn’t in payment yet is there any way of withdrawing claim and applying for Pension Credit instead? They are currently receiving HB but it has now been suspended.

If they are unable to I fear they will lose out on HB of £60 pw & PC of £90 pw

Any help would be appreciated!

L

I’m just heading out of the office but I think they’re up the creek unfortunately because the UC claim has been put into payment.

Even if you could backdate a PC claim now to 14 May 2019 for savings provisions, those provisions will be broken with effect from 21 May 2019 and there are no linking rules of any description - once you break the PC or HB award in place on 14 May 2019, the savings provisions cease to have effect. It’s savage.

Article 4(2) The savings in the sub-paragraphs of paragraph (1) shall cease to have effect in relation to the member of the mixed-age couple referred to on any day after the appointed day when that person is not entitled to either state pension credit or housing benefit as part of the same mixed-age couple.

I think this could be fine, actually.

A claim for UC does not end an award of PC (Reg 8 of the UC(TP) Regs). Only entitlement to UC will do that (Reg 5).

The effect of this is:

If a decision has not yet been made on the UC claim, your client can simply withdraw the claim (Reg 31 of the UC(C&P) Regs).

If a decision has already been made, they should contact DWP before 20/6/2019 and request for their UC entitlement to end. The effective date of the supersession would be the start of the AP, meaning that there will not have been any UC entitlement at all (see ADM Chapter A4 para A4130).

Once one of the above has been done, a claim for PC can be made, backdated to before 15/5/19. Even if the ESA award had not yet ended at that date, this does not stop a claim for PC being made.

The HB award will still end on 3/6/19 due to the claim for UC, but it can immediately be reclaimed by the pension-age member of the couple once the backdated PC entitlement is sorted.

Thanks Charles, realised when I was thinking about it cycling home that payment couldn’t have been made so possibly I was incorrect. I’m hoping you’re correct as we’re seeing a little rash of similar cases already and as can be seen from this case, the potential losses for bad advice are significant.

Depending on exactly what kind of income and capital they have, there might be a problem backdating the SPC to before 15 May because the partner was on ESA(ir) up to a certain point.  If the partner was still entitled to ESA(ir) on 15 May, the only way SPC could predate 15 May would be if some quirk of the means test leads to a more generous SPC assessment - because ESA counts as income for SPC.  The most obvious quirk of that type is Savings Credit: is the claimant old enough to get Savings Credit?

If it is not possible to get SPC entitlement from a pre-15 May date, that will prevent HB from being resuscitated.

Hmm, this came up on another thread recently.

Section 2(1) of the SPC Act only requires that their income “does not exceed” the appropriate minimum guarantee.

Although nothing is “payable” (s. 4(3) of the SPC Act and r. 13 of the SPC Regs), I think there is still underlying entitlement. CPAG also says this.

OK, I see that.  The No 37 Order savings provision requires the claimant to have been “entitled to” pension credit before 15/5, and if the income exactly equals the AMG then that is satisfied.  So all those mixed age couples who for one reason or another chose to remain on working age benefits rather than SPC still have a window of opportunity to make the switch and transitionally protect their future right to claim HB while they are at it.

Thank you for your help, I thought this was the case but wanted to confirm it.

No the partner is not old enough for savings credit, I called client today and her award of ESA ended on 13/5/19! I have arranged for them to come in to withdraw UC claim and make backdated PC claim.

Thanks,
L