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NSESA & CTC
Spanish lady resigned from her job in June (16hr/week x £9 per hour) saying her drug use made her unfit to carry on. Was admitted to psychiatric hospital a month later. She has been in the UK since 2015 as a worker and has children aged 11 and 13 and an ex-husband who is a UK national.
She is in receipt of WTC and CTC. She had not advised tax credits about her resignation in June so advised her to do this.
Am I right in thinking she may have a right to reside as a worker who is temporarily unable to work and as the main carer of school-age children?
If so, could she keep child tax credit and try claiming New Style ESA if she has enough contributions? Or would a NSESA claim mean child tax credit stopped and she would claim Universal Credit? She has no housing costs other than a mortgage and she wants to sell the house.
If she was working then stopped working due to her ill health which was sufficiently serious as to see her admitted to a psychiatric hospital, then yes she has probably retained her worker status on temporary incapacity.
DWP often reject these cases because they say there was unreasonable delay between the work ending and the UC claim - but this is not the case. No benefit or credit claim is needed to rely on retention through incapacity so delay in claiming is not relevant.
And yes on the face of it if she is primary carer of children in education and she has been working at a time in which they will have been established in the UK, that also gives an alternative route.
I don’t see why a nsESA claim would pull her out of CTC. Only a UC claim would do that.
Many thanks for that. Although there was a delay in her being admitted, there is evidence of extremely erratic behaviour prior to admission, which could help.
She can continue to receive tax credits in terms of EEA “right to reside ” restrictions through “retained worker status” while temporarily ill. And that could be for a full year or more.given the time she has been an EEA worker
With claim carrying on, she can still count as a worker for WTC purposes for 28 weeks since stopping actually doing her hours, but for that she needs to be on SSP or ESA - so a backdated NS-ESA claim is essential.
A thought ...does the fact that she resigned (even though caused by her illnessas ) make any difference apart from the absence of SSP? If it did I thinkyou could argue the point that cessation of work was part of the illness.
How badly she needs to hold on to the WTC element may partly depend on how much of her current payment is down to WTC rather than CTC. The easy ” option could be to leave the WTC for a bit and just get CTC and then return to WTC - its all shifting within a tax credit claim so no new claims that cannot be done . And the same applies if she has to do that after 28 weeks not working.
But there is income to be maximised from any WTC she can be eligible for and from the Ns-ESA to do it 😊 .
Then comes Ns ESA panic - it is often spoken of in connection with claims “under the UC system” stirring fears that the Ns-ESA claim required could somehow force the claimant into UC and destroy the very WTC you are trying to protect. But…phew…it doesn’t, as Elliot says
NsESA remains a seperate benefit with only limited switch off powers - it abolishes Income-related ESA for the claimant . The horror of shut down of legacy benefits is reserved for pushing those pushing submit buttons on UC claims.
The horror of shut down of legacy benefits is reserved for pushing those pushing submit buttons on UC claims.
And there we have it! Completely off her own bat, she made a claim for UC and I only found out after the ID and CC interviews! But thank you for clarifying that what I was intending was on the right lines :-)