ESA - Mortgage Support Assessmnet

Have a client who gets contribution based ESA and has been moved from the Work Activity Group to the Support Group.  She also receives Industrial Injuries (IIB) at £60.12 a week, and now her outstanding mortgage has been taken into account it looked as if she would be entitled to about £6 a week Income Related ESA which would be presumably put towards her housing support.  However JC+ have acknowledged her entitlement to Income Related ESA and took her ESA award as all income related.  The IIB is accounted as income and deducted off the ESA, but they have ignored the existence of the contribution based part of ESA in the calculation, so are going to pay the full housing costs calculable (being £50 a week).

Now she is having a substantial payment made out of the ESA towards the mortgage, instead of a much smaller amount.  Suppose it could be argued she would need to pay the mortgage anyway regardless of where the money is sourced from.

My question is whether JC+ are correct or not to pay most of my clients mortgage interest of £50 week, when we expected it to be about £6 week.

Look forward to anyone who can provide a view on the situation.

G Reg

They are correct, see Schedule 9A of the Claims and Payment regs. “Relevant benefits” from which mortgage costs can be deducted include:

(f)contributory employment and support allowance where–
(i)both income-related employment and support allowance and
contributory employment and support allowance are in payment, and
(ii) the income-related employment and support allowance alone is
insufficient for the purposes of this Schedule;

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/other-specialists/mortgage-lenders/

Same principle applies to IB/IS and SRP/PC.