mrs waite

I am looking for some advice ....my sister passed away last year leaving a 16 year old son with learning dissabilties. My mum recieves carers allowance along with tax credits(my dad is on low income)  ,how ever the tax credits reduce the amount of carers, she recieves from her tax credits . I am unsure of the benefit with regards to dissabilities any information would be gladly recieved . Also can any one sign post me to how to claim bereavment benefits and any other benefits she may be entiltled to her .as she has to give her job up to look after him. Regards Mandy Waite

As no-one else has answered I’m going to give a highly biased reply.

Go to the website http://www.adviceguide.org.uk (reun by Citizens Advice: ther are others but for obvious reasons this is the one I know best). Once there select “England”. From the toolbar across the page select “Benefits”. This will lead you to a lot of information about benefits for people in various situations including how to claim them. However it is a bit daunting (I think the articles are too long)

For working out exactly which benefits you can get there are various online benefit calculators, for example on the Government website direct.gov.uk, though personally I find the one on Turn2Us (http://www.turn2us.entitledto.co.uk) easier to use.

If it is all too confusing contact and advice agency such as a law centre or CAB who will have one of the more wizzy benefits calculators like Ferret or Lisson Grove, and should have been trained how to use it too. There are some odd things in your query as carer’s allowance shouldn’t be affected by receipt of tax credits, and it would be easier for an experienced advisor to help you face to face with all the paperwork than for people to get into extended dialogues with you in public here and possibly get at cross purposes.

Good luck.