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need advice regarding JSA for EEA client
Hi, I have spoken to the client, she does not want to appeal the decision and doesn’t think she can get JSA. Her daughter called the helpline and was told her mother would not be entitled to JSA.
what other options could the mother have?
The daughter is really worried that she will not be able to pay for the rent and support her mother with her wage.
thank you
1) If a claimant’s actual entitlement corresponded with the advice given out by the undertrained script-monkeys on the helpline, the Tories would be able to cut the welfare bill by three quarters overnight. Such ‘advice’ is generally best ignored - on the odd occasion it is actually correct, this will be by accident rather than because the adviser actually knows what they’re talking about.
2) You have had very sound advice from Martin on the way to proceed here. I would follow that.
3) I do not know whether your client would be able to overcome the benefit specific rules for ESA (i.e. the rules that would apply to UK national claimants - does she have limited capability for work? can she provide medical evidence that would allow her to be treated as having limited capability in the assessment period?) but even if she were able to, the same right to reside issue is almost certain to crop up on a new ESA claim - and your client would then need to argue that she is a dependant family member of a person with a permanent right of residence in the way that has been explained above.
4) 1964’s advice in regard to a claim for HB on ‘nil’ income is correct, but will very likely run up against the local authority deciding she does not have a right to reside. She would then need to appeal and argue for a right to reside along the same lines as she would for any new JSA or ESA claim - i.e. as a dependant family member.
5) However, if she is in receipt of either JSA or ESA and then claims HB, the local authority will have to award her HB - so she may as well claim one of those benefits and appeal if necessary.
6) I do not see any other alternatives for your client (other than relying on friends/family/her daughter/charity) - sound advice regarding her options has been given here. If she does not want to follow it then that is a decision for her - but she needs to appreciate that there is not some other sort of benefit she is going to be able to claim where these issues won’t arise.
Zuzana, I really think Past Caring has summed it up nicely there….