I’m in a bit of a predicament and I’m not sure how to handle it.
As previous posts of mine might explain, I’m a disabled person who uses a wheelchair pretty much full time. I go to university at the most 3x a week.
I applied for ESA in Sept 2017 because I knew I would struggle just surviving with my day to day on my PIP.
However because I’m an EU citizen, I had to pass the habitual residence test. Now I’ve been living in the UK since I was 9. My parents split up shortly after coming into the UK and I’ve been living with my mum. I was estranged from my dad as well until the last year or so.
My mum was a worker for a year of us being here until my health deteriorated and she couldn’t continue working. Because of this, she never received her permanent residence document. DWP based my application on my mother and deemed me not a habitual residence despite me showing school records etc.
However, my dad was a permanent resident soon after us coming here because my parents had a long distance relationship for a while but because we were estranged, I never knew. I assumed that as a family we were all the same.
Anyways so I failed the HRT because the application was based off of my mum’s residency. I had a mandatory reconsideration but same answer. Dad was on the system but they didn’t look.
I then became sick and more ill clinically and just left the application as it is - I regret doing so!. After 6-7 months, I applied for my permanent residency after contacting my father and finding all of that out.
I call DWP and then they tell me “yeah bring the document in and we’ll have a look at it”. I do that and get no response. My mum calls up, with her limited English, and asked what’s up. They told her that the mandatory consideration couldn’t be changed and she, as my appointee, needed to file an appeal.
We didn’t. I was ill and trying to focus on my health and also my PIP appeals which was a battle in itself. My mum, being my appointee, knows limited English so she couldn’t file an appeal for me. She did try and explain that but they weren’t helpful.
Now, I had to file my appeal myself since I was struggling with money as it is. I did so but it was 13 months+ late probably by just a few months.
Do you reckon I could get this late appeal in with this info? My medication codeine, gabapentin makes me drowsy and I can’t file anything in that state. My mother’s lack of English did make this situation harder as well.
All I’m trying to do is get my ESA backdated because I should have got it as I was a permanent residence by default after living in the UK by virtue of my father having permanent residency. The document wasn’t needed, as the gov.uk says eu citizens do not need a document stating their residence status.
Have we bungled this 😓