Disabled woman denied £150 government energy bill lifeline because 'home is too small'

[dawngreen]

I think its disgusting the state of our benefits system now. Disabled people have higher costs.

What are you referring to?

www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/housebound-woman-left-furious-after-25940044

Not every disabled person is impoverished or housebound, though.
She's doing a good Tabloid sad face.

Maybe someone can run thru the numbers.
She's too disabled to work.
Her partner is her FT carer (doesn't work otherwise).
Their energy bill is £165 / month.
I think that's before the £67/month subsidy we're all getting.
So £98/month net.
I dunno what benefits they are on but it sounds like the benefits are meeting their needs.

How tight is their money... given they almost never go out anywhere, so their expenses are all food, home entertainment, rent (presume it's council home) & the energy bill.

I am disabled and I’m not entitled to this payment either. Many disabled people won’t be. People wrongly assume “disabled” means “entitled to some type of benefit” when that’s not necessarily the case. The payments only go to those getting those benefits, I think.

I expect you are referring to the warm home discount?
All disabled people on a disability benefit have had an extra £150.
Plus the £400 that everyone has had.
Plus if on means tested benefits an extra £650 cost of living payment.
Plus more cost of living payments to come this year.
the criteria has changed for the warm home discount this year.

The changes sound fair, it sounds like the payment is now better targeted. As far as I understand, more people overall are now eligible than before despite some no longer being eligible, the criteria has just changed.

I could possibly have been eligible under wider criteria but my house is also too small/energy efficient. I was worried about this winter but I've managed to bring my usage down. I am lucky to be in a home that is easy to keep warm, £150 really will not go that far for those in inefficient housing.

The woman should still get the £150 disability related payment, the £400 universal one, and the £650 if neither of them work, is that right?

It's like the common myth that all single mothers are on benefits, everyone's circumstances are different.

People won't get the warm home discount either if they've been living in their homes for over ten years and haven't got an up to date epc certificate.
My house is council owned and there's a huge number of people in my area missing out as the council don't do the assessments after you've moved in.
So if you're in a council house and usually get the whd you should probably check you have an epc certificate and it's in date or you won't get it.

How tight is their money... given they almost never go out anywhere
what a horrible comment.

It wasn't a disingenuous question. I wondered if other posters had insight how much a difference the £150 (£13/month?) would make to quality of their lives and likely living costs.

I suspected that their living costs may be lower than costs are for people who work outside the home & have to pay for childcare, commuting, to run a car, professional clothes or registration, etc.

I'm not entitled to WHD this year either - disabled too, no EPC and in private rental (and my bills are significantly larger than this woman too btw). Have asked my LL to sort it, but no luck as yet 🙄

Linking it to the EPC has been an issue imo. It may well turn out I'm still no longer eligible, but tying it to something outside of my control shows a lack of understanding about living in a rental. Not that I expect anything less from the current government 🤷🏼‍♀️

well i own my own home for 25yrs and never had a epc but got the letter saying i should be entitled (havent recieved the payment yet)

That's weird. My EPC expired in August and I spent my tenth year in my flat last year (it was carried out prior to me moving in). Still got the WHD..

^ just to clarify, my certificate expired on 12 August, so before the qualifying date of 21 August which was used to assess WHD eligibility.

@BeyondReleaseTheKraken It's a legal requirement for private rental properties to have a valid epc. I'm a landlord and have to update the epc on my properties whenever they expire. Do you have a letting agent that manage the property? I'd start with them if you do. If not, then I'd contact shelter for advice

I rang the helpline as I didn't get the letter and the lady told me if there's no epc you won't get it and you need to contact your landlord.
So I rang the council and they said they don't do them when people have been living in the properties for over ten years, and they've been inundated with calls.
I did read somewhere it was law they had to provide one but the council say otherwise, they're coming to do an assessment but it'll be too late for some this year.

Call and check again - the govt site says they can work around no EPC.

"The primary source of data for the property characteristic data is the Valuation Office Agency (VOA). The VOA dataset has all 3 property characteristics for over 98% of residential properties. Meanwhile, around 440,000 properties have at least one of the characteristics missing.

Where any of the property characteristic data is missing, BEIS will run an imputation process to determine the characteristic using other methods and sources. If the property has an eligible type recorded in the Ordnance Survey data, this will be used to inform the imputation. Otherwise, the property type and property age will be calculated by analysing the property’s nearest neighbours or, failing that, the most common characteristic for similar properties within the same Local Authority. If a property has an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), BEIS will use a random forest method to impute the floor area. Otherwise, the floor area will also be imputed by analysing the most common floor area for similar properties within the same Local Authority.

If a household has not been found to be low income and high cost, and is therefore not eligible for an automatic rebate, the customer may call a government Warm Home Discount helpline to determine their eligibility as part of the ‘sweep up’ process. The customer will be able to use an EPC (for any property characteristic) or Land Registry data (for property type) to recalculate their energy cost score and therefore whether they are considered as having high energy costs"

www.gov.uk/government/publications/warm-home-discount-eligibility-statement-england-and-wales/warm-home-discount-eligibility-statement-england-and-wales#high-energy-cost-threshold

Sorry that was to @Unforgettablefire
Quote their own regulations at them if needs be.

Thanks for that. Hopefully they'll actually look into it that way, I hit a brick wall when I rang the helpline, the helpline number is on the government website and she insisted I had to sort it out with the council.
I'm wondering how many people are being told this and just giving up. The government will be well aware of all this I'm sure.

UP DATE

have just recieved the payment to my eon next account £150 today without a EPC
very grateful

Excellent update @catskittens !

thanks maybe give some hope to others x