Migration notice delivered and worried sick.

[FocusOnTheFrais]

We’ve had the migration notice to move to UC. Every penny of our current TCs are accounted for so the move from weekly to monthly payments is going to be tough.

Can anyone help me work out what we should receive on UC? I’ve tried a calculator but I don’t understand it.

DH has a wage of £17k per year.
2x DC receive high rate DLA due to disabilities.
I also have a disability and I receive high rate PIP and new style ESA.
Neither of us claim carers allowance although DH is an unpaid carer to both us and his mother.
We don’t have assets or investments and sadly no savings. We rent our home.
No current housing benefit.
We pay full council tax rates.

DH is paid at the end of each month but will be paid early for bank holidays and Christmas . When is the best date to apply?

We are certainly going to need an advance too. How long does that take to come through and what is the rate for paying it back?

TIA
Kelly.

I can answer the bit about the advance and it’s good news.

Super efficient! Mine came through on the Wednesday (I applied on the Monday). You are offered a few interest free repayment plans and you can pick the one that suits you best. I chose six months but I could have had longer. They do it by reducing your UC. In my case, I had an advance of £320ish and I am repaying just over £53 a month back over six months.

I have also found that they are efficient when it comes to answering queries you put in the journal. So another thumbs up there.

https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get

This shows all the amounts you can get.

You can work it all out manually, but the calculators are quite accurate.

If you are in the support group you will get the LCWRA element on the claim.
Your dh can claim the Uc carers element even if not claiming carers allowance as long as he is providing 35 hours care for you or one of your kids.
Your new style ESA will be deducted in full from your monthly UC at an averaged rate.
Not sure you would need an advance with all those benefits still coming in separately - 2 x DLA, 1 X PIP. 2 x child benefit, New style ESA - none of these will stop being paid and will be a lot of money still coming in ?
You will likely be significantly better off on Uc with rent element, carers element etc.

@Teado Ty that sounds reassuring.’

@Lougle Ty. DH will look at the link and try a manual calculation.

@Babyroobs I know the additional benefits may sound like a lot, but we have high outgoings which won’t be covered without an advance.

High rent, our food bills are high as one DC has to have a specialised diet, DLA covers important physical therapies for the DC which are expensive, our fuel costs are very high as one DC has twice weekly hospital appointments in a different town and so on.

But I do worry if this may mean we will likely be turned down for an advance? Will we have to show that we don’t have enough to wait 5 weeks?

Is your disability incompatible with caring for your DCs? It's possible to claim a carer's element as well as being in receipt of PIP, as long as they don't contradict each other.

We were offered an advance automatically. We had two children in receipt of DLA at the time.

If you're happy to say whether you're both over 25, and whether your children were born after 6/4/17, and how much your rent is, we could give an idea of your award.

Do you rent from the LA, or is it private rental? If private, you'll only get rent up to the local housing allowance for your area, for the number of bedrooms you're entitled to.

https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/bedroomcalculator.aspx

https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/

We're much better off on UC than we were

@Lougle Ty.

DH is 39 and I’m 34.
Both DC born before 2017 (aged 10 and 12)
DH does the majority of the caring. I mostly supervise DC when needed as I struggle with the physical stuff. DH would likely be the one qualifying for the carers element.

Our rent is £900 p/m and is above the LHA for our area. It’s a 3 bed and from what DH has worked out, we should be entitled to 3 bedrooms as neither DD can share due to disability.

Is it better to apply 7 days after DH’s last pay day? I don’t want to put it off , especially if we will be better off , but the possible lack of advance is terrifying.

Ok, so you'll get:

Couples over 25 £578.82
First child £315
Second child £269.58
DLA HRC 1 £456.89
DLA HRC 2 £456.89
If you have been deemed to have limited capability for work and work related activity £390.06 (If you're already in the ESA support group, then you have LCWRA. If not, you can fill in a form called UC50 for this, and send evidence)
If you have been put in the ESA work related activity group, and started your claim before 3 April 2017, £146.11
DH's carer element £185.86

Total before rent allowance and your disability rate £2263.04

If you have LCWRA, you'll get £2653.1
If LCW before 2017, then £2409.15

Then add your rent allowance.

If your DH brings home wages of roughly £1298.68 (£17000 per year before deductions) then they will deduct the following:

£1298.68 - work allowance £379 = £919.68
55% of £919.68 = £505.82

So, your final award will be somewhere between £1757.22 and £2147.28 plus your allowable rent costs, depending on whether you are given the disability element for LCW, LCWRA, or none.

But don't forget that your new style ESA will be deducted from that amount in full.

Your tax credits will stop immediately after your claim for UC begins. So if you get your tax credits 4 weekly, it's best to claim after a TC payment, but not close to the end of the month (if your DH is paid monthly) so that you avoid any problems with pay going in early at certain points in the year. They can unravel it now, but it's better to just avoid it.

@Lougle Tysm, very helpful. I’ve copied your post to DH so he can look over the figures.

Yes DH is paid at the end of each month on the 26th. TCs are paid weekly. Maybe we should make the move next week when we receive a weekly TC payment. That would be the 3rd January.

Do you think there’s a big enough gap from 26th to 3rd January to avoid the double payment issue?

Yes, absolutely. If you claim on 3rd January, you'll get your first payment 1 month and 6 days later, so 9th February. Going on, each assessment period will run from the 3rd of the month to the 2nd of the next month, with payment 1 week after the end of your assessment period.

It means that you'll be receiving your money in a roughly fortnightly pattern (wages 26th, UC 9th).

@Lougle Thanks for your help (and other posters on this thread too). I’m slightly more reassured about the move.

As long as we qualify for the advance, it should hopefully be a smooth transition.

Well we have done it wrong already 🙄 DH created us each a UC account in preparation to apply, but we couldn’t find a way to link them. Further reading suggests only one of us should have created an account and the other will be sent a partner link.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

@Lougle Another question if you don’t mind?

At what point will our TCs end. Is it when we submit the claim or when we start the claim?

I am wondering if we can start inputting all of the information for the claim but not submit it until we have all of our documents ready.

TIA
Kelly

You both needed to set up accounts, so don't worry. Once you say you live with your partner, it will give you a linking code. It's just a bit clunky at the beginning.

You have 28 days to finish your claim. Your Tax Credits will stop once you submit the claim.

But bear in mind that the day you submit your claim is the start of your assessment period forever. You can't change it.

@Lougle Ty. DH will start the claim today and input all the details whilst we gather documents and then he will submit it on the 3rd January to make sure our assessment period is ok.

Just to reassure you that I didn’t need to explain why I wanted the advance. It’s not means tested, nor is it subject to conditions.

@Teado Ty that is reassuring to know. I hope it all goes smoothly for us too.

You can phone the Citizens Advice Help To Claim service. They will do a full benefit check and tell you how much you will get and explain the process, as well as any other benefits you might be able to claim.

There's loads of info on this page: www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/universal-credit/before-you-apply/moving-to-universal-credit-from-other-benefits/

The number if you want to talk to someone is on this page: www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/help-to-claim/

I thought I’d update the thread in case anyone else is in our situation. DH applied for the switch to UC last night. We had to upload a few documents but it was all very efficient and clear.

The advance option was immediately available after our identities were verified online. DH applied and the advance was paid in to our account today at 4pm.

TC stopped immediately (we can no longer log in to their system). Overall it’s taken less than 24hours to sort so I needn’t have worried. Thanks to all the help on my threads.

Our statement is due in 4-5 weeks. I hope this helps someone else .