Tax credits to UC migration mess

[hollyivy123]

Under transitional protection from TC with a teenager in full time education with higher rate PIP as a single claimant I have been paid the grand sum of nothing since I applied for it over 5 weeks ago. On my statement it clearly says I have told them I am caring for someone. It also jumps on the fact I have £200 too much money over 6k (well I did at the time, but haven't got 6k now), so have been deducted for that too. If they think i'm entitled to nothing, why have they not closed the claim then?! if i hadn't posted in a UC support group on social media, I wouldn't have known that they have not posted the details of my son and his disability and I would have probably disgruntedly just left it assuming they had all the details correct.

Not only am I pissed off that I am being penalised for having 'too much' money (my son's PIP gets paid into my account), and that I was saving for essential house repairs instead of putting it on a credit card (as I hate having debts), it seems that I have been screwed over left right and centre just for being a responsible person and being honest.

Isn't it convenient that they have cherry picked the bits of my claim which mean i'm not entitled to anything and ignored the reason why I was claiming it in the first place.

Feels like they're trying to diddle loads of people out of money they're actually entitled to.

Have you run your details through one of the calculators like entitledto?

I thought you were supposed to get transitional protection which is for one year in which case the bit over 6K wouldn't have counted. Maybe you can ask for a reconsideration saying about this. I take it you did it in time?

What did you get on tax credits? PS I have not been asked to do this yet but in a similar situation.

Yes I did it in time and was entitled to the transitional protection. I got about £560 in tax credits. I would like to be able to work more than part time but can't because of my disabled son.

I will have to leave a note for them in the 'journal' and tell them AGAIN that I have a son with a disability. How demoralising is all this. I can see why people don't apply for it but unfortunately I can't afford to lose this amount of money per month. It worries me how many people could have been left in a right state with disabled children. Fortunately I have savings to dip into for income but the house repairs will have to wait

Can't understand why you would be saving your sons pip for house repairs in the first place

I'm not 'saving it for house repairs'. It's his money as he's incapable of making financial decisions so it is paid to me instead to use on his behalf. It is all above board. Some of my money is just wages with bills due to go out, some of it is savings (for the house repairs), some of it is child benefit, some of it was also savings in case of not being paid any UC (good job I left a bit of a safety net). I've got nowhere near 6k now anyway since applying, but needed to be honest with them on the day of applying in case they checked bank statements.

They need to know how much you have in every account, including your current account. So if I had applied for it after my mortgage payment had gone out for example, it would have taken me under the 6k threshold

Transfer your sons pip to an account in his name then it won't be counted as your money because it isn't. Or transfer it to a separate savings account in your name the exact amount of pip every 4 weeks and explain to UC that you are the appointee. His pip is not classed as your income you should not have included it,

It would have been better if your son had his own bank account in his name that you can control. Uc is worked out on your income, including saving. So, in your last assessment period, you were over the £6k threshold for saving ( this is all you are allowed. Anything above will be deducted from your award for that period. In other words, you had too much money to be entitled to UC in that period.
Have you checked your payment page to see what you will be entitled to?

I was about £200 over the 6k threshhold and according to the payments page i'm entitled to 591. They apparently look at childs bank accounts too if they are under your control

They have no reason to look at child bank accounts. The child is not the claimant, and as previously said, your sons pip is not your money. It's your sons for him to use as he wants to help him live a fulfilling life. Not to be stashed by parents in their account.

What are the deductions from the £591? As £200 more in saving than £6k shouldn't reduce your payments to £0

Children's accounts are not relevant that's a myth. In any case at 16 or over your son is not classed as a child re bank accounts.

It sounds like they haven't verified your child yet, so there's no child element/disabled child element/work allowance been added to your statement. That adds up to hundreds missing from your payment.

Leave a journal message under "payments" marked as URGENT explaining you have missing elements.

And your deduction for savings over £6k would only have been about £4.50 anyway so that's neither here nor there.

They have paid me £0 to.I transferred over to a few weeks ago and they haven't verified my children. One of my children gets high rate DLA as he has complex additional support needs. I put a note in my journal today about it. It's frustrating but there is absolutely nothing I can do unfortunately

It's definitely more robust than tax credits.
But if it's their mistake by not adding the correct elements and you gave all the correct information and done everything you were asked to do, then I would raise a complaint on your journal.

Thanks I have put it in writing on my journal should I do anything else?

This is really scaring me. I've got to apply in July. I'm a carer with a disabled child. I don't work currently. I am a lone parent. I am really worried when I read situations like this. How can they screw things up so badly?

Try not to worry people only post when things go wrong , not when they go right. Having said that I would join this facebook group in advance. ( click on the photo for full group name)

The deduction would be tiny for £200 over the 6k limit. Something like £4.35. Just make sure you let them know it is gone now.
Keep savings in a seperate account. Savings doesn't include money you need to live off for the month, it's what's left at the end of the following month.

They don't generally screw things up, in most cases it goes smoothly so try not to worry. I think at the moment there is a delay with verifying children which is creating problems, they have probably tried to speed up the managed migration a bit too quickly. It is helpful to know in advance what elements you will be eligible for though so you can check they are all correct on your first statement.

There’s a back log with child benefit verifying children to universal credit- thousands are in the same boat. You will be paid but all of a sudden they are way behind verifying the children. Once verified the amount will be corrected. I don’t know why they don’t slow down the amount they are transitioning over to universal credit until they catch up.

So technically I don't need to do anything but sit and wait? How do you know this? Also I'm sorry if I've scared anyone by posting this but they need to be aware if it's an issue and be prepared for it.

I ma on a lot of benefit sites and there have been a lot of problems with backlog of child element. You can ring them on monday if you are worried.
A Uc claim does not close unless someone has had six consecutive zero payments. This is because some people have variable earnings where they may qualify for some UC one month and not the next so people don't have to constantly keep re-claiming.
This backlog of children not being verified is a recent problem, I have never known it be a problem before. I think maybe just to do with them trying to speed up migrating people across and as they are migrating people on tax credits first that it likely to include huge number of people with kids !