What benefits would Dsis be entitled to?

[CrimsonVioletTeal]

DSis, who is in her late 50s, has a chronic health condition. She has always worked full time. She lived at home with Mum and Dad who gave her a lot of support.

When DM died, DF downsized to a 2 bed property which he put in Dsis name. He also made her sole beneficiary of his Will (with my complete agreement!).

DF died in 2020, so she now lives alone, with her pets. She has been struggling. Her union and work have been very supportive, and she's had "reasonable adjustments" made, each of which has helped for a while. I don't think there are any further "reasonable adjustments" available. In the past year she has been signed off work for approx 40% of the time. It's not clear how much longer she's going to be able to work. She could reduce her hours, but she is dipping into her savings (i.e. her inheritance from DF) as it is, so any reduction in hours / pay would mean relying further on her savings.

She could take her pension early, but it would be small - just £9000pa. She can't live on that. But there is no way she's going to be able to work for another decade until she's 67.

If she has to give up work, what benefits would be available? I think she has about £50,000 of the money she inherited left, and she owns her home outright.

I live too far away to be of any practical help. I agreed that DSis should get everything when DF died, as I hadn't been budgeting on getting anything, but I absolutely do not have any "spare" money to support DSis financially myself.

IF the individual continues to satisfy the requirements to qualify for PIP and engage in the reviews.

IF the individual continues to satisfy the requirements to qualify for PIP and engage in the reviews

Well yes. Should a claimant fail to satisfy PIP requirements they do not automatically go onto AA either.

Pip is the main benefit for those with disabilities of working age and crucially isn't means tested so she can work part time and claim.

If she is made redundant on ill health grounds then she can possibly claim new style esa which is based on contributions not assets, however she needs to meet the threshold for it just like pip. If she doesn't meet the criteria she can get new style jsa for 6 months (not means tested) but needs to be actively job hunting.

Universal credit will not be payable due to savings.

Could she work part time? This will be higher than benefits and as she owns outright should be sufficient

When did this change? MIL gets pip and is over the state pension age, at her last review they changed it to a lifetime PiP award

I would definitely recommend this - stay in work as long as possible if her pension scheme offers ill health retirement. It would be by far the best outcome for her to be able to draw down an enhanced pension early.

They didn't! You cannot apply for PIP if you have reached state pension age (you have to apply for attendance allowance) but you do not lose it when you reach state pension age.

She has thought of a lodger, but it would have to be someone who liked her pets.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to find a lodger. DF chose the property as somewhere that would be easily maintained. It has two bedrooms, but it's not big.

Apply for PIP. It’s an access benefit as there is no “disabled register” anymore. If she gets it now it won’t be taken away from her once she reaches pension age.

She will be expected to use her savings to fund herself if she gives up work. She can’t apply for UC until she reaches 16k in savings but they will apply a penalty to this until her savings fall below £6k. If this is the plan she needs to be careful not to make any very large and none essential purchases that dwindle the savings fast so they don’t see this as deprivation of assets.

As she doesn’t have rent her UC would be made up of the single person component (£393.45) and if she is assessed as unfit to work then she would get LCWRA (£416.19). You have to wait to be assessed for LCWRA though, she wouldn’t get this automatically. The wait time varies from area to area.

To be honest with no rental costs and £50k in savings I can’t see her ever needing to apply for UC at the age she is. Can she drop down to one or two days a week and take the 9k pension to top it up? Your rent or mortgage are usually what takes up a large amount of your salary anyway.

She already lives in a town in which houses are fairly cheap, so downsizing wouldn't release much capital, and would incur the expenses of moving.

Several others have suggested reducing her hours to p/t and taking her pension early to make up the difference - that seem like the most obvious option.

She needs to look at ESA asap, before she stops working full time.

ESA is contribution based and you need full contributions for the last 2 years (hence she needs to do it whilst she is still working full time).
There is no limit re savings etc… which means she’ll be entitled to it.

So she could look at work dismissing her on the grounds of ill health or even look at early retirement.
Depending on how much savings she still has, she might be able to get UC too, and not needing to look fur a job (because of ESA).

As others have said PIP is another help she could get.

Thank you everyone, for your helpful replies!

DSis seems to be burying her head in the sand at the moment, so I'm trying to find out what her options are.

DSis is not good with money. Tbh, when she was a kid, fifty years ago, the prognosis was a lot worse than it would be for someone today. There have been huge medical advances. I don't think it ever entered anyone's mind 50 years ago that she might still be working full time in her fifties. There was no thought of "planning for retirement" because I don't think Mum and Dad thought she'd reach retirement age. And because Mum and Dad did their best to provide for her, and set her up with a home and a nest egg, she didn't give the future much thought.

So here we are!

I would really be extremely careful about that.
Going part time might also stop her from being able to get ESA. And imo ESA is probably what would be the most helpful fir her (plus she can still work up to 16 hours a week).

She absolutely needs to look at what is the minimum hours she’d need to still be able to claim ESA. Knowing that just one month with no full contribution would disqualify her.

This is Avery good page on claiming benefits when you have a health condition. I’d have a look there, ask questions. The admins are great.

HERE for support

PIP depends on your needs and limitations not on the diagnosis of your disability /illness. Still it might be worth having a look at the categories and the way points are allocated in case she is missing out on it.

You could check she has at least got her 50k in the highest earning account or something that gives her a bit of monthly income.

Please encourage her or support her to get benefits advice from somewhere like Citizens Advice. There's quite a bit incorrect benefits information on this thread, so best to get face to face, tailored advice.

It hasn't changed. Lizs is wrong.

Your MIL will remain on PIP

Sorry, looks like the advice I was given is incorrect.

New Style ESA is not a legacy benefit. New claims are still allowed and awarded.

But if she has a public sector pension she can do significantly better than that. OP's sister should investigate her pension scheme rules to see what is available.

Yes and it’s based on contributions which is why it’s so I portant for the OP’s sister to check that.

Oh definitely - I’m NHS and there are a few options open to us, it’s fantastic. Definitely worth looking into it. I know a pp mentioned ESA so she should obviously ask about that.

If she's over 55, can she use her capital to buy an annuity? This would give her a regular monthly payment, and would probably be better than dipping into capital alone.

I suspect her spending is more of an issue than her income tbh.