Would I be wrong to report my mother over Attendance Allowance?

[Tallularx4]

Id really like some advice about my mother. I’ve come to this forum because my daughter is a member and after having her little boy, my grandson she found it invaluable.

My mother was awarded Attendance Allowance 5 years ago whilst my Dad was alive. He had Vascular Dementia and was blind. He needed a lot of care and help and was very deserving of this money. My mother played on being unwell and incapable of doing things and was awarded it too.

fast forward 5 years and she’s still getting it. Myself and my 2 siblings have told her that she doesn’t qualify for this benefit and would be in trouble if the DWP discovered it. She’s mobile, can wash and cook for herself and lives in a retirement home where she’s out at the pub with friends frequently.

The allowance is almost £500 a month, my mother is almost 85 and I’m almost 60. The fact she openly tells people she gets it when she’s probably the fittest there does annoy me.
My siblings and I have never had a good relationship with my mother after a very bad childhood with her. She shows no love to us or Empathy and it’s almost impossible to listen to her at times.
my siblings want to report her for fraud. She has my Dad’s pension which is very good and her state pension and now the AA and brings in £2,145 a month.

Would I be that awful daughter for reporting or should I just forget about it and let her live with the money. It’s eating away at the me with the pressure from my siblings and the constant reminders from her she is now ‘rich’
I don’t need to be told I’m awful for thinking like this, I already know I just want some solid advice.
Thank you so much 😕

I wouldn't report her for it but I would clearly tell her the consequences of claiming an allowance she isn't entitled to. She could have to pay it all back in future. Id do some research too on what would happen if she does have to pay it back at some stage, just to make sure that ye don't end up having to pay it

I know a lot of elderly people and none of them is 100% safe to cook without occasional help and regular check ins, whether it is passing out from dizziness and having a fall, forgetting to switch off the cooker, eating food that has gone off because it is there or it is easier, dropping cups or kettles with hot water, not being able to manoeuvre food to mouth without effort, having shaky hands or fragile wrists or difficulty bending, or in one case setting the kitchen on fire. They can go from ok to not ok to ok again in the course of one day.

Why would.you want to report your own mum. Shes obviously qualified for it and its not up to you if shes deserving or not. Im so sorry about your illness but its not your mum's fault.

Sorry to hear about your health however this sounds like revenge. Whether she exaggerated at the time or not at her age she will need some allowances. I mean I’m only in my forties and I sometimes need to sit down to put my socks on so I can imagine getting dressed at that age is somewhat of a difficultly, no matter how fit you think she is.

I know someone who has just been awarded it, she paid a company to apply for it on her behalf. I didn't even know such a thing existed.

And from your OP:

My siblings and I have never had a good relationship with my mother after a very bad childhood with her. She shows no love to us or Empathy and it’s almost impossible to listen to her at times

What are you and your siblings hoping to achieve? You can report her and she may or may not lose some of the allowance but what does it actually change for you? Its also possible that what she tells you and reality are not the same - she wouldn’t be the first 80 something to tell their DC that they are fine and independent whilst the reality is different. In which case if you ask for her to be reassessed it may not change the allocation but will make the relationship even worse.

Most of all, it won’t change the past. You may all feed better focusing on your own lives for the future (which I hope has a good prognosis) than giving headspace to this.

My MIL who worked five years her whole life gets the full whack too. She and FIL have over £1m in assets. They don’t buy in help with it, they bank it and manage without. They have enough of their own money to use if they wanted to. Bonkers.

Reporting your own mother just to get her in trouble because she’s not supported you is a shitty thing to do.

MN baffles me at times. The overwhelming sentiment seems to be….tax the rich, don’t report fraud, and also, fraud never happens? When ANYONE starts a thread on here about fraudulent claims, the overwhelming response is to do nothing. And yet on other benefits threads, everyone claims fraud is impossible? And we wonder why we are, as a country, where we are???

You are angry and hurt because your relationship with your Mum is not what you’d hoped it would be, and coupled with you having stage 3 cancer I can’t imagine how upsetting that is (well to some extent I can because I had similar issues with my own Mum, and I have chronic health issues myself). But reporting your mum won’t change that. Just let it go.

@Tallularx4 so she lied in order to get it? Wow.

My mum got it after a stroke and they spoke with her GP, the doctors at the hospital, the care home where she did her rehab and I think local social services because they fitted some mobility stuff around the house.

This was in 2022. They were very thorough and they spoke to me as well because I'm the one who filled in the form. They rang her to tell her her claim was under consideration and that they needed to speak with all of those people.

I understand why you're angry that someone has claimed by lying.

We're actually a bit concerned because we get a form every year asking if anything has changed - she has recovered well but still needs cleaners, carers and a walking stick (that's progress, she was originally using a frame for a couple of years actually because she had a second stroke) and her GP can confirm that she still has a lot of heart episodes and there's been several ambulance callouts when she's just collapsed.

we're always honest about it.

Oh well. I suppose it's still possible, but maybe she has issues that she's not shared with you. I would probably stay out of it on that basis, but - if she lied in order to get it that's really awful.

Sorry for your illness.

AA is weird. First it isn't means tested. You also don't actually have to be receiving help, just to be having sufficient difficulty doing various things.
It may well be your DM is underplaying her difficulties to you, or that your poor relationship is stopping you from seeing quite how much she struggles.

AA is simply to help you with costs of things you need help with, DF used his for a gardener, cleaner etc exactly what it is intended for.

If she lives in a care home she’ll still be eligible for AA as long as she’s paying - as soon as her care is paid for by the council (say her savings dropped below £23 ish k) then she should inform them of the change in circumstances and she would no longer get it - and you do have to inform them they won’t automatically know, I had this with DF.

At 85 a lot of people need help. Don't know why you think it's fraud.

My 86 year old FIL ( one month off 87) certainly doesn’t get it - as he would say he’s perfectly independent at the moment and as fit and well as you would expect for 86 -to be honest as things stand he’s better than many in their 70s - personally I think it’s taking the piss - and I wouldn’t report but would drop in casually that you feel it’s not needed - how is the retirement home funded OP??

It may well be fraud - who knows. My concern is you, OP. Hurting your mother won't help you. It won't make you feel better and it won't make her care for you in the way you want. It will just hurt you more. Refocus your thoughts away from your mother. Focus on finding joy in your life where you can. Good luck x.

OP
I say this gently because you are having a bad time with your health and also, by the sounds of it, have been stuck with an unloving and unlovable mother. Which does huge damage to us, lifelong damage.

But really, it doesn't matter what she's up to or what your siblings want to do. I would extract yourself from the situation and concentrate 100% on yourself. Block her, block them all if needs be, let go of any and all obligations and contact, get therapy if at lol possiubecause it will help you get stronger, and to vent about it all.

You don't need to know what she's up to or whether or not she "deserves" this money. It doesn't matter. You don't have to make yourself available in her life, you are an adult and canz choose to free yourself to fully focus on getting through your own struggles.

*sorry lots of typos

Until recently my job involved helping people to claim AA. myself and my colleagues were regularly baffled by the people who were awarded it, and yes we did meet them as did home visits to complete the form , although I appreciate that gives limited observation. Even when we arranged for a DWP representative to visit people to complete the form they mostly seemed to get awarded higher rate. No assessment needed, send a couple of medical letters with the form and hey presto over £450 every four weeks in your bank account. And that's before all the extra pension credit that being awarded AA can mean people get too. I guess it is being spent on cleaners, gardeners etc . I do find it baffling how easily it was awarded compared to working age disability benefits like PIP. I wouldn't report your mum especially as just about every older person at that age seems to be getting it. i sometimes think it would be more cost effective to just increase the state pension for people over 80. Frustratingly my own 88year old increasingly frail dad will not claim as he says he has enough to live off and he doesn't understand why all these other people are !!. There are more and more places springing up to fill out these forms for people , they usually take the first four weekly payment on a no win no fee basis ! I had loads of older people say " well I went to my coffee morning group at the church and everyone was talking about how they get it so I thought I would try too " !

My 88 year old dad won't claim it either despite looking increasingly frail - he just denies any problems !

And how was his menopause?

If she living in some sort of care facility, with on-site staff, she most likely is entitled to AA. The DWP rep saw her in her own home and filled in the form with her, presumably they didn't think.she was lying the and she is unlikely to have become more capable /Independent of her the last few years, since she was 80.
OP, you need to concentrate on your own health and recovery.

@Pickledonion1999 I thought you only got higher rate if you needed somebody to be with you overnight?

Admittedly, we didn't think about that because it would've been me who was there overnight at the time. She can be alone overnight now.

Do they ever check what it is being spent on or ask you what additional help you will spend it on when your applying?

My dad is very poorly indeed, has multiple serious health conditions, and has just recently been awarded higher level AA. There are very strict conditions attached to the higher level including needing overnight supervision as a previous poster pointed out. I’m amazed so many people are accessing this help as I remember filling out the initial forms for dad and I had to send loads of medical information from his GP surgery and hospital consultants.

Apart from that OP, I’m sorry you are so unwell and in a bad place.