P.I.P Appointee change.

[JimHensonWasAGenius]

My Wife recently passed away, leaving a huge void in our lives. Between us, we cared for our Special Education Needs son. We had a great partnership, and distributed our respective skills accordingly. However, i'm now faced with the difficult task of bringing up our special 18-year-old alone. I spoke to DWP the other day, to inform them of my wife's death. the P.I.P has been subsequently stopped, pending a new appointee. There is no way i can continue in employment, and i'm fully commited to finishing work to care for our special son.

DWP have stated that i'll need a home visit to, i assume, check on the appointee's credentials, i.e me. Am i right to be a little concerned by this? has anyone else been in a similar situation? Thanks in advance.

It is not necessarily anything to worry about. Prior to the pandemic a home visit happened more often than not as part of the process of becoming appointee. That changed, obviously, during the pandemic but they have started to resume them sometimes.

Posted too soon. I am sorry to about your wife’s death. There’s lots of things to think about during what is a difficult time, but you don’t need to spend your limited energy on dwelling on the home visit.

Thank you for the reassurance. I'd forgotten about the home visits, and can't remember us even having one, although it was over 10 years ago.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/618408238317462/

Not sure if that will work - it's a group called a1 esa... benefits advice and support.

They're really helpful especially the admins.

If DS is 18 then the appointee process would only have been a couple of years ago as it doesn’t happen until transition from DLA to PIP. There most likely wasn’t a home visit at that time.

I’m so sorry about your wife’s death.

Your DS would have transitioned from DLA (children’s disability benefit) to PIP (adult disability benefit) when he turned 16. Due to the covid pandemic there will have been no home visit, the assessment following the application form taking place over the phone. Many of the assessments still are over the phone.

I work in this area and I’m a bit confused as to why the DWP think your benefit has to stop. There is no change in your son’s circumstances and you shouldn’t be required to complete a change of circumstance form.

Your wife’s death certificate should suffice, and the process for approving an appointee is straightforward. They have already accepted that your son needs an appointee to manage his benefits. So approving you should be straightforward.

If I were you I would phone back and speak to someone else. You may get a different answer.

Any benefit should be back payed if it does stop but I see no reason why it needs to.
You can apply for carers allowance if you are not working and ds is in receipt of pip.

If you have a problem, if they do stop your pip, then you could ask citizen’s advice for help, or pipps professionals (Google for their website and Facebook page) who will give limited free advice, but are a registered social enterprise and non profit.

There is no assessment / interview for child DLA, I meant to say, which is why you don’t remember one.

you may be entitled to other benefits to tide you over following your bereavement. I would contact CAB.

OP hasn’t mentioned a COC. Payment of the monies is put on hold, rather than the claim ending, whilst another appointee is appointed. The process of appointing another appointee includes a home visit (although these haven’t resumed for all yet).

There should be no need for payments to be stopped, and no, the op hasn’t mentioned COC, but the DWP often don’t abide by the law and I wanted to make sure the OP knows there is no need for one :-)

An appointee appointment doesn’t require a home visit.

DWP have agreed that they will conduct all assessments remotely where that is requested by the claimant, and are still conducting most assessments over the phone as routine.

I became an appointee in Jan without a home visit and have recently had a very short phone interview with an OT.

When an appointee is appointed the interview is often via a home visit. Prior to the pandemic more had a home visit than not. The home visits stopped completely during the pandemic but some have restarted. This F2F interview is separate to the PIP assessment. See here - point 2 and 3 after you apply to become appointee “DWP interviews you to make sure you’re a suitable appointee. During the interview, you and the interviewer fill out an appointee application form (Form BF56)” and if you click on the “interviews you” that link states “DWP will also arrange a support visit if someone you know is applying to become your appointee to help you manage your benefits.”

The payments have to be put on hold as there is currently no one to pay them to as there is no appointee and DS has been judged to be unable to manage his own claim. All monies will be paid once another appointee has been established.

I really appreciate the replies. Apologies if my o.p was a bit muddy. P.I.P payments have been temporarily suspended, pending home visit. Should this take us into the next pay period, back pay has been assured.

Not to derail the thread, but the face to face interview with capita or atos is part of pip assessment. There are two stages in law, which are an information gathering process, the first being the application form and medical evidence, the second being the assessment by capita / atos. The application is then considered by a decisionmaker at the DWP. The DWP can exempt from any stage of the process but seldom do.

Hopefully it will be sorted quickly for you, OP. They could very easily send you an appointee from then do a phone call, the firm should suffice really. You could request this if you wanted to.

You are talking about PIP assessments not the process of becoming an appointee. They are different things. The ‘interview’ to become appointee is via DWP themselves, which you can see from the link. I see the link in my pp doesn’t work but it is here.

Thankyou, that makes sense now.