DLA-mobility componant

[rosielum]

My daughter has severe CP and recieves higher rate DLA. She is only 21mths old so this is based on the care componant only. We saw her paed' last week who was talking about when she turned 3 and getting a motability car-perhaps a WAV. I was looking at the government info site but couldn't understand, do you get the funding for a car OR get the mobility part of the payment added onto the care componant of the DLA? hope that makes sense! Thanks, Rosie

Hi Rosie, if you are awarded high rate mobility then you can opt to have this element of dla paid directly to a motability garage for the lease of a vehichle under the motability scheme. There are often down payments required to bridge the gap between what the dla high rate allowance is and the ammount required by the garage although this ammount depends on the car and some don't require one. Hope this helps, good luck x

Thanks direlahere, that helps alot. We know we will get higher rate mobility- both a good and a bad thing I guess! DDs paed suggested trying to apply for it early but I've never heard of anyone being successful with this. Thanks again

Hi Rosie, I only know of a test case that failed but there was a previous post which looked at this issue www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_campaigns/1122237-We-need-DLA-mobility-part-for-some-under-3s/AllOnOnePage

I'm not sure what happenned to any campaign as I didn't come on mumsnet then but we had similar issues when our ds was young too.

From birth we had to travel around to hospitals of 120+ miles round trip every other day for a period following his birth, weekly for another substantial period just to get OT services and hospital services that weren't available locally. For a month we had train fares of around £40 a day as he was in hospital for this period away from home due to his needs. We lost an income due to having a child with SN and having to be at home and we got into debt trying to meet his needs. We didn't qualify for transport costs as I am self employed although was not working at the time.

I definately feel that the issue of the age of 3 is discriminatory and that the circumstances of individuals should be looked at when determining the mobility component of dla awards and not just a blanket age applied.

Good luck with your application I hope you get it sorted soon, if I remember rightly it's best to apply a few months in advance to allow for processing time (three months I think).