Hello Mike
My client Paula (68) gets State Pension and a private pension that works out at £270.00 per week.
She gets Housing Benefit to cover the rent on her housing association property, but it doesn’t meet the full rent. She has to pay about £28 per week towards this.
She spends a lot of time looking after sister Karen (70) who gets Attendance Allowance.
She tried claiming Carer’s Allowance but was told that she couldn’t have it because she’s getting State Pension.
Is there any way we can improve her financial situation?
Thanks
Neithhotep
Hello Neithhotep
How it is now: Pension Credit and Housing Benefit
Pension Credit a what-you’ve-got-vs-what-you-need benefit.
The Pensions Service (the part of the DWP that deals with older people) works out a weekly needs-level called your Appropriate-Minimum-Guarantee (ffs!)
They then look at what money you have coming in from pensions, investments, savings and work.
If your income is less than your needs-level you get a top-up of Guarantee-Credit .
If you get this top-up you are passported to Maximum Housing Benefit to help with your rent.
If you are too rich for the Pension Credit top-up, the council’s Housing Benefit department does their own version of the calculation. You can still have Housing Benefit, but will probably get a reduced rate because of your excess-income.
This is what’s going on with Paula.
Her needs-level is the standard Pension Credit amount for a single person of £227.10
Her weekly income is £270.00
She is £42.90 too-rich for Pension Credit
And because of this excess income she can’t have Maximum-Housing-Benefit.
Her HB is reduced by £27.89 (65% of the excess income)
Increasing the Pension Credit Needs Level: The Carer’s Addition
If you are a carer, spending at least 35 hours per week looking after a person who gets:
- DLA-Care*
- PIP-Daily-Living
- Attendance Allowance or
- a Scottish equivalent of these.
then an extra £46.40 Carer’s Addition (also often called a Carer’s Premium) can be added into the needs level.
For Paula, this will take her needs-level to £273.50
So she will then be entitled to £3.50 of Pension Credit, and because she gets this, she will qualify for Maximum Housing Benefit
Altogether a weekly increase of £31.39
But to qualify as a carer, you must be entitled to Carer’s Allowance and Paula’s Carer’s Allowance claim was refused.
Sorting this Out – The Overlapping Benefits Rule
To understand how to sort this out, we need to know about the Overlapping Benefits Rule.
There is a range of benefits that are allowed instead-of-a-wage; including Carer’s Allowance and State Pension (also cESA, Maternity Allowance, cJSA, SSP and several others)
If you meet the rules for more than one of these Overlapping Benefits, you only get the best one.
This is what’s happened with Paula.
She meets the rules for both State Pension and Carer’s Allowance, but they only give her the State Pension, because that’s the better option.
She is said to have an underlying entitlement to the Carer’s Allowance – which allows her to qualify for the extra Pension Credit amount.
Sorting This Out – Pension Credit
Paula should make a claim for Pension Credit
She should send in the letter that said that she could not have Carer’s Allowance because it overlapped with the State Pension.
Pension Credit will then understand that she counts as a carer, they will include the extra premium in her needs level and the extra money will start with a backdate of upto three-months.
Is it always like this?
No. Clearly there are a lot of possible situations.
- You might already be getting Pension Credit – In which case you need to let them know that you are a carer.
- You might be too rich for Pension Credit, even with the extra premium, but getting some Housing Benefit – in which case you need to let the Housing Benefit department know that you are a carer
- It may be that you only qualify for Housing Benefit once the extra premium is added into your needs-level – in which case you’d need to make a new claim for HB and tell them that you are a a carer.
The thing that all these situation have in common is that you need to make a claim for Carer’s Allowance, even though you know that you won’t get it because of the overlapping benefit rule, so that you can show that you have the underlying entitlement, because that’s what makes you count as a carer.
But Beware
If you actually get Carer’s Allowance or Universal Credit Carer Element, this can have a knock-on effect on the benefits of the person that you are looking after.
Get advice if you have any doubts
* Not including the low rate of DLA care of £29.20 per week