Universal Credit help

[DDay01]

Hi my son is 20 and may be going in to a post 19 residential placement. This will be term times only. He currently gets £684.64 UC monthly as he is in the LCWRA category. UC will not confirm whether he will lose some or all of this amount. Has any one else been in this situation and may know what will happen? It seems extremely generous if they would allow him to keep it if he is going to be LA funded??

[BenjiB]

Hello. Exactly the same position. My son went in September. His UC is not affected. Same amount as your son.

my son is funded jointly by the LA and NHS continuing healthcare. CHC funding is non contributory so he doesn’t pay towards his care.

However if your son is funded by SS (for the care part of college) he will probably have to pay towards that, which means a large chunk of the UC will go towards that. So no the UC is not affected but it may be used to self fund his care.

This may help

downs-syndrome.org.uk/for-f...

[DDay01 in reply to BenjiB]

Thanks that's a really great help. As he will be part funded by SS we thought he would probably lose his UC but we are happy with that as long as he is in a good placement. We go to Tribunal soon and are trying to give them accurate costings. It's a nightmare because UC won't give answers. As far as I am aware no funding will come from CHC. He was boarding before but did not have any work related benefits then. We realised about the PIP and carers allowance from before. Filling in those forms has been a part of my life for 10 years!! I hope your son is happy in his placement and not to disrupted by the pandemic. Again thanks for replying 👍🏻

[BenjiB in reply to DDay01]

Yes we had to go to tribunal too. It’s an absolute nightmare isn’t it! Most stressful time of my life. Happy to say though our son is doing so well. Shame we had to spend our life savings to prove it was the best place! It really is wonderful, 54 acres of land to roam around it and loads to do there.

He has been home for the last 7 weeks, but went back yesterday. Lovely to see him but he has a 24 hour curriculum for a reason! It’s not been much fun. He’s severely autistic and non verbal and hasn’t understood at all what’s going on.

Typical government give with one hand and take away with the other. Most of the kids my son lives with are left with a small amount once they’ve laid their contribution, it’s £20-£30 per week. Crazy that those with CHC funded placements keep it all! UC probably won’t be able to help as they’ll pay your son no matter what, it’s the LA that will take their chunk towards his care.

I wish you the best of luck, hopefully the LA will concede before tribunal x. Always happy to chat.

[DDay01 in reply to BenjiB]

This is our second time at Tribunal, Previously we had an extremely strong case. This time it's more complex so the funding really matters. There seems to be so much secrecy around the cost of supported living to compare with the educational placement we want, and the LA will lie, we know that through bitter experience. The only reason we applied for the UC was so that we could add it to our costings as we believed it would be taken away. However UC wouldn't confirm. Tribunal is so stressful and expensive and really only solicitors and professionals 'win'. I wish we could just bung the LA 10K, at least it would go to the education they end up having to pay for anyway!! I doubt our LA will concede, they won't engage at all. We have our therapists assessments etc but they will not even discuss the working document. I would like to think the Tribunal will frown upon their behaviour but it seems they very much side with the LA. The whole process completely loses sight of the young person. Sorry I am ranting now!!

[BenjiB in reply to DDay01]

It’s all a nightmare. My son finished year 14 at school. We then found the residential placement we wanted and CHC agreed they would pay the social care costs. The LA kept stringing us along until the day before he was due to start at college and then told us they were ceasing to maintain. CHC were gobsmacked as they had no idea and after all they were stumping up the majority of the money. Their reasons were unlawful. They had zero evidence (unless you count a scrap of paper from a 2015 annual review with a handwritten scrawl saying “mum wants A to live in an annexe on the side of their house “) 🙄. We don’t have an annexe. Also an “all about me” form that my non verbal son with severe learning disabilities apparently contributed to saying he wanted to live near his family but no one knows who he told this to. It was all nonsense. We spent such a lot in legal fees and professional reports.

With regard to UC I doubt they would know to be fair. It will be the local authority who deduct the money for his fees. UC will pay regardless and the local authority will deduct their chunk. At my LA it was the FAB officers who sent the information on how much my son had to pay towards his care costs (before he was CHC funded). They added up his PIP and UC and basically left him with £24 ish a week. So that would be who you need to speak to. Every LA has a department who deals with it.

When I phone UC last year, they didn’t ask who I was or anything and just said the UC was not affected.

[BenjiB]

Also the care component of PIP will stop after 28 days and be paid only when he’s home, same as Carers allowance if you get that. The mobility part of PIP is unaffected,

[DDay01 in reply to BenjiB]

Hi just wanted to let you know we ‘won’ at tribunal (if you can call it winning!) thanks for all your advice. All we need now is for his college to fully open!

[BenjiB in reply to DDay01]

Ah that’s excellent news! Well done. What a relief. I wish him all the luck in the world at college x

[Sarah_Mencap]

Hello DDay01

Universal Credit is proving very difficult for a lot of families. It can also get quite complicated so please do call our helpline if you would like to talk to someone about this.

Contact the helpline on 0808 808 1111 or have a look here - mencap.org.uk/advice-and-su...

Best wishes

Sarah

[Shadeoffen]

Even if your son loses his accreditation, in any case, you should go to any lengths to provide your son with training at this university. Because learning is our everything. I had such a situation that, unfortunately, my friend's son lost his accreditation, or rather the university, and they lost all funding and scholarships. He had nothing to live on and my friend had a bad financial situation and they decided to take out a loan. But you yourself understand that taking a loan now is not the best idea. But he was very lucky that he found one of the banks, the list of which was provided by this site edullinenlaina.com/5000e-la.... The site provides just a list of banks that can provide you with a certain type of loan, on the terms that you request.

[Burn74]

The husband received the first degree of disability, and for two years received benefits for universal assistance. Two and a half years later, he was gone. He made a will in which he transferred the property (a country house with a plot of land) to his sister and brother, and to me and my son - a morgage apartment. I was not happy with such property and was not ready to inherit credit obligations. You know, I just got confused in this life situation, so I turned to a Mortgage Advice Coventry( coventrymoneyman.com ). This company helped me to cope with all this, we issued a refusal to enter into such an inheritance. The mortgage broker provided us with a very high-quality service.