severe disability premium

[claire49]

Hi i am new here as of today, and need some advice. I recently applied for SDP as i was told by a friend of our family that he was entitled to this payment, as he qualified and they were going to back date it from date he was awarded DLA.
I contacted DWP today and was told thye will only back date to when they recieved my IS10. I asked why and they told me i never iformed them of my son moving out 26th january 2013. I said well i would not have advised them as it did not affect my benefits as far as i was aware i was not entitled to claim for this benefit , until a month ago. never knew about iit as my son was not able to get carers allowance when living with me as he worked and did not spent the stipulated hours with me to qualify.
I called them back as i was not happy about reason, and spoke to another person. I went through explaination again and that i had read on the govt web site they make the changes as they review claims etc., https://www.gov.uk/disability-premiu...t/how-to-claim it says clearly '' You don’t have to claim disability premium, it’s automatically added to your Income Support if you’re eligible.
Contact your local Jobcentre Plus if it hasn’t been paid '' .
I had apparently completed a IS10 formback in 2009 and did not qualify and yes i was in reciept of middle carer and low rate mobility. since 2006. So i said the housing benefit have me down as having the SDP as i looked at my online housing benefit and it was listed as a allowance. so i wanted to know why Me having informed HB why this had not triggered with DWP some changes as they clearly have it down on thier record. I have asked for it to be looked at again. and someone will call me back tomorrow.
Has anyone experienced not getting this benefit or being aware it even existed!! and come up against DWP not back dating to when you first started living alone as i mena they never actually let you know about these extra premiums. I always though if i did have a carer and i claimed it would reduce the amount of benefit i recieved this is how clued up i am not about benefits. Seems odd that if you are not aware of premiums no one actually tells you and i do not believe my son moving out was a reason to inform DWP as he was not claiming anything, as he worked, and him leaving did not ultimately affect my benefit so i felt i had no need to inform DWP.
sorry this is a bit of a long read but i feel thye are being unfair as how can i make a claim if no one had ever told me or asked me if i was claiming??? Does anyone have any tips on how i can put my viewpoint accross as i am sure many people do not know about this premium, as all the people i know on DLA and living alone do not even know about it?
thankyou
Claire

[Flymo]

Disability Premium is not Severe Disability Premium. With Disability Premium, DWP know all the factors and can make a decision on whether to add it automatically. Entitlement to Severe Disability Premium depends on knowledge of your housing circumstances.


Unfortunately, I cannot see any grounds for backdating to before the date you notified DWP of all the facts that entitled you to SDP, which is likely to be the date they received your IS10. The obligation falls on you to notify the DWP of these facts - your council shares some information with DWP, but this information is limited, mostly for fraud prevention purposes, and is very unlikely to have established your entitlement to SDP.

When a change of circumstances is to the claimant's advantage, as was the case with you son moving out, and you notified DWP more than a month after this took place occurred, the date of supersession to add the extra benefit is the date DWP received notification of the change (Regulation 7(2)(b) of The Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/991)).


The situation is different when entitlement to additional benefit arises because a qualifying benefit is awarded, as is the case with your friend. In that case, the additional benefit is payable from the award date of the qualifying benefit (Regulation 7(7)(a) of those 1999 Regulations as amended - the current text of those Regulations is not available in a free online source and I'm not going to hunt through the huge pile of amendments to post a link to the relevant paragraph).

The difference is because the claimant could not have acted earlier whilst waiting for a decision on a qualifying benefit, as they did not know they would be awarded the qualifying benefit.


The general principle of the benefits system is that if you don't claim something you are entitled to, you lose it. This means that if you are not sure something makes a difference, you should declare it anyway.


So far as the Housing Benefit goes, the council are entitled to take the SDP you were entitled to if you claimed it into account when calculating your Housing Benefit under what is known as the nominal income rules. However, as you did not actually receive that SDP and cannot now claim it, the council might agree to adjust your Housing Benefit retrospectively. Again, it is for you to check out anything you are not sure about - if you see something in your Housing Benefit assessment that you are not receiving, it is important to query it with the council.

Whilst you're checking your Housing Benefit, you should check that there is no non-dependent deduction on your Housing Benefit for your son. There should never have been a deduction even when he lived with you, as your DLA exempts you from this particular deduction, but if the council didn't know about your DLA they might have made one.



I have considerable sympathy with the position you are in. The benefits system is extraordinarily complex, and people can lose out on significant sums of money through ignorance of the system. Unfortunately the rules are rather unbending in this sort of situation.

At least you've found the situation now having missed out on no more than 18 months of SDP. Had you not realised, you would have continued to lose out on this money.

[claire49]

Thank you Flymo for reply , it does make rather more sense now. But the family friend was getting dla it was when he was changing over from income support to ESA as they are doing everyone slowly, so the back dating he has pre-dates the benefit change over , so they had forgotten to add his Severe disability premium to his income support claim. It was the DWP who told him he was entitled to SDP when they made the change over. So i do not understand why they have back dated his when he did not know and they had the same facts prior to compulsory change over to ESA. I returned my forms to change me over to ESA last december and i have still heard nothing about that, and when i called to chase it up they said i am on ESA now, but i still have to call income support?? i am happy with your concise answer but they were aware of facts, from forms completed in december 2013 for ESA they were aware of my situation from then. i would have thought. Anyway i have to accept it is what it is i missed out and be glad i am getting the right money now. thank you.

[claire49]

Hello Flymo, I have just received some good news back from tribunal, they have allowed my appeal in part, which is good news, they have found in my favour that I should be entitled to Severe disability premium from 9th January 2014. just thought I would let you know as you gave me good advice, thank you for you help.

[Flymo]

That's great news - thanks for the update.