‘When claiming UC full service is it the responsibility of the claimant to close any of the Legacy benefits’

Client (severely disabled) claims UC in July owing to change of circs. HB stops. We then find that her claim has been cancelled and IRESA is still in payment.

Here are DWP’s reasons why:


‘When a claim is made to UCFS all Local Authorities and HMRC are automatically contacted to permanently stop all payments for Housing Benefit and Tax Credits. As all future payments are included in Universal Credit (UC) payments.

When claiming UCFS is it the responsibility of the claimant to close any of the Legacy benefits, in this case ESA. This did not happen and also [claimant] did not complete the next stage of her UCFS claim by making an appointment to attend her local Job Centre, hence to claim was closed.

In this situation the DWP are not at fault as neither the UCFS or ESA benefits would have been aware of either of the benefit claims, hence the ESA has remained in payment.’

So…..DWP can tell HMRC to stop paying, and they can tell HB to stop paying….but they can’t tell…..themselves.

So it’s all the claimant’s fault.

I do not believe this. I have asked DWP to show me where in the Regs and in all their flash publicity they make this clear.

Oh, and the bit about closing the claim is unlawful too.

its always been different when they close claims everything is stopped so quick

so why cant they inform the other partys just like they do when they close the claim on a person cant see any difference really from either situation other than to create a debt for the person