Hi, I'm hoping to take on the HSBC as they are crippling me at the monent with charges on top of charges.

I am a carer for my disabled wife. She receives high DLA for both mobility and care, she also receives ESA in support group. I receive carers allowance(for being her full time carer) and Income Support. My question is simple, would my wife be allowed to cancel her ESA claim,(thereby losing her ESA money) then me contact Income Support and claim this for both of us?(Thereby increasing Income SUpport payment by the same amount she has lost) Would there be any financial loss or gain to do this? Would it be straightforward to do, ie Make phone calls, fill in forms send them back. Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

Hi - I need advice regarding any rights I may have; following DWP decision to cease my Income Support Payments? Received DWP letter this morning, advising me that as from 08/05/2013 they cannot pay me - for failing to return A2, sent to me on 26/04/2013. I contacted them immediately, explaining that I had in fact completed and returned the A2 form to them on Monday 6 May 2013. On checking, they advised me that it had not been received by them and were going to issue a duplicate A2 to me via post. I queried the fact that they had mad a decision to stop my Income Support Payments, with effect from 08/05/13 (2 weeks ago); as I am paid fortnightly; I had been due a payment tomorrow which I had been relying on and asked how the hardship this will cause me can be dealt with? The lady said she would get a BA to contact me from the section, which would be between 1pm today, up to 1pm tomorrow? I expect call will be tomorrow, but wanted to ensure I ask the forum how I might go about getting my payments back on track, pending their receipt of a dupliate A2 form from me? It just seems ridiculous to take such action, retrospectively - causing extreme hardship unnecessarily. Why can they not threaten to stop such benefits, if information not received by X-date, allowing you a bit of time to liaise with them and ensure info reaches them within set timescale. As I am paid fortnightly; it is really messing up all my accounts/outgoing payments, council tax, shopping etc. I am also considering they will likely mess up my housing benefit payments now also!!! Its ridiculous!!! All this mayhem and hardship this drastic action will now cause for me and my family, when a simple reminder would have got things sorted out without so much chaos. Any advice anybody can offer me, so I can probe the DM calling me tomorrow with a view to getting my payments reinstated until they receive the duplicate sending of A2 - recorded delivery? Please Please any advice - would be very much appreciated. The next fortnight going to be a nightmare without IS payments in progress and esp no advance warning, to prepare me? Many thanks in advance to all! Nadia

Help / advice urgently needed please. My situation is this. I moved overseas some years ago with a partner who left me shortly afterwards. Unable to speak the language, get work etc over there, I put the house on the market and returned to the UK (2010). I claimed Income Support as a lone parent and declared the house so that everything was above board. I had to provide the sale doicuments to prove that i was actively trying to dispose of the property, and intended to remain in the UK. All was ok until this week when the benefits seem to be doing a complete overhaul of everyone I have had 3 forms to fill in this last 4 weeks, all with only a week deadline so no time to seek advice or help. All about the property. I again sent off the original documents that prove the house was placed on the market. The property was placed for sale at less than the value at that time, and later reduced again within that year. The DSS now want a new valuation, current documents to prove the house is still for sale and more evidence that i am trying to dispose of it. and all in english!! I am gutted... English documents from overseas are not going to happen, and i cannot afford a translator. Also i cannot afford to go to the property to do any maintenance, legal work etc.. I can do some online with the agent, but am worried now. Property is not selling anywhere, not here in the UK or overseas. The DSS are threatening to stop my Income Support if they do not approve my benefit to continue. this would mean my housing benefit would also stop. I have 3 young children (one of whom is disabled) and I am worried sick. I have done everything by the book, and yet i feel hounded to the point of illness. My children have had very little time with me over the last 4 weeks because i have been spending hours filling in one form after another and struggling with my own health problems on top. Any help or advice is appreciated please.

I received a requisition to appear at court on Wednesday. I noticed at the time that my DOB is listed completely wrong, and made a mental note to find out who to contact. This morning, I received another letter in the post, but hadn't noticed it had the wrong name on the front. (Was half asleep, and trying to deal with a four year old at the time) This time, it's been issued to my address to someone I've never heard of, for 8 days after my court date, in the next county. This time, it has my DOB on it. The address and DOB are mine, but the name and charges aren't. What do I do about this? Where do I return the letter to, and do I phone the court or the CPS regarding the errors?

Hi I am attempting to return to work when my maternity pay runs out, I have found a job thats only 4 hours a week so I will have to claim income support. I will be earning £27 per week, will this be deducted from my income support or will I be allowed to keep some of it Looked on gov website but nothing! thanks

long story edited highlights ... My mother claimed income support and council tax benefit in March 2010. The IS was turned down so appealed and reclaimed IS which was successful on second claim. The CTB was paid from when IS was successful. The IS appeal was successful and payments back dated to March. Council will not backdate council tax even though IS was received for that period. They have now issued summons for CT to obtain a liability order with the view to make deductions from earning / benefit or instruct bailiffs. Council has been phoned and the benefit claim handler wont take call or phone back to discus the case, council tax people say council tax is due until benefit has been calculated. The council were notified of the successful appeal 10 months a go and have stated they have evidence IS was not awarded for that period even though they have been sent entitlement letter and details of the appeal. Basically if they back dated the CTB to 1st April 2010 then there would be no CT due as per IS appeal Recovery team have said they are entitled to recover the money and its pointless turning up at the court as you wont get to explain this to the magistrate. were do we go from here ...

both letters are are dated 11-8-11. the income support letter says... "i'm writing to tell you that your recent change in circumstances does not effect the amount of incom support we pay you, however there may br future changes to your entitlement. this may be because of future changes you have told us about, the uprating of benefit or changes in deductions from your benefit." the mortgage interest payment letter says... "because there has been a change in your circumstances we have had to change the mone we take off your benefit to pay the interest on yor mortgage." thier payments have gone down by 74p per week from the 25th of August. my circumstances haven't changed and i haven't told them they've changed, so what's this about? has anyone else got letters like this?

Hi, Really hope someone can help me, i have been claiming I.B. since August 2008 due to mental health, I suffer from severe depression, panic attacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, suicidal thoughts and actions. All this stems from years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse by a now ex partner. I am on several medications to combat all of this, but unfortunately nothing makes it better or makes it go away even for a minute! I recently went for a pca which shortly after found i had been failed on, reading the reasons on the form shocked me, and the person who came with me (as i cannot go out alone)! I had not been asked 99% of the questions on the form. And also in the process of this medical the doctor (and i use this word lightly) told me "you should have been able to stop all this abuse if your partner was smaller than you" and "you should be fine if your no longer with that person"!! This caused me severe distress and upset as you can imagine!! So now my I.B. has been stopped i have an appeal going in.......while this is going ahead i was advised to claim E.S.A (i thought these were the same thing), however i have now been told i will need to go for another assesment and in the meantime i am not entitled to any form of payment due failing my pca?? So i then called income support to see if they can help......and was swiftly told that i could not claim that because it was already included in my esa claim....confused??? so am i!!!! I am not able to get a crisis loan due to them saying im at my limit which i dont agree with so am now also having to fight that also. I have had absolutely no money for 5 weeks now, my landlord is sending me final warning letters as my rent is not being paid, i just want someone to tell me what i can claim, where from and who to call and what to say to them....as i have explained my situation so many times and just got nowhere!! Well aside from the one guy at Incapacity saying "sorry but i think your only options are the citizens advice and the samaritans"!! Please please can anyone help me??

I'm in desperate need of some advise from someone, I have searched the Internet for hours trying to find a case similar to mine but I haven't managed to find anything that's helped. Sorry for the length of this but it's a complicated story. I suffer from social phobia, panic attacks, depression and self harm, because of this I am unable to work and clam benefits. I receive dla, hb, ctb, and income support. In 2008 I moved into a flat with my boyfriend, at the time he worked full time and I had just started to receive DLA and IS a month or so before we moved into the flat (we were not on HB/CTB at this time). I filled in a change of address form as soon as we moved in and on it I said my partner was living there too, all I heard back from this was a conformation letter saying my details had been updated so I thought everything was fine and that because I was receiving IS based on incapacity that it didn't matter that my partner was living with me and working, I know that sounds really silly and dumb but I was under so much pressure at the time that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to think straight. After about 7 months of us living together my partner had to stop working and stay at home to care for me as he was constantly having to leave work because I'd self harmed etc so we thought it best he stay with me. So at this point we applied for HB and CTB which we got. Then in June this year I found out that my partner could get carers allowance for taking care of me full time so we applied for that and got it, I received a letter from IS telling me my money was being reduced because he was getting carers allowance, which was fine as I knew that would happen. But then a few weeks ago my partner went to the cash machine to get the IS out only to find it hadn't been paid in and when he phoned then they said they had been given information from the carers allowance people saying that he lived with me and that we had to fill in a form with his details to add him to my is claim before they would pay anymore money. so we filled in the form and sent it back as soon as we got it. we heard nothing for a week until last Thursday we had a missed call from the IS people, when my partner called them back they said they needed to know the date he moved into the flat as it wasn't on the form but when my partner was talking to them he mentioned that he had been working when we first were living here, they then said I shouldn't have been getting IS for that period and it would have to be investigated further and they asked us to sent them a letter saying when and where he worked etc and were unable to make a decision on our claim until they had investigated it. We sent them a letter with the details they asked for but I am worried sick about what's going to happen now. I honestly didn't think I had done anything wrong, obviously I thought they knew about my partner as I put his name on forms and he always talked to them on the phone for me etc so I thought they knew. Do you think they will see what happened as benefit fraud? If they do what action are they likely to take and what effect will this have on our other benefits? We are not receiving any IS at the moment and do not have enough money to live on and to pay the bills etc, do you think our is will be stopped permanently? I was originally hoping that we would get our IS paid this week sometime but now I'm worried it will be stopped permanently and that I might get a fine or worse, also I'm terrified that I might have to go for an interview as with my social phobia and panic attacks etc this would be really difficult for me to do. I would be really grateful for any advice etc. Thanks.

hello, I'm hoping someone on here can give me some advice. It's quite complex. I and my husband have been in receipt of income-based JSA, having not paid enough class 1 contributions (partners in a partnership-based company for the previous 25 years). We are receiving MIP, although not yet had a letter to say how much this is being reduced by under the interest rate changes. I have been awarded DLA at higher rate mobility & middle rate care, due to long term chronic autoimmune diseases. Following advice from the JC+, some months ago I filled in a JSA 6 and have been handing in medical certificates to the JC+ office, and I am classified as exempt from attending to 'sign on'. I was advised by JC+ that this was the best course of action - apparently I could otherwise have moved us both onto income-based ESA, or split the joint JSA claim, or applied for contributions-only ESA and continued with the joint JSA claim. Everyone I spoke with at the DWP had a different opinion on what we could or couldn't do; the JSA 6 option seemed like the least disruptive. My husband has received a letter today confirming that he will be awarded Carer's Allowance. We already receive a carer's premium in the JSA payment, & we understand that the JSA will be reduced by the amount of the Carer's Allowance. I do however have questions as to what happens next with my husband's JSA claim. I understand that he may be able to make changes to his JSA agreement, given that he will be in receipt of Carer's Allowance. Are there likely to be any other changes, or other options? Should we, or will we have to, move to Income Support, and what implications are there likely to be if this happens? Many thanks for any help anyone can offer. Ren

Hiya, I'm sort of asking for advice on behalf of my mom. I'll start from the beginning so I'm sorry if this is long! My mom is with her partner- he is divorced from his ex-wife. Her partner is her carer, they receive DLA, carer's allowance, a small bit of income support (which is his) and incapacity benefit (which is my mom's). Her partner has always been a hard worker until he had to care for my mother as her health has deteriorated, they put in a claim for income support to help pay the rent etc. Not long after they sorted the claims out, the Government contacted them and said they would be taking X amount each week (I think it's £7) to pay for a debt- claiming he had claimed income support back in 2000 although he was working. He says he hasn't done this and never would- he did work but it wasn't a cash in hand job or anything, so how would he be able to claim JSA and work at the same time? He's asked for proof of his signature numerous times but they have never sent them any information. This has been going on for the past few years and by now they should have paid the debt off. They phoned up today and the first person said they owed £700+ and my mom said they were wrong. They passed them around to different numbers- 2 different people said there was no debt but then the last which was the Government debt collector's- they said it was over £2000! Now when they were first trying to sort this all out, the only way they could access the files was to have the ex-wife's NI number. The first question they asked was "If it's my debt, why would I need her NI number?" The government people didn't know. Then they said it was a joint claim. Then they told them that there were government loans taken out (about 4 of them for various amounts) but because their NI numbers linked from the first Income Support claim (when he was working) they said that he had to pay them back. Now when he and his ex wife were married, they had the same first initials so it would be Mr and Mrs J Bloggs... so if J Bloggs took the debt out, it could have been either of them. So, today they were basically arguing the point that they still hadn't proof of what debt's they were (he really hasn't got a clue- he got up, went to work- he worked nights- and then came home to bed! He left all his wages upto his wife and she sorted the bills and shopping and that was it.) So they've asked for proof in writing, over the phone numerous times each, and they've visited the CAB and they've written letters for them- all of which have been ignored. Today on the phone the lady admitted that the signature etc would have been destroyed by now- the debts were taken out 2000 and before that. So what I need help with is where do they go from here?! I'm sorry it's so long (and confusing!) They are writing in to appeal yet again. We're wondering (and planning on) CC'ing the letter, but we're not quite sure who to etc. Is there any help that you can provide us with? My step-dad (mom's partner) is adament he didn't take it out, he's adament he didn't claim income support and work- I'd say he's one of the most law-abiding citizen's out there, so I really do believe him. Thanks in advance for any help. It's greatly appreciated.