Benifits - Serious illness

[bill1980]

Just after some advice on the following and maybe some general fiancial advice rather than full ins and outs of benefits so sorry if I have posted in wrong section and also sorry if it sounds a bit depressing.

 

My mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Hopefully treatable with a 6-9 course of chemo. Anyway.

 

They havent really thought about it yet but sooner or later my mom will go onto half/no pay from work. Mother earns about £1300 a month and father earns a touch less. They have never been much good with money and the majority of their wage goes to paying off debt which totals around the £10.000. Unsurpringly they have no insurances.

 

If she does start to lose any pay then they will struggle to pay the mortgage/debts and with this news my dad is also struggling mentally and also drinking so I also worry about him loosing his job. If it gets to the stage where they have got to worry about money on top of everything else then it may be too much.

 

Knowing nothing about benefits I believe they would be entitled to is carers benefits and free prescriptions. Is this correct? Can they claim for anything else? How much is carers benefit? Posted it in here as I am hoping that I can get involved and help to manage their finances through benefits and entitlements.

 

To keep the cheery theme going they have also talked about wills. They were also talking about signing the house over to another family member just in case they have to go into a home. Can you do this? Dont know how true it is but our neighbour passed their house to their kids to avoid paying care home fees. Seems like to good to be true

 

many thanks

[blondebubbles]

Carers allowance details are here.

 

https://www.gov.uk/carers-allowance/eligibility

 

The person claiming needs to earn under £102 per week and the person they are claiming for needs to be in receipt of a disability benefit such as PIP or DLA (more details are in the link).

 

Details on claiming PIP are here

 

https://www.gov.uk/pip/overview

[estellyn]

If your mother works she will be getting SSP (statutory sick pay) as part of or in addition to her contractual sick pay. Once the SSP is near it's end (it lasts for 28 weeks total, but any periods of SSP that link by 8 weeks (I think) also count towards the total), she should ask her employer for a 'SSP 1' form, and apply for ESA. She would initially be awarded assessment rate of £72.40, and then would be assessed for wrag or support group - this explains it with links to descriptors http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/employment-and-support-allowance-overview . Contribution based wrag can be awarded for 365 days, there is no limit to contribution based support group. If they were both not working then income based ESA could be awarded, with the possibility of some help with mortgage

 

 

If she is disabled for at least 3 months, then she can claim PIP (new benefit instead of DLA) if she believes she scores enough points for the criteria ( link on this page for table of descriptors http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/benefits_w/benefits_sick_or_disabled_people_and_carers_ew/benefits_personal_independence_payment_e/benefits_the_pip_assessment_e/pip_activities_descriptors_and_points.htm )

If she is awarded any rate of daily living component (needs to score at least 8 points), then someone could claim carer's allowance for her, but they would need to earning less than £100 a week and caring for her for at least 35 hours a week.

 

 

Any benefits awarded would be far lower than earnings, so it would also be important for your parents to get some debt advice aswell.

[estellyn]

Re passing the house to a child, not sure about this. I seem to remember that it's still counted as capital for a period of time - 7 years comes to mind, not sure if that's still right.

[honeybee13]

Hello there. I'm sorry you're having to post about such a depressing topic. I have the same thing with my mother atm.

 

My understanding is that if you sign a house over to someone in order to claim benefits/avoid tax, you have a problem. If trying to claim from a local authority, I think this would be viewed as deprivation of capital.

 

The last time I was trained on this, which isn't recent, the local authority could reduce what they paid towards care to allow for the capital they assumed the person claiming for care still had, as if they hadn't given it away.

 

I think this is worth checking out.

 

HB

[estellyn]

This explains some issues:

 

 

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/inheritancetax/pass-money-property/pass-home-to-children.htm

 

 

and this:

 

 

http://garsideandhoy.co.uk/08/the-danger-in-handing-over-your-house-to-your-children/

[Asleep In Wonder]

All patients with a diagnosis of cancer are entitled to free prescriptions. The exemption covers ALL prescription drugs, not just the ones related to the diagnosis. The exemption lasts for five years.

 

 

Your Mum will need to get a FP92A form from her GP or Consultant, fill it out, get their signature and then send it to NHS Business Services Authority (BSA) Sometimes the GP surgery will do the sending off bit.

 

 

Your Mum will be sent an Exemption Card, which she must present at the time she presents prescriptions to any pharmacy.

 

 

Ask her to keep receipts for any prescriptions she has to pay for before she gets the exemption card. Pharmacies have a special receipt (FP57 form) that they use for this situation and she will be refunded the charges once she has the proof of exemption (the card)

 

 

I don't think I can post links here yet, but Macmillan and Cancer Research have good, reliable information in a sensible and understandable form for everyone who is either diagnosed or looking after someone with cancer.

 

 

All the best.

[bill1980]

Thats amazing. Thanks very much, really appreciated.