ESA and HB or Universal Credit – Help Needed (Too complicated for me!)

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Hello. I will try and be as brief as I can as this follows on from a thread I posted in the employment section which has now been resolved so I won’t go in to any details.

 

I resigned and get full pay for the whole of November as well as full pay (Gardening leave) for December. Overall this was the right thing to do for me based on the likely outcome. My full pay went in today and will also do so for December as confirmed by HR. I resigned on medical grounds as my A&D got a lot worse and have been to the GP about this and all disciplinary action against me has been dropped. If DWP write to my employers or indeed another employer writes to them there will be no 'resigned under investigation' mandated.

 

Now, I am in a UC area but was advised I should reapply for ESA and HB. I will only get ESA if my condition has got worse, I am seeing my GP again on Friday to discuss this. If my ESA claim fails it will be Universal Credit where I get a lot less. When I previously signed on and claimed HB my total payment was around £660pm. Under UC it seems I can only claim shared bedroom rate as I live at home with parents (private rent 2 bed) so my UC rate is around £580pm (used an on line calculator) This would leave me a shortfall of rent and leave me very short as the rest of my rent (50/50 with parents) would need to come out of my JSA element of UC.

I also understand that if you voluntarily resign the JSA element of UC would carry a sanction but as I intend to claim ESA and HB initially based on medical reasons (I have sick notes and will get an updated one this week) I do not think there is any sanction, however, if my ESA claim fails and I do have to claim UC (housing and JSA elements) even if I am looking for some form of work based on my health and demeanour at the moment and my resignation being on health grounds I also do not think I should have a sanction held against me as I still have rent and bills to pay.

 

If I do not get ESA and have to claim UC is there any discretionary top up I can claim? If not I guess this is all my fault anyway and I will have to suffer and get on to gas and electric, credit card, SKY etc. and reduce payments and make a 'deal' with them until I can start paying more again. I have no savings either.

 

Can someone also advise that if I am paid my salary on Dec 16th taking me to Jan 16th at what point should claim my ESA and HB or UC? As it takes 6 weeks can I claim anytime soon citing I am no longer employed from the end of December and funds run out on Jan 16th so that I can get my payments sooner rather than later? If I have nothing for 6 weeks (is it backdated?) not sure how I am going to pay my rent or bills!

 

In addition to all of this I also have an overpayment of £1100 working tax credits to pay back but when I spoke to them about this they said recovery is based on circumstances and won'tbe until the next financial year anyway

Many thanks in advance