Hi,

The offical receiver has told me that he intends to cancel my DRO (3 weeks before it was due to finish) as I now have over £1000 in the bank due to a back payment of Universal Credit.

I have received this money because the DWP declared me unfit for work and work related activity following a work capacity assessment.

I was very surprised he did this as many benefit sites and advisors said that this would not happen because I had received this money due to my medical condition.

(Crohn's Disease)

I am in a full Universal Credit area and I have heard that this money would have been disregarded had I been claiming Pip or other sickness benefits with a disability premium.

I was wondering what the law is regarding this?

I went to see CAB and they managed to talk to the assistant to the official reciever

but he stonewalled and was arguing that because my benefit did not include the words disability premium they did not have to ignore it.

He also said that he did not want to reverse the decision in case it set a precedent!

Cab tried to argue that it was a disability PREMIUM, and sent me on a trip to my local benefit office to ask if I could get a letter stating this.

However they said that Universal Credit does not have a disability premium.

I asked a lot of people as to what would happen about this backdated money including Debt Camel, Step Change, Debtline and they were all wrong

I would like to know where the law stands since I think I am being given the shaft with the Insolvency Service using a play on words as an excuse to cancel my DRO.

probably a good thing

who said all of your debts within your DRO are enforceable...esp if you are paying any DCA's?

Why would I be paying a DCA during the duration of a DRO. Surely you know that during a DBO my debtors are not allowed to contact me?

I don't think that the Insolvency Service are up to speed on Universal Credit.

Either that or this is some new policy to help out the banks and credit card companies where everybody on Universal Credit who is still recieveing a payment for limited capacity for work and work related activity is being screwed over!

A lump sum from benefits back-dating

These may sound large but they are often not a problem because this treated as “income” over the period the back-dating relates to not “capital”.

The question is would you have exceeded the “spare income of £50” limit if you had been getting the correct amount of benefits all the time.

If the benefit is a claim for disability (PIP, DLA, AA) then an extra cost line for the disability would also be included in this re-calculation.

In 2018 the government is reviewing a lot of Pip awards

– if you get a backdated sum for this, it shouldn’t make a difference to your DRO as any disability benefits you receive should be offset with an expenses line labelled “adult care costs” or something similar. the net effect on your “disposable income” is then zero.

what I meant is were any of your debts sold to DCA's before you took out the DRO...did you check their enforceability first?

I've moved your thread to the benefits forum and slightly retitled it, you'll probably get better results here

dx

No they were still with the original credit card companies.

OK, I don't know anything about DROs and so on, but UC (when paid on grounds of limited capability for work) and ESA are not "disability" benefits in the commonly understood sense. They are "income replacement" benefits.

Some benefits, such as PIP or DLA are paid to assist with the extra costs of disability. This is why the decision to award them (or not) is based on an assessment of the claimants care or mobility needs. UC and ESA are intended to cover the costs of daily living: food, bills etc - costs that everyone has to deal with. This is presumably what your OR is thinking of.

Antone has hit the nail on the head.

UC is a means tested benefit, as is ESA income related benefit. They are to provide income to meet daily living costs and count as income.

DLA and PIP are different so they would not be counted in the same way.

The OR is correct in their assessment, that the LCWRA backdating is additional income that had not been considered before,

Just a quick question.

If a DRO is cancelled, will the record of it also be removed from a credit file?

no

Thanks,

thats what I was wondering about.

In that case it looks like there is nothing I can do, but I'm going to spend just over a third of my money on white goods, clothes, bedding, food, rent and other things that I need for the house.

I wont be buying flat screen TVs or computers but I will keep £700 just in case I need to go bankrupt at a later date and I will use about half of my benefit money to offer my creditors a final settlement of 18p in the pound of what I owe. If they refuse then I will have no option but to go bankrupt.

No, but the extra amount of Universal Credit that I receive was awarded after a work capacity assessment found that I was unfit to work because of my medical condition

.

I think this is just another case of smoke and mirrors from the Tories, just like when they changed the name of sick notes to fit notes.

Just because the benefit is not called disability benefit does not mean that it is not being given because of a disability or sickness which it clearly is.

Limited Capability for Work and Work Related Activity element is awarded to those not capable of any work activity. It is additional income to help meet the increased cost of living that someone in this position might face. For example they might need to regularly attend Doctors or Hospital appointments. They might have extra costs to help them live their normal daily lifes.

In terms of backpay, I think the argument that you would make to the OR is that you have struggled to meet basic living costs over a period of time and what the consequences are. Demonstrate why this money is needed to help with your increased costs because of a disability.

I believe you can apply to the court to have this reviewed, but not sure of process.

Thanks, you hit the nail on the head, in that everyone I've taken this to, including all the big advice agencies have failed to mention how and if I could take this further.

I did over hear a conversation between my CAB advisor and a senior member of the insolvency service, and he said that he did not want to overturn the decision in case it set a precedent.

Hi, I am in a full Universal Credit area and I have heard that this money would have been disregarded had I been claiming Pip or other sickness benefits with a disability premium.

Not quite, if you were not in a full Universal Credit area, you would be receiving ESA instead.

If during the DRO moratorium you received a backdated award of ESA while also receiving PIP, you might have received a backdated payment of Severe Disability Premiums or Enhanced Disability Premiums if you were eligible for either payment.

However, regarding the property limit for a DRO, it is only the amount of the backdated disability premiums which is disregarded and not the full ESA backdated payment. Where the backdated ESA payment minus any disability premiums is over the £1000 DRO property limit, the DRO would be cancelled as it has been in your case.

Regarding no disability premiums being awarded under Universal Credit, that is purposeful cut to disability benefits introduced by the Conservative government.

The back dated Universal Credit I recieved was for limited capacity for work and work related activity.

The fact that I was still able to recieve this over a year after it had been cancelled by the conservatives was because I first claimed Universal Credit eight months before the conservatives did away with this for sick people claiming Universal Credit.

The fact that it took over 21 months from when I first made my claim to me actually recieveing it is down to the conservatives and the D.O.W.P.s incompetence at rolling it out.

To be clear, if I had recieved this money after the 13 week assessment period, rather than waiting from 2016 to 2018 then my DRO would still be in force and I would not be looking at bankruptcy.

The back dated Universal Credit I recieved was for limited capacity for work and work related activity. The fact that I was still able to recieve this over a year after it had been cancelled by the conservatives...

The limited capability for work and work related activity (LCWRA) component which existed as part of ESA still applies to Universal Credit. It is the limited capability for work (LCW) component which was scrapped for both new ESA claimants and UC claimants after 3 April 2017.

This cut the amount for (new) ESA and UC claimants deemed to have LCW by £29.05 per week. The £29.05 per week cut to LCW claimants is in addition to the disability premium cuts.

Your frustration is understandable but if you had been receiving the extra £29.05 per week when your DRO application was considered, that would have been counted as income towards the £50 per month DRO limit. You may still have been eligible for the DRO if that additional amount was incorporated in to expenses.

I don't agree with your DRO being cancelled but it's correct where the sum you have received is a backdating of your LCWRA component and is over £1000.

Your frustration is understandable but if you had been receiving the extra £29.05 per week when your DRO application was considered, that would have been counted as income towards the £50 per month DRO limit. You may still have been eligible for the DRO if that additional amount was incorporated in to expenses.

That should not read £29.05 but the amount you receive as part of the LCWRA component so £X amount whatever that is.

I submitted a new budget to the OR which included the extra £328 for limited capacity for work and work related activity about 4 hours before I found out that the D.O.W.P. was going to give me a backdated payment on the very same day and the OR excepted my new budget which I completed with the help of Step Change.

This is how I know that I would have been okay had I received this money over a period of time instead of recieveing a lump sum.

I submitted a new budget to the OR which included the extra £328 for limited capacity for work and work related activity about 4 hours before I found out that the D.O.W.P. was going to give me a backdated payment on the very same day and the OR excepted my new budget which I completed with the help of Step Change.

 

This is how I know that I would have been okay had I received this money over a period of time instead of recieveing a lump sum.

Before this lump sum was paid, did you owe any previous debts to DWP, HMRC or Council Tax ?

If so, any lump sum created is normally offered towards the debts. But the DRO might have stopped such an action.

UC normally pay any backdated amount as a lump sum to the claimant, unless the amount can be offered against existing Government debt.

If you want to fight this, you really need advice from someone that offers legal advice on disability benefits and debt. Have a search online for organisations that might be able to assist you.

No, the only thing I owed before my lump sum was paid was unsecured credit card debt, which was the reason I went the DRO route.

I submitted a new budget to the OR which included the extra £328 for limited capacity for work and work related activity about 4 hours before I found out that the D.O.W.P. was going to give me a backdated payment on the very same day and the OR excepted my new budget which I completed with the help of Step Change.

 

This is how I know that I would have been okay had I received this money over a period of time instead of recieveing a lump sum.

If you receive notice that the DRO has been revoked, you can challenge the revocation on these grounds, although you should speak to your DRO adviser or approved intermediary before dong so.