Yes, I'm not too sure but I think if neither of us was claiming CA then we wouldn't be entitled to IS.

Thanks Mikey. At least the form has gone in and because it's recorded they can't say they didn't get it. Hopefully that's the hard part over with and they'll backdate. I don't think there will be too much hassle in getting carers to change one ca claim to another as they seem easier to deal with and sent the ca form out the next day after one phone call . . . . . .trying to convince IS that we want to close one application and have the other start the next day might be a tougher nut to crack though. lol Will keep thread updated. Thanks again.

Just to update on my progress with this. We've had a battle to get IS to send out an IS10 form. We requested it four times but it never came and they said they had posted it out on different occassions and it must've got lost in the post. We've never had any post go missing here. Anyway, after more phone calls eventually a form came but it wasn't an IS10 but a form for claiming Income Support. After yet more phone calls to them we finally got the IS10 and have sent it back via recorded delivery yesterday so it's a matter of waiting to see if they agree to backdate to January when my husband's dla claim started. I have the carers allowance form here but am not going to submit that until we have husbands backdated SDP sorted out otherwise I think it would just confuse them. Once we have his SDP then I'll send in the CA form for me and also request an IS10 form again, this time for me. CA people said to just include a note explaining that we wanted to swap over from husband caring for me to me caring for him. Then we'll have to notify IS of the same and get the claim changed over into my name. It's been a bit of a struggle so far but we're getting there.

Thanks Mikey. That's great to get all the figures. I really appreciate you helping like this. I'll post up here next week and hopefully all will go smoothly. Fingers Crossed.

Thankyou Mickey and Nystagmite. I'm very grateful for all your help as I couldn't have made sense of any of it on my own. I will get on to IS and get the ball rolling. I'll keep this thread updated with how I get on in case it will help someone else. Thanks again. It's a big relief to be contacting IS now armed with all the info I need.

Thankyou Mickey. That's great. I think I know now what I'm doing. I'll get on to them asap. Just one more thing now I'm not sure about. We were getting £41.10 up until now which was called 'disability premium' for me. Are we still entitled to this or does this stop when SDP kicks in?

Thankyou for that Mikey. What I'm thinking of doing is claiming CA for hubby and in order to qualify for the SDP, he can stop claiming CA for me. I would then get IS switched over into my name. Because of the nature of his illness he is more likely to stay on DLA at high rate (or personal independance allowance from next year) than me (I am claiming mid-rate), so it might make sense to get everything in order now with me as IS main claimant and me getting CA for him?

Just a quick question regarding if anything changed with my DLA. I'm on the mid-care so if they changed me to low care at any stage my husband would lose his Carers Allowance which in turn would mean we would lose Income Support. In that case, could we then stop the Severe Disability Premium for my husband and change to me claiming Carers Allowance so that our income support would continue? Would they let us swap over claims like that?

Thanks for all the help. I'll have to get on to IS next week and see what has happened with the payment that was due today. So it's probably looking like we'd be financially better off per week with husband claiming the Severe Disability Premium instead of me claiming Carers Allowance. We can inform them of that when we ring to sort out what happened with the payment this week.

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IS was due today but they didn't pay it.

My husband has rang IS today and informed them of his DLA award and about the Enhanced Disablity Premium. The woman said she would sort it out . He asked about me claiming Carers Allowance for him and she said can do all that for us in IS. I imagine she'll send out a carers allowance form for me to fill in?

I just want to make sure I've got it right. So if I claim carers allowance then we would be £31 better off per week. Whereas if I don't claim carers allowance we'd get a severe disability premium of £55.30. So would we be financially better off then claiming the severe disability premium instead of the carers allowance? Thanks in advance.

Thanks very much your help fluffy25 and Nystagmite. I will contact income support tomorrow and start the ball rolling. Thanks again.

Thanks for that. So I would need to put in a claim for Carers Allowance and also we would need to claim the enhanced disability premium?

I've tried researching dwp site and it does seem to say that a husband and wife both claiming mid/higher rate dla can claim carers allowance for each other?

I'm not sure but think it is possible. I think technically 'caring for someone' can mean watching over someone so one person can watch over the other and vice versa even if they are both ill.

I'm hoping someone might be able to advise. I am on DLA Low Mobility and Mid Care. My husband claims Carer's Allowance for me and due to this we get couple rate Income Support. This has been the situation for the last couple of years. My husband has been very ill in recent months and has just received High Care and High Mobility DLA. I am confused as to what premiums we can apply for and also how this affects the Carer's Allowance he is paid. Can I now claim Carers Allowance for him so we would both be claiming carers allowance for one another? Also what premiums are we allowed to claim and would this affect our entitlement to Income Support? I've tried searching for information but I'm more confused than ever. Thanks in advance.

Yes, I believe the CML have put in a proposal asking for everyone to get paid their exact mortgage payment per month as at the moment some people are getting overpayments and others, like me, are having to top up their SMI payment every month out of their benefits due to a shortfall. I think the CML are saying that this is causing a lot of problems for people and is unfair. The Government also are planning on paying SMI directly to the claimant as opposed to the way they are doing it at the moment which is paying directly to the mortgage lender and again, the CML aren't happy with the proposed change. Thanks very much for that Mikey. It hadn't really crossed my mind that old claimants might have protected rights and their capital limit would stay at the £200,000 (which it was at the time we first claimed). That's definitely given us a bit of hope now. :)

I know they are talking about putting a 'charge' on properties where you would get the smi if you are entitled, but if you ever sold the house then you would have to pay the money you got from the smi back to the dwp out of the sale of the property. Tbh I wouldn't have a problem with that. The main worry is that if they bring the capital amount down to £100,000 in Jan 2013 then we couldn't afford the extra shortfall. At the moment its a major struggle to pay the shortfall of £210 per week which we use our DLA money to pay, meaning we are living on very little. I had thought that whatever they decided to do in Jan 2013 with regards to smi would apply to everyone - new claimants as well as those already claiming smi. Do you think that if they do what they are planning (and bring the capital amount back down to £100,000) that this will only apply to new claimants and that if we already started claiming at the time when the £200,000 limit was in place then they would continue to pay as normal for exisitng claimants. In other words the change would only affect new claimants? Thanks in advance.

We are still in the same house Mikey. It turned out that the mortgage definitely wasn't portable so we had to stay put. Since the SMI changes kicked in we now have to pay over £200 per month out of the benefits as there is a shortfall between what they pay and what our monthly mortgage payment is (we have an interest-only mortgage). We are just about clinging on by the skin of our teeth and the house would now be in negative equity. I think the changes coming in Jan 2013 will mean that we will have to sell the house and rent as I believe they are planning on bringing the capital amount they will pay SMI on back down to £100,000 instead of the £200,000 that applies at the minute.

I should've updated this at the time (will do next time) as I wouldn't have had the confidence to do it without your advice on here Mikey, so thank you very much indeed. You saved us from the clutches of the dreaded ESA () so am very grateful

Hi Greg, Sorry about that, I should have updated this at the time and thanked the members who helped. The change-over from esa to income support all went very smoothly with no problems at all. It was such a relief to get away from esa as they were a complete and utter nightmare. Found Income support completely different - no hassle from them and very efficent. Don't hesitate in changing over Greg. It's very simple to do and despite the conflicting information I had gotten from different organisations beforehand about whether it was possible, in the end it was changed over very quickly with no missed payments. Hope that's helped and thanks to the members that gave me advice at the time about this.