Antone, Thank you very much for the information which has helped us out.

Hi Everyone Can you please advise me. Currently I am in receipt of Contribution based ESA and in the support group. My wife has been ill for a while and has now had to leave work. If she makes a claim for ESA will that immediately stop my claim? How will it affect the payments I currently receive, will they stop or be changed in any way? Will I be reassessed for Universal Credit etc? Thank you.

atone, how do you know that everything in this forum is based on fact and sound evidence? Is it just because you say it is? Oh by the way, thanks for the link you gave I read that information a few weeks ago but thanks anyway.

Springboard, that is so true! My point exactly why you should make your own recording, and under no circumstances trust what they tell you about tapes. They will tell you things like 'You can have a copy when the interview ends' yet, the only time they are legally allowed to give you a copy is if they PROSECUTE you which could take them months or even years to do! So you see, they are full of deception and should never be trusted. In fact, they are encouraged to make every effort not to give you a copy in case they want to interview you again and you may remember what you said in a previous interview and use it to defend yourself! Brilliant tacit.... Oh dear, now I am going to be accused of writing conspiracy stories not just reading them here

Flumps1976 thanks for a great answer. I assume that if you accept the 'terms or contract' of the above that state 'for domestic use' then that implies that you cannot use the recording in any other aspect outside of the house or family home. Which is a way to ensure that you can't produce it in a court of law....Clever that.

Hey bio, of course I do! It seems you may write a lot of conspiracy stories! A good example being the one that you posted in response to my original question I asked about the legality of making your own recording and did not ask for 'help' about how to get a copy of their tape.... But hey thanks for trying to 'help'.......... The internet is littered with heartbreaking stories of people being in IUC's who are never given forms, never asked to sign tapes and never asked to sign the written statements that are taken during these interrogations! Oops, I mean interviews. A conspiracy theory nearly slipped out of me there.

Hey bio great suggestion! That never crossed mind, yes sure great idea, just trust that you will ever get a copy of an unadulterated tape or better still let them just intimidate you on their tape which stays in their system! So, why bother thinking for yourself and taking your own recording device to protect yourself and ensure a fair playing field? Which, I now understand is your legal right to do if you are ever invited for a cosy chat in an IUC? But yes, of course you are correct why bother?...............

Can anyone confirm that wanting to make your own recording in an IUC is a legal right of the person being interviewed in the IUC? They may not like it, but can they deny you the right to make your own recording for your own protection?

Please, please please don't think of killing yourself!! It looks like you have had a really bad time of it recently. Please take a deep breath and try to think clearly. From your post I can tell that you are very angry and yet a confident person, so use the confidence that you have to think correctly. I can't advise you on your problem but I understand how soul destroying it is to feel as desperate as you feel at the moment. I wish you luck and you know, it will all come out right in the end.

Thank you for the information!

Hi All Sorry if the answer to this is on the forum somewhere already. Is there a way to request a couple of years statements from my bank without having to pay for each separate one? Is there a sort of, regulation I can ask for them under ect? Not sure how to go about it... Thank you.

Thank you for that response. I just wanted to be double sure about not informing them now or anytime in the future about savings was OK. Thank you so much.

Hi All Is it possible to be accused by ESA of not informing of a change in circumstances in savings if your are in receipt of Contribution ESA, which is non means tested benefit that does not take savings into account anyway? Thank you.

Thanks for your help...

Oh heck, so non means tested capital is treated as means tested capital for CTB! I did not know that I thought that as we are in receipt of a non means tested benefit that it would not be taken into account as they just paid our award. Although if they had waited for our bank statements we would of known as they would of told us we were not eligible for a full rebate as our capital at the time of our CTB claim was about 10-13k.

Does that mean that if the DWP are not taking our savings into account as they are non means tested then the council will do the same? I am slightly confused by your answer Thanks

Thanks for the advice and I will let you know what they decide. We are now concerned that we may be accused of hiding savings which will result in an over-payment even thought, we never gave them any misleading info when we made our claim in Feb 2010. They just never gave us a chance to hand in our statements before they awarded our benefit. Is it normal practice for them to not wait and award benefit before they have the bank statements and any other info they ask for in their system and calculated, and then not stop the benefit if they don't get this info? We don't want benefit we are not entitled to but we also don't want to be seen as trying to cheat them.

Hi id6052 thanks for replying, much appreciated. 1: We have no idea why they assessed our claim as esa(ir) instead of esa(cb) but you ask a good question there! 2: When we made our claim we said we were in receipt of ESA and handed them our most recent ESA award which states very clearly it is contribution based. They photocopied all our evidence of income so it is surprising they made a mistake about what type of ESA it was. 3: Our notification letter back from them does clearly state that they are basing our claim on income related ESA. Does any of this come to an exception? Thanks

Hello everyone! I am new here and would really appreciate your knowledge and a moment of your time please. On Feb 5th 2010 my wife and I made a claim for council tax benefit. I receive contribution based ESA (which is non means tested so our savings don’t count in calculations) and my wife works part time 10 hours a week. We get child benefit for our son and some child tax credits. We handed in ALL the information we had on the above income and were asked to provide bank statements which we said we would organise. On the 8th Feb 2010 three days later we got our council tax award and thought no more about it. We assumed the council had decided we were entitled to benefit. Two weeks ago we had an issue with our son’s school meals and wrote to the council and our MP about it. We got a response quite quickly and interestingly in the letter the council also informed us that they had our council tax claim down as ESA income based but had now changed that to the correct benefit of ESA contribution based (how they made that mistake is beyond us as it stated contribution based on my ESA award letter that I showed them back in Feb 2010) They also apologies for their error and acknowledge that they did ask us for statements in Feb 10 but did not pursue the request due to ‘lack of clarity of our benefit type’ and have now asked us to provide two recent consecutive bank statements for all accounts including savings. Well, we got ALL our bank statements together and went down to the office and handed them in as we were requested to do. We are now concerned that we may be accused of hiding savings which will result in a large overpayment even thought we never gave them any misleading info when we made our claim in Feb 2010. As our main benefit of contribution based ESA is non means tested and we are allowed any amount of savings, all this time we assumed that the council did not peruse any statements in Feb 10 because of this fact. We have never claimed council tax before so don’t know how it works etc. If an overpayment is proved and we are not entitled to the benefit, then we want to pay it back in full even if it is their fault. Can they say we should have known that our benefit was given in error? Or can we claim that they made an ‘official error’ to which we as the claimants did not contribute? Thank you so much you wonderful people who help on this forum!