Income Support

Hi,

my brother has learning disabilities and needs 24/7 care.He recieves the high rate of DLA both for care and mobility.He used to live in his own bungalow and Mencap where his service provider.But unfortunately his health is failing and he had to be moved to a private nursing home (BUPA)to which he pays a small rent each week. This is where my problems arise.

I contacted the DLA who where brilliant and i have sorted everything out with them so no problem. Then i had to contact Income Support what a nightmare!! I had to give them dates when he moved which was AUG 08,then i had to fill in a new claim form because he had gone into a nursing home, so this reduced his money by £69.00 so no problems, then they started asking for bank statements for when his money went above £10,000,so i had the bank statements sent to them so i thought end of the matter

They are now asking about his DLA going back to 20004 and that they are trying to find out when he went into supported tenancy and that they want bank statements from that period. I am now becoming very annoyed as I have never been in control of his finances or his well being. I do not know who has filled in dla and income support forms and the most important thing is that I had to apply for "Court of Protection" which only came into force in Febuary 2010.

I have been fully cooperative with income support, but now they are asking questions that I cannot answer and I only took full control of all his monies and wellbeing Febuary of this year.If some one can help me on how I stand with all these problems I would really appreciate it as I am only trying to be honest with them.

As moderators our area of expertise is in relation to disability living allowance, attendance allowance, the personal capability assessment used in connection with incapacity benefits, and the work capability assessment used in connection with employment and support allowance. So those are the only subjects on which we can provide reliable information. However, you need to bear in mind that boards like this can never provide advice to individual claimants about their specific circumstances, for that you need to use an advice agency.

All we can offer is general information about how the system works. However, we cannot offer advice to individuals about a specific benefits problem under any circumstances. To give accurate and reliable advice about a specific benefits problem, we'd need to know a great deal about income, savings, health and more. To give advice without all this information would seriously risk misinforming you.

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