Carer's Allowance for a couple both on IS and DLA

I've been asked to unravel this request. After spending about an hour looking around the Direct Gov website I threw the towel in and decided to ask the experts. So ! Can anyone answer the following for me ?

A married couple in receipt of Income Support. The man ( main claimant ) also gets the disability premium ( ie IB50 ), his wife has also passed the PCA with a successful IB50 application but only gets her NI stamp contribution paid.

The man gets MRC ( awarded yesterday and back paid for 13 months ) and his wife gets HRM DLA


Can his wife claim carers allowance and if so :

A: How is it backdated to match her husbands MRC award

B: Does Enhanced Disability Premium or The Severe Disability Premium enter into this scenario ?

I've found the answer to this, but it's raised another issue regarding overlapping benefits.

The person who would be claiming carers allowance has also won an IB50 award but does not receive any money. They only get pension credits.

So would the DWP still see this has an overlapping benefit and reject there carers allowance application even though they don't get any money from the IB50 award ?

Gordon wrote:

Try the Disability Benefits Helpline
Gordon

Already have to no avail

Gordon wrote:

My understanding of overlapping benefits is that the overlapped benefits payments are cancelled out by the payments you receive from another benefit. If you are not receiving any payments then this cancellation would not happen.

My concern was a comment made by the DWP who said the system would just flag up an IB award, but not what the award was and therefore confuse the claim. Further suggesting it may have to be appealed to establish the facts.

Gordon wrote:

You need to be careful as the benefits of the person being cared for can be impacted by your receiving CA.

The claim is not mine, I wish it was as it would mean I won my DLA tribunal

Gordon wrote:

Hope this helps

Gordon

Any comment, suggesion or idea always does, many thanks for you input.

I'm out of my depth with this one, but I'm interested in anything anyone else can add, so if it goes onto the second page without further solutions being added, feel free to post another message to bump it.

Survivor wrote:

I'm out of my depth with this one, but I'm interested in anything anyone else can add, so if it goes onto the second page without further solutions being added, feel free to post another message to bump it.

I've managed to solve this issue now by using the following advice agency's :

Benefit Enquiry Line : 0800 88 22 00 ( Freephone )
Carers Line : 0808 808 777 ( Freephone )
DWP's Carer's Allowance Unit 0845 608 4321 ( NOT freephone )


They were all very knowledgeable and helpful in all aspects of Carers claim's. I hope this may help others with similar questions.