false advice from benefits office - could be fraud

I'm staying with one of my sisters atm. I wrote a letter to the benefits office saying I was going to be away from home for a month cos my care team was on leave and i didnt want to relapse.

I phoned up today to check they got the letter. Apparently they haven't yet because they have a lot of post and are still going through mid september.

The lady told me she could register it as a change of address but that I shouldn't bother because it would just mean a lot of paperwork and they would stop all my benefits in the meantime while they tried to get more info and it wasn't worth it and she didnt want to mess up my benefits.

After I finished the phonecall I felt a bit uneasy about not filling in the form (I could have filled it in over phone but was advised not to bother) so I called the benefits enquiry line to find out if a month away would affect any benefits. Apparently I would not be entitled to the severe disability element of my income support if I am staying with someone who doesn't receive DLA. (annoyingly my sister is putting in a claim for DLA so if she gets awarded it it will be backdated for the whole time I stayed with her so its a bit annoying how much extra paperwork it will all be).

I'm a bit shocked by the lady at the benefits office. If I hadn't felt uneasy and had just taken her advice instead of phoning hte benefits enquiry line I could have been committing fraud without knowing.

Am worried now though that if I relinquick claim to the severe disability element i wont be able to apply for it back and will instead be put onto ESA as cant make new claims for income support and i think it would count as new claim.

Premiums stopping and starting won't close your entire claim.

kicking myself now for not sending letter recorded delivery. I should know better; last time I had my dla reviewed I sent it in and when I hadn't heard after a couple of months I called them and they said they didn't get it. Fortunately I had a really good social worker who had a go at them and basically the form had been at bottom of pile and new ones kept being put on top of it so it wasn't dealt with.

I wish they didn't all give different advice. The benefits enquiry line said that you couldnt get the severe disability premium for income support if you were living with someone else unless the other person had DLA (can't find anything online confirming).

Ah, no it isn't element I get, it is premium.

So is it just if I live alone, or if i live with people but no one gets carers allowance? My siser doesnt get carers allowance) Do you by any chance know if there is time limits on the thing eg if i decided just to go for two weeks and called benefits office to have it counted as a 'holiday'.