Income based ESA and form LTF1

Hi there,

A couple of weeks ago I filled in a form from the DWP to change over from contributions based ESA to income based ESA as my year on contributions based ESA was coming to an end.

This morning I had one of the dreaded brown envelopes through the post and it contained form LTF1 'Information about where you live and the people who live with you'.

Basically my questions is twofold.

Firstly, is it standard procedure for the DWP to send this form out once you have applied to transfer from contributions based ESA to income based ESA?

And secondly, are there any pitfalls that I need to be aware of when filling this form in.

Basically my circumstances are as follows, own my property, have no savings to speak of, a friend lives me as I cannot afford to run the property on my own (I don't charge him any rent, we share the utility grocery bills etc. and he helps me with some of my care needs). We are not a couple (separate bedrooms) but have equal access to the rest of the house.

Just wondered if anyone could shed any light on this or had been through a similar process.

All the best,

Triskele.

Hi Colin,

Part of the assessment for Income Related ESA is to look at the income and assets of any partner who lives with you. You need to tell DWP about your friend and also make it clear that this person is not your partner.

The 'pitfall' that I can see is that you might have to persuade DWP that this friend is not your 'partner' in any sense of the word.

Thanks for the above advice Gordon.

Hi Mrs Hurtyback and Gordon,

Thanks for responding. On the form that I used to apply for the transfer from contributions based ESA to income based ESA I had already declared that my friend lives in the same house. I was just puzzled as the form LFT1 seems to ask most of the same questions that I had already answered.

I suppose I am wondering how explicit I need to be in part 4 - other information. Do I need to state that he is not my partner, put in details about shopping and cooking, friendship groups and social activities etc.

I don't receive DLA, however, I am in the process of applying for PIP, sent my completed form back about 3 weeks ago.

It all seems to be going on at the moment, I'm still waiting to hear about a decision from the completed ESA50 that I sent off 18 weeks ago (and that ESA50 was only 6 months after winning my appeal (reconsideration) from when I got transferred from IB to ESA. It's now overlapped with my request to transfer to income based ESA and, as mentioned above, I'm waiting to hear about my PIP claim as well. All told I've probably been waiting for decisions/challenging a decision for about 60% of the time during the last two years and they wonder why my health is getting worse <sighs>

Triskele