Moving To Universal Credit – Should you stay on current benefits and tax credits, or not?

There has been a lot of information in the newspapers and online about some people needing to move to universal credit and it has caused some confusion.

Here are some key things to consider:

• Some people are better off on universal credit than on the old benefits (legacy benefits) and tax credits. You might like to get some calculations done to see if you might be entitled to more money.
• You should also consider if there are any new requirements that universal credit might bring, known as conditionality, such as to be asked to look for more work than you currently do. If you move to universal credit because you choose to, then this is referred to as Natural Migration. You’ll just get the normal entitlement to universal credit.
• Once you have gone on to universal credit, there is no going back to old benefits and tax credits

If you’ve worked out that you aren’t better off on universal credit, then staying put on your old benefits and tax credits makes the most sense. However, you may not be able to stay on them for much longer, because the government is phasing the old ones out. This process is called Managed Migration.

When your case is chosen for this, you will be sent a Managed Migration Notice and it will give you a date 3 months into the future. This 3 month deadline is when you need to claim Universal Credit by. Your legacy benefits will then stop and you would get universal credit instead. If you used to get more money on your old benefits and tax credits, you might get a top-up payment within Universal Credit, to keep you roughly on the same money. This is called Transitional Protection.

Transitional Protection is an extra amount of Universal Credit money, to help ease the switch to the new benefit, without you having a drop in income. What needs to be remembered though, is that it only applies to Managed Migration. So if you go over before you have a Managed Migration Notice, and you would be worse off on universal credit, your income will go down and you won’t get any Transitional Protection. So it’s really important to think about when’s the best time to go.

Transitional Protection aims to keep your money about the same as before you move, you want to make sure your old benefits and tax credits are paying you out at the highest amount they should be. In other words, you might like to get a benefit check to see if you’ve been missing out on anything. If so, you should have time to get it put right, before your deadline day. If you have a deadline date that’s after 8th April, you might want to consider waiting until then, so that the annual increase in benefits is taken into account. For both those situations where you have more in your old benefits or tax credits, it means you get more Transitional Protection.

You also need to think about the timing of when you get your old benefits and tax credits, as tax credits no longer pay out once you claim universal credit, even if you were just about to get some money. So you might need to wait to get your next payment. With housing benefit and other old benefits, there is a final
payment 2 weeks after the universal credit claim and then they stop.

However, don’t delay claiming past the deadline day in your letter, as your old benefits and tax credits will stop once that date passes as stated on your Managed Migration Notice. In some cases the deadline can be extended, but it is best to get advice early and plan to move within the deadline if possible.

If you’d like any benefit calculations to be done or to talk through the timing of claiming universal credit and any new conditions for getting the benefit, do get in touch with Citizens Advice Leighton-Linslade on (01525) 373878.

More information is on the government website: www.gov.uk