Joe

I have to say I was forced to change from Income Support to Universal Credit, I presumed it would be easy but I was unaware of the pitfalls as someone who has disabilities it was a nightmare. The application was easy, or so I thought, I took out the up front payment as I was aware it can take up to 5 weeks to get your first payment, I didn't realise my first payment didn't even cover my rent. I had to ask a friend to help me out to pay my rent and also relied on her to help me with food etc until my next payment, I then realised the amount of mistakes they make. It then snowballed for me as my payments were all over the place as they kept sending me messages saying they had calculated my benefit wrong and had that going on for 3 months, was also explained that the disabilities element was no added to my claim as it was not the correct disability benefit I got on income support. I then had to apply for limited capacity for work related benefits this took 3 periods of UC and due to the whole being paid in arrears on UC took 4 months and this also was not back paid as they were legally aloud to not have to back pay this benefit, I think in total it took about 6 month for my UC to sort it self out but now it is sorted but I moved in with my partner and found out to my dismay they refused to pay my previous property rent as I told this this was unfair as UC is paid in arrears but they said it was not there fault it's the way UC works so have been left with a debt with my previous landlord for £200 so I was annoyed about that. It feels UC does not care about people's circumstances and also UC punishes you if you don't adhere to what you signed when you started UC I didn't advise a change in my circumstances, I was one day late and I got a letter saying I breached my UC agreement and they threatened me with a charge of £50 as punishment unless I explained why I was one day late. All in all be careful when you switch over and check everything.