Expat on ESA requires urgent advice please.

I will try to keep this brief and to the point. My partner is 60 years of age. He was awarded Incapacity Benefit in 2003. Later that same year we moved to Spain due to the financial pressure of living on benefit in the UK - I am Spanish and I am also my partner's carer. The DWP immediately stopped IB payments after I notified them of our move abroad. The Spanish Health authority threatened the DWP with action in the European Court and then the payments resumed and were backdated.

In 2009 our financial situation declined further and we were forced to move again to a different european country with a lower cost of living. (I prefer not to give details that may identify him.) He has complied with and satisfied each of the numerous requests for a medical review since 2003. He was put in the Support Group when he was switched over to ESA.

At the beginning of August 2015 he was informed that a detailed medical report was being arranged for him via the health authority in our country of residence and that he would receive a mandatory appointment. He would be required to provide a translator at his own expense, if necessary.

Nothing happened until March of this year when the local health authority simply sent him the original request from the DWP that they had received in August of the previous year plus a more recent letter from the DWP chasing them up for the report. There was no appointment for a medical. I returned all the documentation to the DWP International Pension Centre in Wolverhampton immediately by recorded delivery.

Last Tuesday, the 23rd of August 2016, he received another letter from the local health authority, delivered by courier. It contained two letters from them with attachments:

The first letter is dated 17/08/2016. It advises of the attachment of form E001 UK from the DWP and of the enclosure of an additional letter from the local health authority to my partner dated 11/09/2015 - that is not a typo, the letter really is almost a year old.

Form E001 UK from the DWP is dated 18/05/2016 and requests a medical assessment using the EU liaiason (sic.) form E213. It also complains that this was originally requested in August of 2015 and further chased in December of the same year to no effect.

The second enclosed letter from the local health authority, dated 18/09/2015, advises of the attachment of form E213 (Detailed Medical Report) and a letter from the DWP to them dated 7/08/2015 requesting the medical examination. The main body of the letter is very confusing, but states that my partner should go to his local GP for the assessment of his permanent incapacity for work using form E213 and that once this form has been completed it should be submitted to the local office of the National Health Institution where it will be forwarded to the DWP in the UK. There is no mention of the mandatory appointment he was told to expect by the DWP.

The attached letter from the DWP requesting the examination (IPC ESA 004 01/14) also states that he has had "incapacity for work since 12 June 2012", which is a complete lie and inaccurate by 9 years. His condition has been described in a trivial and inaccurate manner. In contrast, it further states in great detail that to "assist" the doctor he should "know that 'incapacity for work in the UK' means incapacity for any type of work and not only the customer's regular occupation. It does not matter whether the work is available in the area where the customer currently lives. The doctor should be asked to consider not only Mr xxx's last employment in forming an opinion on incapacity for work, but also consider whether he is capable of any alternative employment."

Form E213 is a highly detailed 12 page medical report requiring ECGs and any number of other tests involving every major organ of the body. We live in a rural area where the GP visits twice a week and there is absolutely no possibility that his GP could undertake such an examination.

He is due to see the GP tomorrow when we will get her reaction to the E213 form. If he is taken out of the Support Group he will have no recourse to any of the normal benefits available to UK residents, he will be totally abandoned by his own country once again. What effect this would have on his retirement pension is another extreme worry. We will have no choice, but to leave everything here and return to the UK with nothing. Since the Brexit crash of the pound our property here has become unsaleable, not that it was ever worth much in the first place and with no income we cannot wait here for the unlikely chance of a sale.

It is interesting that my partner is described by the DWP as a 'customer'. In my country and the one we live in now a customer is someone who buys something from a business. My partner has been buying health insurance from his government for most of his working life. When he needed to use the product he was buying in 2003 everything was fine, he was a satisfied customer. Then in 2012 his government decided to "redefine the contract between the state and individuals". Once again in my country and this one, a contract is an agreement between two or more people, yet my partner has not agreed to any change in the contract and his situation remains completely unchanged. Now all the money he has invested as a customer is suddenly worthless and the product he thought he was buying has been taken away. In my country and this one, this is a criminal act.

I apologise for the rant, but we really don't know what to do in this situation, so any advice would be very welcome indeed.

Expat,

I'm sorry to add insult to injury but I suggest that you get detailed advice before making any decision about returning to the UK. It is possible that you could return and find that you are still not entitled to any benefits!

There is nothing on the internet or in any expat organisation, believe me I have checked thoroughly.

So with 43 years of full NI contributions my partner will be entitled to nothing if he returns to the UK?

Not only are the foreigners in the UK 'unwanted' but it seems that all the expats are also surplus to requirements now as well.

Expat wrote: There is nothing on the internet or in any expat organisation, believe me I have checked thoroughly.

So with 43 years of full NI contributions my partner will be entitled to nothing if he returns to the UK?

Not only are the foreigners in the UK 'unwanted' but it seems that all the expats are also surplus to requirements now as well.

This is not a hard and fast situation.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/comin...s-claiming-benefits/

Continuing claiming benefits when a UK citizen leaves and lives in an EU zone is and has only been payable when the claimant makes representation to the Secretary of State and has had a letter of continuing claim.
However this all changed when IB changed to ESA, and when DLA changed to PIP, these benefits then no longer became payable to non habitual residents.
Some benefits stayed in place until you next went on an assessment and then the claims were closed, by saying you were now fit for work/no longer met the criteria to claim and or were now living outside the UK.
Many claimants who used to claim these benefits abroad, who now have had them stopped, have returned to the UK, however unless you are penniless, homeless, vulnerable and with no means of financial or other support, you will find yourself without any redress or help.
Unfortunately no one seemed to sort out those who had left the UK for health reasons and agreed to by the Secretary of state with agreement by the GP etc, and now have been left on their own, more so than those who continued to claim and live in the UK.
There is no help for those in the situation as listed above who started this thread, as there is no case law and no one has contested any of it since ESA/PIP came in.