DLA and partner working

My husband has been on IB/ESA and DLA for 15 years due to a congenital heart defect and CRPS in his legs and feet.
Last year he was awarded DLA higher mobility and middle care indefinitely.

He has just had an ESA assessment which was very traumatic and judging by the attitude of the healthcare person who did the assessment (she was a Intensive Care nurse) I feel that his ESA is going to be stopped.

I don't know that we want the trauma of appealing as each time he gets re-assessed my husband gets very very stressed and is very unwell for a couple of weeks, so I am thinking of returning to work part time instead. I get carers allowance for him and we get tax credit for our 3 children.

My question is what difference will me working about 10-15 hours a week make to the DLA, carers allowance and child tax credit we get.

Hi Alied and Welcome to Benefits and Work

If you were to work it would have no direct effect on your husband's DLA. Whether you would remain entitled to Carer's Allowance would depend on you earning less than £110 per week (after tax and certain allowable deductions)

I'm afraid we do not cover Tax Credit/Child Tax Credit.

If your husband were to cancel his ESA claim, he would only be able to reclaim in future for Income-Related ESA on the grounds of low income. Having broken the continuity of the contributory claim he could only regain the required NI contributions (for another contributory claim) through paid employment.

You should also bear in mind that your husband is currently receiving credits towards his State Retirement Pension. These would stop when his ESA stops which could potentially leave you with financial problems when he reaches retirement age.

I would suggest that you get face-to-face advice about this so that the situation can be explained in detail before you make a decision.

Where to get advice?

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