Insufficient NIC contributions. ESA declined

nixart wrote: Oh Gordon Iam sorry..I'am not well myself and am trying to help this person..I had no intention of not following your post correctly. I do get confused and find all this very hard. Thanks so much for your paience !

That said am now super confused. I do know on the original form she did NOT have to answer any income base questions that suggested to me she made a contribution based claim. But she has as you say been given an ESA50 form alongside the rejection letter. This for does not ask financial questions so iam confused as to how this may suggest DWP have gone on to assess her on income and savings (without ever been given income info). Maybe iam being dumb..iam so very sorry.

No problem.

Let's go back to scratch.

Normal DWP procedure is to reject an ESA(CB) claim if the claimant does not have sufficient NI Contributions.

This should then allow an Income Based claim to be made, however, there is an option for the claimant to pursue the CB claim, this will not be paid but the claimant will receive NI Credits which count towards a full State Pension. I'm guessing that this is what has happened, although it makes no sense, but that would not be unusual for the DWP.

Although there are two sets of eligibility criteria for ESA, it is a single benefit, so as she has an on-going claim there is no requirement to stop this one and start an income based one, but she will need to be financially assessed, have her request an ESA3 from the DWP office dealing with her claim.

If this is not the problem then we are going to require more information.