ESA Arrears Payment - Disregard info

Hello. This is my first post here so apologies if I do anything wrong. In September I finally won my ESA appeal and received a large amount of back paid arrears. The numerous letters I received at the time gave no information at all about disregards of this money and I have spent ages looking online for details. I wrote to DWP asking them to confirm how the money would be treated as I was very concerned about not doing the correct thing. They wrote back stating that the amount would be disregarded for 12 months. They gave no other information about other questions I asked them. If anybody could advise on any of the following, I would be very grateful, as I'm sure this issue is contributing to my anxiety levels staying even higher than normal despite having won the appeal.

After 12 months do I need to contact DWP to confirm how much money I have in total or will they contact me?

Do I need to contact Child Tax Credits and/or council re. Housing Benefit about this money or will it not affect either of them? I did ask the DWP in my letter to confirm this but they didn't. As well as struggling with official phonecalls, I'm also terrified of giving them the wrong information and triggering a change to Universal Credit. If they don't need informing now, do I need to contact them after the disregard period, or does the (then increased) capital only directly affect the ESA itself.

Does anybody ever get their backpay disregarded for length of claim due to official error for anything other than the major errors like the IB>ESA mistake that happened? I ask as my backpay was well over £5000 total due to being on Assessment rate for 4 years before the end of the appeal (3 years from start of claim to being sent the questionnaire) and being placed in Support Group (income related). Obviously this was an error on the part of the DWP as I've recently seen that the assessment should take 13 weeks not 3 years to even start. I realise that it is unlikely they will accept that though, especially based on the letter they sent me stating 12 months.

At the end of the 12 months, would DWP expect me to still have all the capital I have at this point? Throughout the 4 years of assessment I have been very careful with money but this does mean that I have a lot of broken furniture, etc. that is in need of replacement which I can finally afford to do. Are they likely to view this as intentional spending? I don't have expensive taste so we're not talking high priced products.

I really, really appreciate any help that anyone can give me on any of these points. I'm feeling so unsure about it all and DWP seem to care very little about giving people the information they need.

Hi Gordon,

Thank you so much for your quick and clear response.

I will send my council a letter about the money and include a copy of the 12 month disregard letter from the DWP & hope that all goes through without causing problems with my Housing Benefit claim. All of the different agencies never seem clear on their own rules which is why I'm always so worried about doing the right thing at my end. Perhaps you could give them some lessons on being clear & helpful!!!

One more quick thing, do you know if it is only the ESA itself that will be reduced after the 12 month period (my total capital will be over £6000 at that point) or will my Housing Benefit also be reduced?

Many thanks again,
Emma.