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Hello, I am desperate for an accurate answer, please. Please don’t suggest I try local welfare rights workers as I have already tried several and they’ve been utterly incompetent and have just added to my stress. And local benefits ‘specialists’ (who aren’t lawyers) charge £168 per hour!?!?

My capital had increased May to above £16,000 but in September it had dropped back to £16,000 and every month continues to decrease. I only use per month the equivalent of what my 3 means-tested benefits (ESA SG, HB & CTR) equated to before they were 'stopped' in May. Within a few months, it will increase again over £16,000.

My issues are around getting my ESA SG and HB reinstated temporarily until my capital increases again. ESA continued paying me for 10.5 weeks, until early August. I notified them in September (by Recorded Delivery always) with evidence of my capital depleting to £16,000, therefore payments should start again, but they still haven’t replied to my letter – 2.5 months. I was doing my DLA-PIP claim and was too ill to deal with this lack of reply. I’ve since phoned to trigger this letter and another one last week being actioned and replied to. But my brain is too ill to discuss this over the phone (plus wait 40+mins for someone to answer!) and the call centre staff I’ve spoken to have not read my letters thoroughly whilst on the phone and have just muddled things. I will keep fighting for this reinstatement – I’d asked in my Sep letter for them to keep my ESA claim open.

But my most pressing issue is whether I have the right to claim HB or have to now claim UC? My Council is fully UC (although until May I was still receiving HB). I was given the run around by various Council staff so I finally e-mailed a manager last week, and a HB assessment team leader replied Monday that because I am receiving high rate care for DLA I was “entitled” to the severe disability premium, therefore I could claim HB and not UC. She apologised for the incorrect info I was given by colleagues. She e-mails this morning telling me she is extremely sorry but she gave me wrong info and that because I need to be in “receipt” of the severe disability premium within the last month, I therefore can’t claim HB but have to claim UC. And she said I can backdate housing costs to September giving the reason that I was given incorrect info by my Local Authority. I am furious. I’d already told her (with evidence) that I was receiving the severe disability premium in the continued ESA payments until early August, and that I would be fighting ESA for payments from September when my capital depleted to £16,000…therefore in theory I ‘should have’ been receiving the severe disability premium with my ESA from September to now/until my capital increases again in a few months above £16,000. She already made me go through the HB claim which I did online, and I am so ill. If ESA had only actioned/replied to my Sep letter sooner I would be receiving ESA now with the severe disability premium and could then claim HB.

I’m scared that if I complete the ESA section of the online UC claim, that doing this will negate my attempts to insist on my existing ESA claim being kept open so that payments can restart until my capital goes above £16,000 again within a few months.
Should I be holding off completing the online UC claim (for the sake of housing costs) until ESA responds to my letters, which might be this week? Or ESA might take longer replying.
Is it possible in the online UC claim, just to complete the housing costs section?
I am so ill, it will take me a while to complete the UC claim. It is also nonsensical from an ESA perspective to make me claim UC because in 6 months (since I notified them of my capital increasing above £16,000) my illness would not have changed. And also nonsensical because my capital will increase again within the next few months, when ESA (and HB/UC) would then be stopped again.
I want to cry...I'm too ill to deal with this confusion and mess.

Gordon, thank you!...To help my brain, I am going to try separate one ‘thing’ per post in order to reach further clarity on what I am entitled to and what I should do.
Firstly, to answer your questions:

if you claim UC then your ESA claim will be closed unless you are entitled to Contribution Based ESA but from your post, this does not appear to be the case,

sorry, yes I was receiving income-related ESA SG.

It's not clear from your post what the date that you lost entitlement to your ESA and HB due to your having more than £16,000 in savings?

(See the second paragraph in my original post):
May: capital above £16,000 so officially this should be the date I lost entitlement to ESA and HB. But despite my notifying them by Recorded Delivery on the same day, they continued paying me until August.
September: capital at £16,000, and depleting per month by the same amount of my 3 means-tested benefits (ESA SG + HB + CTR).
Within a few months: capital will increase again above £16,000.

To be clear, having more than £16,000 means your ESA and HB claims were closed not suspended so any re-claim will be as new claims.

Are you absolutely certain they should be “closed”, not “suspended”? Earlier this year, I had googled disability websites and forums etc, and I kept reading that I needed to ask that ESA keep my claim open. I also encountered a local lady who had been in my situation 9 years ago, and she didn’t know to ask ESA to keep her claim open whilst she lived off her capital, but they volunteered this information to her and did keep her claim open so that at the end of the year when her capital depleted to £16,000 she didn’t have to make a new ESA claim but they reopened her existing claim and continued paying her. That’s why in my May letter, and subsequent letters, I keep referring to that I’d asked for my ESA claim to remain open. Is this possibility now definitely not in use because of changes to ESA and UC being introduced? Granted, the websites/forums I read were at least 3 years old and this lady’s case was about 9 years ago.