More about inheritance

On the back of my last question, I have been doing some research and it seems that if the person was to get any money at all in excess of £6,000 and/or in excess of £16,000 then any ESA would be stopped. In that event, if a person had in excess of say £20,000 as their inheritance, would there be any point in continuing with an ESA claim, as the benefit would be stopped anyway?

And that person would then, it seems, have to use their inheritance to live on, instead of receiving ESA. That is, until the amount drops to below £16,000 again, in which case the benefit could be applied for again but would be received at a reduced rate, plus the risk of not being awarded it of course!

Would ending the ESA claim, before the inheritance arrives in the bank account, therefore be a realistic way of managing the existence of the inheritance? If the person was not claiming ESA, it would be nothing to do with the DWP until the inheritance amount drops to below the point where ESA can be claimed again, and a new claim needed to be made. Is that right? I mean it's not really fair for someone to have to do that, but is that the way it would work? Thanks

Another question is this: does ESA give NI Credits? If so, is there a point at which a person on ESA(IB) can 'migrate' to ESA(contributions based)?

If IR(ESA) stops, what happens to the claimant's NI credits, specifically, does the claimant still receive NI Credits? What if the claimant is also on another non-means-tested benefit, e.g. PIP?

When you say, "If as a result of the payment your total savings and assets exceed £16.000 then your ESA(IR) will stop", does this mean that the claim itself stops/ends (and then the clamiant would have to re-claim later under, as you say, UC) or just that the benefit payment (and passported benefits) stop but the claim itself continues, and is just 'dormant' pending such time as the inheritance drops below the threshold?

If the latter, is there any advantage to leaving it dormant? Why not just terminate the claim?