Butterfly wrote: Hi there, I am shortly going to start receiving a small ill health retirement pension and maybe a small lump sum, can you please tell me what the penalty will be on my ESA payments, I am in the support group, and will they also take my lump sum into account if I receive one ?
In all cases you need to inform the DWP of a Change in Circumstances.
If you are receiving Contribution Based ESA then it should only be affected if the pension is more than £85 per week, the lump sum should have no effect.
If you are receiving Income Related ESA in part or in whole then you should expect the pension to effect your payments £ for £, there may be a disregard of some of the payment. If the additional capital means that your total assets and savings exceed £6000 then there will be a deduction made to your payments, if they now exceed £16,000 then you may no longer be eligible to ESA(IR).
I would advice you to get face to face advice as we can only provide generalised information and a trained advisor will be able to take all of your circumstances into account.
Gordon
