I really hope someone can hell/point me in the right direction.
My daughter was born with several health conditions that we were unaware of until after birth. She’s a highcare baby & requires full time care. Because of this, I’ve not been able to return to work.
We submitted a DLA claim for her, which should take 8 weeks. We are now on week 13. I’ve phoned & spent at least 15 hours on the phone with the helpline.
First I was told 2 weeks to decision, then a week & then that it’s with clerical & it should have taken 12 weeks but they don’t know why it’s on week 13 now. I was told they could request that someone updates me but no guarantees.
So yesterday I phoned to make a complaint & the advisor told me that they’re waiting for a reference from HMRC & I can make a complaint but they won’t be able to help me because they don’t know how long HMRC will take.
In the meantime we are under immense financial pressure as our savings are running out & I don’t know what to do from here. I’ve tried phoning citizens advice but have been on hold for over an hour on 3 separate occasions & their chat is unavailable.
So I guess I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction to move the process along swiftly.
Edit: I am South African, but have presettled status. All the documentation is with the claim submission proving eligibility.
5 comments
There’s no reason a DLA claim should have anything at all to do with HMRC unless one of the child’s parents is a foreign national, and even then usually your leave to remain documentation should be sufficient. Personally I would try calling them again, ask to speak to a manager and ask for the reasons for delay to be put into writing. If that doesn’t work, try speaking to your MP because things tend to move quickly once they get involved too.
If your claim is successful then they will backdate the money to the date you claimed. I know that’s not terribly helpful at the moment, but just to reassure you that it will come.
If you haven’t already, make sure you have a chat with your local council’s social care team too, they often have really good insight into other help you may qualify for and they have welfare rights teams who can help you with the DLA claim of things aren’t moving.
Your claim is likely to be rejected, because they reject everyone’s to get rid of people and not have to pay them. You *must* appeal that rejection and keep going. If it’s rejected again, appeal that. You might end up being sent to a tribunal. Don’t give up, they make it difficult for everyone. They don’t have to pay people who give up, which is why they make the process difficult.
I can’t see why your claim would not eventually go through, and it will be backdated to the date they received your application, so you’ll be paid for that whole period the claim was being processed.
My daughters claim took 3 and half months to be approved. They are experiencing a backlog from covid and an increase in applications, so unfortunately it is a very long wait – I was told it could be up to 20 weeks. My advice would be to keep ringing (frustrating I know) and ask to speak to a case manager if you can. They should be able to tell you where your application is in the system. Good luck!
We claimed in December and it took 13 weeks to be approved. The first we knew of it being successful was getting a midnight Barclays notification saying we’d been paid just under £1000!
My youngest’s claim was put in in January, then May I got a letter apologising for the delay, then a week after that I got a whopping back payment.
Try emailing or writing rather than phoning, just for your own sanity, and cc your MP in. Amazing how often that helps…
(Pre-settled status is for EU nationals. Do you mean indefinite leave to remain? It could be some issue regarding extra bank account checks for foreign nationals.)