Throughout Covid 19, CRV East London has reduced a face to face advice service. Our staff are contactable during usual working hours (9.30 a.m – 5.30 p.m) via email, direct telephone lines and mobile. Mr NTV is living in Bow E3, he contacted us in October because he had reached his state pension age and he received an invitation letter from the DWP. However, he did not know how to make the claim. We told him to take a picture of his new state pension invitation letter and send it to us by a text message where we would be able to apply online for him. Mr NTV called us at the beginning of December to inform he was entitled £155 for his state pension, but he needed us to help his wife to apply for benefits because she lost her job in October. Due to covid 19, it was very difficult for her to get a new job. Both of them were not working, they did not have insufficient income to pay their mortgage as they needed to pay £600 every month.
We checked what benefits they could claim to help increase their income and improve their situation. We knew that they were out of work, therefore were entitled to get Council tax reduction. Mr NTV was having chemotherapy for his bowel cancer treatment and he had suffered from ankylosing spondylitis for over 20 years. He was able to apply for attendance allowance, and since he was born before 5 October 1954 he could get a “winter fuel payment”.
Mrs NTV celebrated her 60th birthday in October 2020, she had not reached her state pension age yet, which meant her husband could not apply a pension credit for her. We told them that they could try to apply for universal credit to help their living costs. We did it for them online but the Universal credit team would phone them after we had their application. Mr and Mrs NTV could speak a little English, it would be difficult for them to talk to Universal credit staff. We suggested that when they received a call from the universal credit staff, they needed to turn on their speakerphone, take another phone turn on it on speakerphone and call us. We would then ask him to put the two phones near to each other so we could interpret for them.
At the end of December 2020, Mr and Mrs NTV were entitled to get a full council tax reduction, Mr NTV received the highest rate for his attendance allowance, but the Universal credit refused to offer mortgage payments because under their terms “people can only get help with mortgage payments if they have been claiming Universal credit for 39 weeks or more. It was the best we could do for them, but we gave them advice that Mrs NTV could apply for carer allowance to look after Mr NTV. Also, they live in three bedrooms flat so they have the option to rent out one bedroom as a means for income
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