I am carer for elderly mum and son, but obvs only get carers allowance for one, I do a round trip of 40/60 miles most days in my caring roles, my carers allowance has been stopped this week with no warning, after the most frustrating time of trying to get through to carers allowance today (the automated system just going round in circles when pressing option 4 Re-dialled and pressed option 3 to the make a claim, a real snotty & demeaning person just kept saying I would have to call back and press option 4, even though I kept explaining to her that it just kept going round in circles, I then redialled yet again and was on hold for 45 minutes, the lady I eventually spoke to was nice enough but said my allowance which I rely on for fuel for both my caring roles had stopped as I needed to submit my self employment accounts for 04/21 - 04/22, I explained that I was on UC as my earnings were so low and had not done my 2021 - 2022 tax return as had not even had my tax return form from HMRC yet ??. I have had no letters from carers allowance, nothing about asking for my income ? Are they allowed to just stop it with no warning ?
Carer’s Allowance complaints
Telephone: 0800 731 0297
Textphone: 0800 731 0317
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Go to the Carer’s Allowance video relay service.
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Ideally, it would be nice to have been contacted but the DWP are much there own DEPT.
I would also speak to your UC advisor because it looks like this is where the information may have come as check what is on your application.
This seems very strange. I used to receive Carer’s Allowance before I retired and I was self-employed.
Every January they used to send me a form to complete and I would send this back to them with my Profit & Loss Accounts for the previous tax year. This worked well for me as January is the time when you have to have your tax return filed with HMRC.
I did notice though that the request used to come in on the anniversary of my original claim. So it’s possible that the request in January each year was just a coincidence.
How long have you been receiving Carer’s Allowance? Have you had to prove your income before? Presumably though if you are getting UC then you will fill in details of your income and expenditure each month for the DWP? So you should be able to use those figures for the Carer’s Allowance people.
Sorry to hear you’ve had a really hard time trying to track down an answer, have you tried our helpline and see if they can help? They can be contacted on on 0808 808 7777 from Monday to Friday, 9am – 6pm or you can contact us by email (advice@carersuk.org)
Also just to let you know, and you may already be aware we are currently running weekly online meet ups for carers to take some time for themselves and chat to other carers. Feel free to join if you’d like to and there’s no pressure to share anything you don’t want to. I’m sure you’ll find others in a similar position to yourself.
You can find information on how to register to our online meetups at the following pages:
Care for a Cuppa: Online meetups | Carers UK - this social is a great way to have a little break if you are able to and spend some quality time talking to people who understand what you are going through right now.
Share and Learn: Share and Learn | Carers UK - these sessions range from creative writing activities to beginners Latin dance sessions.