Disabilty Allowance and Means Testing

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Bedlam

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Why is it that compensation payments outside of those awarded by the Tribunals are means tested for the above payment?

Any feedback / comments appreciated please.

Thanks

Bedlam
 
You are allowed capital of up to €50,000 before it affects your Disability Allowance though, so any compensation below €50,000 is safe enough.

What counts as means?

The main items that count are:

  • cash income belonging to you or your spouse or partner,
  • the value of any investments, savings and shares that you or your spouse or partner may have,
  • the value of any property, except your own home,
  • maintenance paid to you if you are deserted or separated,
  • certain income that you or your spouse may have from employment or self-employment.
How do you assess my savings and investments?

When working out your means from savings and investments, we add together the following items and use a special formula to work out your means:

  • the cash value of investments and property (except your home),
  • money in any savings account, or any kind of bank account,
  • cash-in-hand.
Capital: Weekly means assessed:
First €50,000 Nil
€50,000 - €60,000 €1 per €1,000
€60,000 - €70,000 €2 per €1,000
Over €70,000 €4 per €1,000
 
Sorry to hyjack your post but along the same lines
Hi,
I have a friend and she in on disabality for the last 5 years after she was hurt in an accident.
Her claim against the accident is hopefully coming in the next year or so and she has been told by social welfare she will have to pay back the disabality after she gets the claim - is this normal?
Due to doctors and hospital she could not work since the accident and can only hope for part time work in the future.
She will have ongoing costs each month for medication and also an operation every 5 years costing €25K
When she gets her settlement next year will she lose her medical card and get major reduction in disabality due to the settlement?

She plans to purchase a house and car with the settlement to live in so i assume this will be not accessed, If she invests a large amount of the ramaining money for 5 / 10 years will this still be accessed?
 
Yes, any remaining money she invests will be assessed as means when deciding on entitlement to Disability Allowance. The house will not be assessed if it is going to be her primary residence.
 
gipimann said:
Yes, any remaining money she invests will be assessed as means when deciding on entitlement to Disability Allowance. The house will not be assessed if it is going to be her primary residence.
Click to expand...

If my friend was to use all her case settlement money to purchase the house would social welfare be saying that this is wrong? She lives at home at the moment and sees this money as her chance to purchase a house, since she would have medical costs going forward as in medication and future operations which are all currently paid for my her medical card would the social welfare people say she was doing wrong by buying a house?
 
SW wouldn't comment on her buying a house with all of her settlement once she can show that the money hasn't been "hidden". Remember that the first €50 000 of any savings she has aren't counted as means for the DA means test, so she could keep that amount and it wouldn't affect her entitlement (sorry I should have made that clearer in my earlier post, it was mentioned by another poster).
 
Thanks very much for clarifying that, if she then used the remainder of the money to invest in shares for her future would social say this was hiding the money?
 
She would have to declare the investment but once it's less than 50k, it shouldn't affect her entitlements.
 
If the money invested was 100K would this mean even though it was invested she would still be accessed on anything over 50K
 
Yes, the amount over €50k would be assessed, and a weekly means amount would be calculated which would be deducted from the full rate of DA payable. The weekly means amount can be calculated using the figures given in chasm's earlier post.
 
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