Getting usa disability recognised in uk

Apologies if this is in the wrong group, but i wasnt sure where to ask this. Hope you can follow and hopefully enlighten us and noone seems to be able to give us an answer,

We are a same sex couple( civil partnership), my partner has her ILR visa since last year, she gets disability social service payments off USA due to her health BUT uk doesn't recognise this as a payment for disability and it is classed as a personal income. The problem we have is that i have 3 children one of which is disabled and so i cant work as he needs 24hr care so i get benefits to help. Since she has started receiving the social security i have basically had my benefits taken off me, we have to pay half rent and council tax because they class it as income, so we are worse off basically, we have a benefit agency looking into this but they are not getting anywhere, to the council my partner is classed as an able bodies person who could work and gets a personal income. The option would be to apply for UK disability BUT this we cannot die as her student debt from american is wiped off because of her disability payments, so we are in a catch 22!  What my thought was, when you claim uk disability you can still work, so wouldn't she be able to claim UK and keep usa to as they already class it as an income? she would only get the lower rate UK im sure but it would mean she was then classed as disabled and i would hope we would get a little extra help with the rent and council tax. BUT i have a feeling any money you got here in the uk would then effect the USA social security. so as you see we are going round in circles   we have messaged the social security office in usa and had no joy, its like no one knows, so i thought maybe someone had experience or maybe some advice on this?

Thanks for reading 

A knotty problem.  I don't know anything about US disability payments but I do know that what you receive as UK state pension will affect your US  Social Security benefits.  I'm referring to Windfall Elimination Provision.  It seems to refer to receipt of a "pension" but it may also include disability payments from foreign countries.  Sorry, I just don't know.  www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf

"The Windfall Elimination Provision affects how the amount of your retirement or disability benefit is calculated if you receive a pension from work where Social Security taxes were
not taken out of your pay."

Yeah, Social Security office is not very helpful nowadays.

I'm hopelessly out of my depth here, but a couple of things come to mind.

First, your partner needs to make sure how HMRC classes the disability payment from the US SSA; it may be taxable or at least subject to the necessity of filing a SA tax return to declare it on the foreign income page. That's just a caution to make sure you don't run afoul of the 'tax man'.

Also, read the info here: http://www.ssa.gov/dibplan/dqualify5.htm#a0=4 and this: http://www.ssa.gov/disability/step4and5.htm#Q5_1 - generally, if someone receiving disability payments is able to take on other work, then they no longer qualify for disability. I'm not sure how applying for, and qualifying for, UK disability payments would specifically affect the payment from the US, but I suspect it would reduce or eliminate it due to WEP.

As far as the Council is concerned, I assume that they deem the SS disability as 'foreign source income' and like any other income for the household, it affects the benefits payable to the household. They likely view it as income from any source = less need for benefits. The key would seem to be having the SS payments recognized as 'disability' under the UK system. Perhaps a query to HMRC and/or DWP would offer a route for that. Remember that many Council employees do not have experience with specific types of 'income'. Or, it may be as simple as 'income is income' and that's the end of it.

Thank you for replying, it definitely is a black hole of a question with no certain answers, i am juat hoping that the benefit agency that is looking into things can find a solution. She has to self asses every year for her *income* its way below any amount that would cause her to have to pay tax on it. Will just have to wait and see, when i do get some if any answers i will post back in case anyone else finds themselves in this situation

we have to pay half rent and council tax because they class it as income, so we are worse off basically,

How are you both worse off? As your partner has now moved in with you, you now only one set of household bills to pay.

Council Tax Benefit has ended and been replaced with Council Tax Support, which means you would have to pay some towards your council tax bill anyway even if your partner wasn't living with you. Each council sets their own level that a claimant has to pay and this amount would have risen again in April 2014.

You also lost your 25% single person council tax discount your partner moved in with you which have increased your council tax bill.

Have you informed Tax Credits that your partner is now living with you and changed to a joint claim? Your other benefits will not be affected by her moving in.

What my thought was, when you claim uk disability you can still work, so wouldn't she be able to claim UK and keep usa to as they already class it as an income? she would only get the lower rate UK im sure but it would mean she was then classed as disabled and i would hope we would get a little extra help with the rent and council tax.

Disability (DLA) has been replaced by PIP now. However under PIP, the lower amount of disability has been removed. From what you say, it seems that she wouldn't be given PIP?  

Being disabled won't get extra help with Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support because, as you said, those who claim DLA/PIP can also work as it's not an income based benefit. The money from DLA/PIP is to help with the extra costs of being disabled.


As to whether her US disabilty should be counted as income for your Housing Benefit claim, try asking on www.moneysavingexpert.com on the benefits board, as they have housing benefit staff posting on there.