Bluebelle wrote: Hi
I live in Northern Ireland and thanks to all the help and advice contained in your wonderful guides I was recently successful in claiming DLA. I was awarded Higher Rate Care and Lower Rate Mobility.
My Carer is now completing a claim form for Carer's Allowance and we are confused about a question on the claim form: it asks "When do you want your Carer's Allowance Claim to start?". Is the answer to this meant to be the date that I was awarded my DLA from or is it meant to be the actual date on which they started caring for me, which was a few years ago?
Any advice on this would be very much appreciated.
Many thanks for all your help.
If this was a new claim for DLA then your carer can claim from the date that your DLA was awarded from..
I don't know if it is relevant, but once there CA claim has been accepted, they can then make a claim for Income Support as a carer, subject to their meeting the requirements to receive IS.
Gordon
