Managing someone else's claim: appointees and third parties

When someone cannot manage their own benefits, whether because of a physical disability or because they lack the mental capacity to handle their claim, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) can appoint another person to act for them. An appointee is someone the DWP authorises to manage another person's benefits on their behalf¹. The appointment is a formal one: it is made by the DWP after a visit, it is recorded on official forms, and it gives the appointee real responsibilities, including reporting changes and dealing with overpayments.

The appointment is also deliberately narrow. Becoming an appointee only allows you to manage the other person's benefit payments; managing their wider finances, such as bank accounts, savings or pensions, requires a different legal authority, such as applying to the Court of Protection to become a deputy². This page explains what an appointee can and cannot do, how to become one, what duties come with the role, how the rules differ in Scotland, where Social Security Scotland runs its own system, and what happens at the points that catch many families out: a young person turning 16, a death, and the scams that target claimants and the people who help them.

What a DWP appointee does

An appointee acts for a person who is receiving state benefits but cannot manage their benefit-related affairs, either because of a physical disability or because they lack mental capacity². In practice this means the appointee deals with the benefit claim itself: making and maintaining the claim, receiving the payments, and using the money for the person's benefit. The DWP can also arrange for the local authority to act as appointee if there is no one else who can do it¹.

Becoming an appointee is a process, not a form you sign at home. You contact the person's local DWP office. The DWP will visit or interview you, fill in form BF56, and visit the person you would act for. If the application is accepted, you are given form BF57, which is the document that proves the appointment².

The appointment is not necessarily permanent. The DWP reviews appointees and can decide to remove, keep or change an appointee after a visit, writing to both the claimant and the appointee with its decision¹. The DWP will remove an appointee if the claimant can now manage their own benefits, or if the appointee is not suitable; the appointee stays in place if the claimant cannot manage their own benefits and the appointee is managing them properly¹. Where a review is triggered, the DWP will probably visit the claimant and the appointee, and sends a letter with the date of the visit and the name of the Visiting Officer. That letter goes to the appointee, who needs to tell the claimant when the DWP is coming¹.

An appointee manages benefits only, not other money

The boundary of the appointee's authority matters, and it is where many families come unstuck. Becoming an appointee only allows you to manage the other person's benefit payments. If you want to manage other finances, such as their bank account, savings or pension, you need to apply to the Court of Protection to become a deputy². A power of attorney, made while the person still has capacity, is the other route to wider authority, and the two can coexist: an appointee handles the benefits, an attorney or deputy handles everything else.

On the banking side, the appointee's authority is recognised in a specific way. To open or use an account for the person's benefit payments, banks ask for the BF57 form from the DWP, plus proof of your name and address and of the name and address of the person the benefit payments are for, if the bank does not already hold them². This is separate from the ordinary rules on how benefits are paid: benefits and pensions are normally paid into an account, and you can normally only be paid in a different way if you have problems opening or managing an account⁶.

The narrowness of the role has a practical upside. Because the appointment is limited to benefits, it is quicker and cheaper to put in place than a deputyship, and it does not require a court application. But it also means an appointee who starts managing the person's savings, selling their possessions or dealing with their pension is acting outside their authority, and the DWP may treat that as a sign the appointee is not suitable¹. If the person's needs go beyond their benefits, the wider legal route is the one to take.

Who can have an appointee

The DWP can appoint someone to act on behalf of a person receiving state benefits who cannot manage their benefit-related affairs because of physical disability or lack of mental capacity². There is no requirement that the person's income consists only of benefits: the test is about their ability to manage their benefit affairs, not how much money they have in total.

Who the appointee actually is varies with the family's circumstances. It is often a relative, but the role can also be filled by others who already have a formal position. Where a person receives direct payments from a local authority for their care, the local authority decides who should be the "suitable person" for those payments, and that person could be an attorney, a deputy, a DWP appointee or someone else such as a carer, usually where the person the direct payment is for lacks mental capacity². If there is no one who can act, the DWP can arrange for the local authority to be the appointee¹.

The same principle appears in the rules for individual benefits. Under the regulations governing the move from Disability Living Allowance to Personal Independence Payment in Northern Ireland, an appointed person is entitled to claim PIP on behalf of the DLA-entitled person, and if PIP is awarded, that person is treated as the appointed person for PIP purposes⁷. In other words, an existing appointment can carry across to a new benefit, but each system has its own rules about when and how.

Reporting changes and other duties as an appointee

An appointee takes on the claimant's duties, not just their payments. The core duty is the one every claimant has: reporting changes of circumstances to the DWP, because a change that is not reported can turn into an overpayment that has to be repaid. The appointee is the person the DWP will hold responsible for the claim being accurate, so the role suits someone in regular contact with the claimant who will notice when something changes, such as a move into a care home, a stay in hospital, or a change in the person's care needs.

The appointee also receives the claimant's letters and decision notices, and is expected to act on them: requesting mandatory reconsiderations where a decision is wrong, renewing claims when an award ends, and responding to DWP requests for information. Where the DWP decides to review the appointment itself, the appointee must pass on the visit letter to the claimant, since the DWP sends the letter to the appointee, who needs to tell the claimant when the visit is coming¹.

Alongside the formal duties, the appointee is expected to use the benefit money for the benefit of the person it is paid for. That is the standard the DWP applies when it decides whether an appointee is managing the benefits properly¹. Money that is spent in ways that do not benefit the claimant, or a claim that is left inaccurate because changes went unreported, are the two things most likely to end an appointment.

Challenging a benefit decision for someone else

An appointee can challenge benefit decisions on the claimant's behalf, and the deadlines are the same as for a claimant acting alone. The first step for a DWP decision is a mandatory reconsideration, asking the DWP to look at the decision again. The usual deadline is one month from the date of the decision letter. If that has passed, a late request can still be made: you can apply for a mandatory reconsideration within 13 months of being notified about the decision, provided you show special circumstances for the delay³.

In Scotland, the equivalent step is called a re-determination, and the deadlines are different. A request for a re-determination should be made within 42 calendar days of being notified of the determination, and Social Security Scotland then has 56 calendar days to make the re-determination⁸. The outcome of a re-determination is a new decision, again called a determination⁹.

The right to act for someone else is not limited to appointees. Social Security Scotland, for example, recognises that a caller may have a legal right to apply for someone else, for instance if they are an appointee or hold a power of attorney for someone who cannot manage their own affairs¹⁰. The distinction between these roles matters at the challenge stage: an appointee can challenge a benefit decision, but only within the benefits system, and only for the benefits the appointment covers.

When an appointee's benefits are overpaid

Overpayments are the risk that comes with the appointee's duties. The National Audit Office estimated that 3.3% of benefit expenditure was overpaid by the DWP in 2024-25¹¹. When an overpayment is identified, the money is recovered from the claimant's ongoing benefits, and the appointee is the person who has to deal with that recovery.

Recovery is not limited to taking money from benefits. Benefit overpayments can also be taken from wages by the DWP or your local council¹². Where the claimant no longer receives benefits, the DWP can use a direct deduction order against a bank account, but this can only be used if the person no longer claims benefits, or if it is not possible to recover the overpayment from their wages, and guidance says the DWP should make at least four attempts to contact the claimant first³.

Where fraud is established rather than simple error, the consequences are heavier. In Northern Ireland, an administrative penalty can be added to the amount to be repaid: if you were overpaid by £900, you would have to pay a penalty of £450¹³. An appointee who has failed to report a change, or who has allowed a claim to continue inaccurately, may find the overpayment is treated as their responsibility, which is why reporting changes promptly is the single most important part of the role.

When a benefit moves between systems, overpayment arrangements carry across in a defined way. When someone's benefit moves to Carer Support Payment in Scotland, the DWP will arrange with them if an overpayment needs to be repaid¹⁴. The overpayment follows the claimant, not the appointee, but the appointee is usually the person who has to manage the repayment plan.

Appointees for Scottish benefits

Scotland runs its own benefits through Social Security Scotland, the executive agency of the Scottish Government responsible for delivering social security benefits for Scotland¹⁵, and the appointee rules there are separate. A DWP appointee cannot normally act for someone's Social Security Scotland applications and awards⁴. A family member who is an appointee for a person's DWP benefits therefore needs a separate arrangement with Social Security Scotland for the Scottish benefits, even though the person and their needs have not changed.

The transfer of cases between the two systems is now largely complete. Social Security Scotland has transferred all identified disability and carer benefit cases from the DWP⁴, including 167,500 people whose Attendance Allowance awards moved to Pension Age Disability Payment, and more than 66,870 people whose awards moved to Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance⁸. The process of transferring a person's award usually takes between 4 to 8 weeks⁸. Pension Age Disability Payment replaces Attendance Allowance for people in Scotland, which was previously delivered by the DWP¹⁶.

Not everything has moved. The DWP continues to administer Severe Disablement Allowance and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit in Scotland under Agency Agreements¹⁷, and it continues to deliver Bereavement Support Payment to applicants living in Scotland¹⁸. For those benefits, a DWP appointee's authority continues as before.

Scottish law also gives Social Security Scotland flexibility over who is paid. For Adult Disability Payment, the Scottish Ministers may, where they consider it appropriate, make the payment to another person to be used for the benefit of the individual, and may cease making payment to that person¹⁸. This is the statutory basis for paying someone other than the claimant, and it is the mechanism behind the agency's own appointee arrangements.

For local authority help, the rules on acting for someone else are set out in the Scottish Welfare Fund guidance. Where an application is made on behalf of another person by someone other than an appointee, that person should be required to give their consent to the application being made on their behalf in writing, though local authorities may make an exception if this is an unreasonable demand on the applicant¹⁹. An appointee, by contrast, can apply without that written consent, which is one of the practical differences the role makes.

When a young person turns 16

Age 16 is a turning point for appointees, because it is the age at which a young person is normally expected to manage their own claim. The scale of the change is significant: as at November 2025, 50,000 young people aged 16 to 17 had entitlement to Disability Living Allowance, which was 31% of the overall DLA working age caseload²⁰. For families where a parent has been the appointee for a child's DLA, the move to adulthood means a decision about who manages the claim going forward.

The rules for individual exercises show how the appointee's position changes at 16. Under the DLA administrative exercise for children with congenital heart disease, a review can be requested by the parent or guardian of a child who is still under 16, by an appointee for a child if they are now over 16, or by the young person themselves if they are now over 16, able to manage their own affairs and do not need someone to act for them²¹. The same three-way split applies generally: at 16, the young person either takes over the claim themselves, or a new appointee arrangement is made for them as an adult.

The timing interacts with the benefit system in other ways. A qualifying young person for Universal Credit purposes is a person over the age of 16 who meets other conditions set out in regulations²². For disability benefits, the move from child disability benefits to adult ones, and in Scotland from Child Disability Payment to Adult Disability Payment, is the point at which appointee arrangements are reviewed. If the young person lacks mental capacity, the appointee or a deputy arrangement continues, but it should be reviewed at 16 rather than assumed to carry on unchanged.

After a death: stopping benefits and getting help

When the claimant dies, the appointee's role ends, but there are immediate practical steps. Contact the Bereavement Service to cancel the person's benefits and entitlements, including their State Pension; they will also check if you are eligible for help with funeral costs or other benefits²². If the person was living abroad when they died, contact the International Pension Centre instead²². For Scottish benefits, contact Social Security Scotland to cancel the person's benefits and entitlements from the Scottish Government, for example Scottish Child Payment; they can also check eligibility for help with funeral costs²².

If the appointee themselves dies, rather than the claimant, the position is different: tell the DWP, who may arrange a visit to speak to the claimant about it¹. The claim does not stop, but a new appointee or another arrangement will be needed.

Help with funeral costs has its own deadlines. A Funeral Support Payment in Scotland can be applied for after the person has died, and up to six months after their funeral¹⁵. The right to apply for someone else continues after death in defined circumstances: a caller may have a legal right to apply for someone else, for example if they are an appointee or have power of attorney for someone who cannot manage their own affairs¹⁰.

Scams targeting appointees and claimants

Appointees and the people they act for are attractive targets for scammers, because a message about "your benefits" or "your appointee account" sounds plausible to someone expecting official post. The rule to hold on to is simple: HM Government, the DWP, and government departments like the Department for Communities will never ask for your bank details by text, email, or via links to click within a text or email⁵. Any message that does this is a scam, whatever it claims to be about.

Genuine DWP contact about appointeeships comes by letter and visit. When the DWP plans a visit, it sends a letter with the date and the name of the Visiting Officer, and for appointee reviews that letter goes to the appointee, who needs to tell the claimant when the DWP is coming¹. Knowing this pattern makes fake "visit" calls and texts easier to spot: if there has been no letter, treat the contact with suspicion.

If you suspect benefit fraud, whether by someone claiming dishonestly or by someone misusing a claim they manage, it can be reported. In Northern Ireland, benefit fraud can be reported online, by phone or in writing to the Department for Communities Benefit Security Division¹³. Reporting suspected fraud is about passing accurate information to the authorities, not investigating anything yourself.

Where to get free help

Free, impartial help is available at every stage of the appointee process. For the benefits themselves, the DWP office that manages the claim is the first point of contact for applying to become an appointee, for reporting changes, and for questions about an appointment². Scope publishes independent guidance on appointees, including how appointments are reviewed and removed¹.

For Scottish benefits, Social Security Scotland can be called free on 0800 182 2222¹⁶. If you are hard of hearing, the Text Relay Service is available on 18001 +0300 244 4000, and there is a webchat at chat.socialsecurity.gov.scot²³. British Sign Language users can contact the service through contactscotland-bsl.org¹⁶. Social Security Scotland aims to make a decision after getting your completed application and any more information they need, and if you have a terminal illness they aim to make a decision as quickly as possible, in around 7 working days⁹. The decision letter, called a notice of determination, must by law be clear and accessible and give guidance and explanations about the decision that has been made⁹.

For wider money matters beyond benefits, a deputyship application to the Court of Protection is the route for managing someone's finances, and the government's guidance on managing a bank account for someone else explains what banks will ask for². For checking what someone is entitled to, and for help with claims and challenges, the guides on benefits in the UK, challenging a decision and appealing to a tribunal set out the options, and complaining to the DWP covers what to do when the process itself goes wrong.