⚠️ Paid help with a Social Security claim — 42 U.S.C. § 406

What this actually is

Applying for SSI or SSDI is free, and helping someone fill in the application is not a regulated activity — a friend, a caseworker, or a community organisation can sit with you and do it. What IS regulated is being paid for it. Under 42 U.S.C. § 406 a representative must have the fee authorised by SSA. For a written fee agreement the fee is capped at the lesser of 25% of past-due benefits or a dollar cap set by the statute and adjusted over time; in court, a judge may award no more than 25% of past-due benefits. Charging more than the authorised amount carries criminal penalties under the same section. So: nobody may lawfully take a cut of your back pay that SSA has not approved, and nobody may charge you a fee just to file.

Who qualifies, and what trips people up

These rules bind the representative, not you. Practical checks: ask whether they have filed a fee agreement with SSA, ask what happens to the fee if you lose (under an approved agreement, typically nothing is owed because the fee comes out of past-due benefits), and never pay a percentage of ongoing monthly benefits — the cap applies to past-due benefits only.