Wife has concealed savngs

DavidW_3

I'm on my second marriage of five years. I have two sons from my 1st marriage, a step daughter - we have just had a baby together.

I lost my job around four years ago but found another two years later. This was quite low paid and as my wife didn't earn much and now doesn't work at all we qualified for housing benefit which we have had for the last two years.

My wife's mum has just died. When I went round to see my sister in law who still lives in that house, I noticed a letter addressed to my wife. I picked it up without a thought saying I would give it to her when I went home. Her sister became very agitated and snatched it back - I insisted on taking it although I didn't open it.

It was obviously a letter from a building society and I asked my wife to open the letter and show me the contents - I finally had to physically take the letter from her and open it myself with her fighting to stop me. I've found she has £30,000 that she didn't tell me about. Her excuse is that she is saving it for her daughter's university fees and expenses.

I am furious at being compromised like this and have serious doubts about my marriage now, but don't want advice on that. If the LA find out about this money we or more specifically I, am going to have to pay our housing benefit back (which I can't and my wife won't) and possibly get a fine and a record. They hear excuses all the time and will never believe I didn't know about this money.

My wife is quite blase and wants to leave things as they are, saying that she will use some of this money to buy some of the things we need if I don't say anything.

While I think about the future of my marriage... is there any way the LA could connect my wife's savings accounts at the two addresses? She has kept her (not unusual) name. If I stay with my wife, I am not planning to continue to conceal this money and need to find some way to prove that we got it now.

I just don't know what to do - this is making me ill. My father is high up in the police force and the damage a prosecution would do to him, if the local press made a connection would be worse than that which has already been done to a marriage I thought contained honesty with no secrets.

SomeBozo

At the core of this is that Housing Benefit is means tested, meaning that now with a family savings of 30k, this should and will stop when :

a) You declare the 30k
b) The 30k gets discovered.

I don't know anything about the back pay of HB if found out not to qualify, but HRC debts are not statue barred, so the 7 year don't apply!

You don't state much about your wifes situation (working? benefits? etc) so its hard to comment on that.

As you say, you don't want advice on your marriage so I won't comment on that and ask others subsequent posters not to and respect your wishes.

Bozo

tom9980

Wow i feel for you this is very tricky to deal with, at the end of the day this is fraud and you should pay the money back because you are not entitled to it.

You say you didnt know about the money that is fair enough if you admit to the council what has happened and pay the money back they are unlikely to prosecute you, so it may be worth thinking about that.

hippy-chicy

As already said, with 30k you will not qualify. I assume that your wife has had these savings for a number of years this could mena that you may not have been entitled for the entire period of your HB / CTB claim. Definately from the point that the savings reached 16k.

You need to inform the LA and cancel your claim, the longer it is left paying out the larger the overpayment will be and the more you will have to repay.

As Bozo has said there are two options.

krisskross

At the moment it presumably won't be a huge amount to pay back as you say your MIL's death was recent. The longer it is left the higher the overpayment.

I feel for you as you obviously can't live with this kind of fraud.

seven-day-weekend

Oh, this is awkward isn't it? I feel so sorry for you, I would hate to be in that position too.

If you declare the money (which you should),maybe you could just tell it as you have told us here and say that you are prepared to solemnly swear before a notary that you didn't know about it. Would that be an option?

Your Housing Benefit would then stop, but would your wife be prepared to go to work part-time again to help make it up and pay it back?

It would be a lot better if your wife declared it and also declared that you knew nothing about it, but if you can't persuade her to, then you will have to.

I wish you well in this very difficult situation.

Voyager2002

I can't imagine that you could face prosecution.

However, didn't your wife also have to sign the HB claim form? In which case she is at risk.

Presumably the building society has her NI number and date of birth, so it would be obvious to a counter-fraud officer that the account was linked to the person claiming benefit.

hippy-chicy

I dont think the savings were inherited from the death, i think they may have been aquired prior to this. The overpayment will be at least two years worth of HB/CTB (if applicable) as thats how long the OP stated that they have been claiming.

hanny83_2

If I were you I would get your wife to own up asap as GMS matches on the computer can cross-reference capital in benefit claimants accounts with the fact that they're on benefits and haven't declared it. So even if someone doesn't report you as 'living beyond means' the computer can indeed catch you out. But good luck for the future, and on a personal level I'd always say that honesty is the best policy.

mouseymousey99

Firstly you are obviously a very honest chap & I'm sorry you are in this. I would also strongly encourage your wife to own up to this, sooner or later it will be found; and it would go so much better if she settled it first. Could you go to a solicitor and get some legal advice; maybe ask the solicitor to write to DWP for you (both)? I hope things work out for you.

DavidW_3

My wife's account has been active for some years and contains an inheritance she got before we met. She is not the woman I thought she is - all she can say is the money has nothing to do with anything now as she got it before our marriage. She's not stupid and she knew the rules when we applied for HB - we did the forms together.

She did work until our baby was born but has now stopped for the time being.

She will not go to the LA voluntarily and says if I do tell them she will say I knew about the money all along. I can't pay this money back myself as I have no savings.

I'm so frightened of what will happen.