Housing Benefit and Savings

Farside1

My wife has just heard that she is entitled to a pension from a former employer. I have written to DWP to inform them as it will impact on our Pension Credit (It's only £80 per month so basically this appears to be a straight swop of income sources pound for pound). However the pension includes a lump sum of just over £6000.

We have very little in the way of savings now but this will bump us up to approximately £6.5K and therefore over the lower limit for housing benefit.

However we would dearly like to use some of this "windfall" to take our grandchildren on a modest holiday which will immediately take us well under the limit again.

How should we go about opening a dialogue with the local council on this? Are we likely to lose some of our housing benefit and if so for how long might that continue before we can reapply to have it increased (we are in social housing and currently pay no rent or council tax).

It is even more complicated by the fact that the pension should have come into effect 16 months ago so there will be some arrears and a resultant overpayment that needs to go back to DWP (we have already notified them that we are happy to repay this in a lump sum as soon as we recieve it - not the best deal for us I know but we will feel more comfortable not owing anything)

Farside1

Thanks Dave30. You've put my mind at rest.

We really don't want to get back in a situation of owing anyone anything but also don't want to make life more complicated than it needs to be or to lose benefit which we rely on long term.

I have a copy of the correspondence with the pension fund asking for clarification of amounts and dates and clearly stating that I need this info so I can tell DWP and Housing so hopefully can prove our honest intent


As you suggest I will wait until it has all happened and then inform everyone.

Macro_3

OP, as you are on pension credit you do not need to inform the local authority about your increase in capital. To avoid double handling of information, the pension service assess your income and capital and supply the figures to LA's to use in assessments. If you tell the LA, they will just pass the info to the pension service and await their decision.

If you are on PCGC, you get full entitlement to housing and council tax benefit less any non-dependent deductions. Do you have any idea if the pension/savings will knock you off guarantee credit?? Because if you are entitled to that, it doesn't matter how much you have in savings, you'll still get full entitlement. I've seen people with 70k get PCGC and therefore full housing and council tax.

Hope you have a fab holiday! x