Letter from the Customer Compliance Team

marks77

Did they investigate whether your finances were separate?

Breast_Cancer_Survivor

marks77 wrote: »

Did they investigate whether your finances were separate?

She looked at my bank statements showing I was constantly overdrawn, asked whether my BF made any financial contributions to the household, who bought the food etc.

Up until 3 weeks ago he was renting a house from the council & was paying rent, council tax, utilities etc so we were covered for that period.

Now he lives with his mum it seems to be a different matter though.

Breast_Cancer_Survivor

I have now received the Decision Makers letter following my Customer Compliance home visit on the 1/7/09 as someone had reported that my BF was living with me & that I was not a lone parent.

I have looked at your case and the notes completed at the interview and have decided that you and Mr ***** are not living together as Husband and Wife.

Im so pleased that the DWP took my personal circumstances into account which is what I was initially worried about.

It just goes to show that the rules are not set in stone & that if you have genuine needs they will take them into account.

NASA_2

Breast_Cancer_Survivor wrote: »

It just goes to show that the rules are not set in stone & that if you have genuine needs they will take them into account.

I dont know why people should be shcoked by that

zzzLazyDaisy

I am so pleased for you. This seems to have been going on for a while now, it must have been very stressful. I hope you can put it behind you, and move on now.

Last year I was reported to the council for claim single persons CT discount when I was living with someone (I'm not on benefits). It was my brother, who stayed two weeks to look after me when I came out of hospital. Fortunately he pays rent and council tax somewhere else so I could prove it although tbh the council said they don't take much notice of anonymous calls, even though they do still have to investigate them.

Earlier this year my son's girlfriend was reported because he was supposedly living with her. She is a single parent with two young children, one autistic. He had only been seeing her about 6 weeks and had stayed over twice. Again he could prove he rents and pays tax elsewhere. He went with her to the interview and they were very reasonable about it - again this was an anonymous phone call.

Yes, if people are living together they should declare it and claim as a couple, and yes some people cheat the system. But on the other end of the scale, there are a lot of innocent people who are just trying to get on with their lives, who get caught by this 'grass up your neighbour' culture.

Breast_Cancer_Survivor

ESA wrote: »

I dont know why people should be shcoked by that

Im not necessarily shocked as I knew that I wasn't doing anything wrong but I am very happy that it has been officially regongnised that people are individuals & their needs vary.

My main worry was that there were no clear cut rules, I can understand why there isn't now as some people would probably say whatever they thought was needed to meet the exemptions.

I know working for the DWP is a hard job & on this particular occasion the Compliance Officer that came to see me was very understanding, ive never really had any dealings with the DWP before so was unsure what to expect.

I hope that my experience will help anyone reading this that may be in a similar situation, my advice is to just be honest from the start.