JSA do they need to know?

myhusbandistight

all my payments are sorted now and i get jsa (70 a week for me and my wife) and council tax is paid, i used the money from the redundancy as soon as it was cashed in the bank so I have made no interest on it.

alwaysonthego_2

Redundancy money should be included in your capital and if you had £8000 altogether than if you was claiming IB benefits such as IBJSA, LHA and CTB then your entitlement would be reduced by £8 per week. Paying your mortgage if you had no arrears could have been classed as deprivation of capital [getting rid of capital in order to claim benefits].

TBH I am not sure whether you spent the money before or after you claimed the benefits but hopefully my post should help in some way.

myhusbandistight

Yes it does help thanks, it was around 4 weeks ago when I paid it off and It was after being made redundant and after the claim was sorted.
do you think it is best I tell them then?
it seems silly to be called deprivation of capital as I did not do it deliberately to get rid of money to claim a benefit I just saw it as an opportunity to pay my mortgage as any sensible person would in a redundancy situation.

alwaysonthego wrote: »

Redundancy money should be included in your capital and if you had £8000 altogether than if you was claiming IB benefits such as IBJSA, LHA and CTB then your entitlement would be reduced by £8 per week. Paying your mortgage if you had no arrears could have been classed as deprivation of capital [getting rid of capital in order to claim benefits].

TBH I am not sure whether you spent the money before or after you claimed the benefits but hopefully my post should help in some way.

karenx

As silly as it sounds they can see it as getting rid of money you have in order to claim full benefits. As before you paid off the mortgage you had an amount which would of seen your benefit amount decrease. So by spending the money it takes you under the limit which means you can get full entitlement.

myhusbandistight

yes I agree it would have reduced the benefit but I could have gone down the route of getting them to pay the interest on the mortgage which would have been a lot more for them to pay out( not sure about this fully as I did not want to do it)

karenx wrote: »

As silly as it sounds they can see it as getting rid of money you have in order to claim full benefits. As before you paid off the mortgage you had an amount which would of seen your benefit amount decrease. So by spending the money it takes you under the limit which means you can get full entitlement.

jfdi

If you've only just been made redundant - are you on Income-based JSA or Contribution based?

If it's the second - & I guess it is - then 'capital' won't be counted!

myhusbandistight

tricky one that as I am on the CB JSA but the wife as she has not worked due to looking after the children moves our claim into the IB JSA as I am claiming as a couple.

jfdi wrote: »

If you've only just been made redundant - are you on Income-based JSA or Contribution based?

If it's the second - & I guess it is - then 'capital' won't be counted!

jfdi

''I am on the CB JSA but the wife as she has not worked due to looking after the children moves our claim into the IB JSA ''

Ah! Pity - in which case the capital WILL need to be declared. Don't know what they'll do tho' - sorry!

BatOutOfUll

I can only quote MY circumstances and hope it helps:

I got over £30K in redundancy and I have NO mortgage as my house was re-possessed back in the 80's so I used my pay-off/capital to pay off over £25K of debt.

If you can prove the capital was spent wisely i.e. to reduce debt it is NOT seen as 'deliberate spending of capital to claim benefits'

In short I proved (by providing receipts) that the entire £25K was for debts leaving me with £5000 in the bank.

So I got IS and kept the £5K. I WANTED to go on CB JSA as I have worked since the age of 17 (18 years in my last job) without a break, but being a Single Mum I HAD to receive IS (Their rules - not mine)

As I am NOT in 'Social' Housing I got then got LHA and NOT HB, Child Tax Credits and Council Tax Benefit All of which I would have got anyway!

The only hardship was the difference between the LHA they say you 'need' and your actual rent..........I was short every month and so the remaining capital was used for the shortfall on the rent until I got back into work.

So if you can show you haven't deliberately spent the money to gain benefits then the money is yours to do how you see fit. They did have a hissy fit at first until I pointed them to thier OWN link on a website that quotes this.

According to their 'link' Holidays, Conservatories, Swimming Pools etc are OUT but funnily enough Cars weren't on the grounds that once in employment you would need a car if previously you used to walk to work and you may now need to commute!

I didn't spend the capital on goods, but on getting me out of debt and this is allowed BY LAW

You now have the bonus of owning your home and no-one can take it from you.

Hope this helps, what I'm trying to say is that by comparison I had a lot of capital and in under one week had spent it, I hadn't even had my interview at the JobCentre I was that determined to get out of debt!

alwaysonthego_2

BatOutOfUll wrote: »

I got over £30K in redundancy and I have NO mortgage as my house was re-possessed back in the 80's so I used my pay-off/capital to pay off over £25K of debt.

If you can prove the capital was spent wisely i.e. to reduce debt it is NOT seen as 'deliberate spending of capital to claim benefits'

I didn't spend the capital on goods, but on getting me out of debt and this is allowed BY LAW

There is no clear legislation that allows someone to reduce their capital and then claim state benefits, this could be seen has deprivation of capital. It is up to the DM how they inteperate the DMG and it is wise for a person who is looking at clearing debts before they claim benefits to consult with the DM otherwise they could be treated has having notional income.