Housing Benefit Problem

Nevada

How do I go about proving I have no money to Housing benefit?

I had a life insurance policy when my husband died for £100,000 2 years ago after buying a car paying all my debts home inprovements rent and council tax for 2 years and a little investment the money dwindled, Housing benefit insist that I have £68,000 still, They have all relevant paperwork but are asking the impossible for me to prove where all the money went even though on my bank statements and other paperwork they have the money is gone I was morning my husband with four small children I had no solid financial advise and many family members had loans that have not been returned.

What do I do I risk losing my council house which a fair portion of the money went on.

How do I prove the impossible, surly proving financial hardship now would be and should be enough to justify my claim

GlasweJen

It sounds like they're assessing you under "deprivation of capital" rules. Basically to claim benefits you have to have less than £16,000 in the bank, because you had £100,000 only 2 years ago the government will assess wether or not you spent your money on essentials or if you've frittered it away to claim income based benefits.

They will not budge until their calculation shows that your £100,000 would have dwindled down to £16,000.

Indie_Kid

The dprivation has to be reasonable. (ie, you could prehaps buy a small family car; but not a BMW or something)

GlasweJen

Debt repayments should only be made at the usual rate (i.e. not paid off in one go, it's not the tax payers job to sort out your debts or your inability to pay rent as a result of paying off debt); paying back arrears is usually ok, loans to family that aren't being repaid will be seen as "gifts" which are not allowed. Home improvements are usually ok if they are "essential" - i.e. the house would come down around your ears if they weren't done, the kids health would be at risk from their rooms not being treated for damp or something but tbh as you live in a council house you are not liable for that sort of essential work so it will probably be disallowed.

You should make a list of all the money that was spent from the insurance policy and then look up intentional deprivation on girect gov, mark off all the "allowable" expenses then tot up how much the government should say you have left. Then ask someone at the council to look at your figures and tell you 1. if they agree with what you worked out and 2. how long they expect you to take to get below £16,000 to reinstate your housing benefit.

Nevada

I did not intentionally deprive my family so I could claim benefits, I simply went to the bank one day and there was none left coming back to earth with a crash. Thank you for your advice GlasweJen I am at a lose to find any solid information on how the figures are worked out with regards to this situation if you have a link you could share it would be most helpful please. As I have said the council do have all relevant paperwork that I can physically produce. How long is the money supposed to last and what is reasonable to have been spent?

Oldernotwiser

What are you saying that you paid both for both rent and home improvements with the money? What happened to the money invested?

Amistoso_2

sorry but to spend that kind of money in such a very short time with 4 kids to think about is irresponsible, but not only that you ended up buying a car in 2008 for 24K cash, then the following year take a secured loan out on it for 6K?!? what's that all about? so not only have you squandered the original 100K within a year but got yourself into debt on top!!!
getting rid of all your savings so you can claim benefits is called deprivation of capital.
funny how someone has always given loans out to family and friends in these cases and never got it back, yeah right...
something not right here.

calleyw

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

What are you saying that you paid both for both rent and home improvements with the money? What happened to the money invested?

The OP also says it is a council house. So apart from decorating what major improvements where needed. I am happy to stand corrected but I thought major improvements such as bathrooms and kitchens where replaced every X years at the cost of the local authority.

The OP has spent 100K in two years :eek: That is not normal spending pattern. Granted if they paid a mortgage off then I can understand it. But if that was the case they would not need to apply for HB.

Also how do you get a loan with no income?

It seems the council think the normal rate of spending is 16K a year which even to me sounds rather generous if the OP was working if not then there was rent and council tax and other bills to be paid and a car bought and needs to be run and 4 children to pay for as well.

Sadly there is no way around. The rules are rules. It is to stop people from winning/inherting money and giving it away so they can either carry on claiming or start a claim for means tested benefit.

Yours

Calley

munchings-n-crunchings

I think you need to get all the receipts and paperwork you can find and make an appointment with the CAB.

It's not only getting through £100,000 in 2 years, but after owning a £24,000 car for not much more than a year, you take out a £6,000 loan secured on it. There should have been no need for taking out additional funds.

That money should have given you and the children some financial security, yet it has been frittered away, and you find yourself in the situation you are in now.

Munchie

GlasweJen

There isn't a link that I know of off the top of my head, knowledge came from working for citizens advice. It's amazing how fast people can spend money on nothing then expect others to pay their way when it's gone.

It used to be that the council would calculate how much you would get in benefits in a year (so income support/jsa plus child benefit plus child tax credit) add council tax and rent for a year then divide the capital by that sum to give how many years the capital should last. They were flexible for about £10,000 to be spent on a family car/decorating the house or something but never £100,000 in 2 years. That's based on my local council at the time which was North Lanarkshire, I imagine the criteria may be different between different councils and of course may be different again for the DWP/HMRC who give out the tax credits and income support.

dmg24

I doubt the LA would class spending £24,000 on a car as reasonable!