savings when on incapacity benefit

meashamfox

My brother claims incapacity benefit and has done for 17 years.

As with a lot of others claiming this benefit he is concerned about the new changes. He is also worried if claiming this benefit will affect any savings he has and would like to know how much you are allowed to have in savings.

I hope someone can shed some light on this as information seems to be very vague

Thanks

meashamfox

McKneff

I dont think savings affect incapacity benefit but they can certainly affect any means tested benefits he get.
Housing benefit etc.

No idea how old he is but private pension, I believe, over £85 a week can affect IB

RAS

If he has less than £6K, then this does not affect his benefits. If he has more than that but less than £16k, means tested benefits are reduced, but some benefits are non-means-tested and savings are irrelevent.

meashamfox

Eyeballs99 wrote: »

Savings and on benefits, sounds to me like he's on too much benefits and they need to be reduced.

Eyeballs,thanks for your constructive comment,I joined this site thinking that people who were in the same boat (so to speak) would be giving each other help and advice.

My brother worked from when he left school until 17 years ago(he is 56) he suffered an injury which meant he had to have a leg amputated and then he suffered with cancer,fortunately he is in remission, he constantly suffers with phantom pain.

As for savings,the savings he has was left to him by his wife's father who passed away.

I hope you read this and stick to making constructive comments before knowing the full facts

Thanks

meashamfox

JS477

Please try to ignore the snide remarks from the less helpful members of the forum.

Incapacity Benefit is a non-means tested benefit and so any amount of savings is not taken into account.

If/when your brother is migrated to ESA if he is migrated to Contribution Based ESA then the same rules regarding savings will prevail unlike Income Based ESA which is means tested. It should also be borne in mind that there is a proposal to time limit those in the WRAG of CB ESA to a year then they become subject to the IB ESA means test.

GlasweJen

Just to add to JS477's post, if your brother is placed in the support group of ESA he will not be moved onto income based ESA after 1 year and so his savings will be ignored. You can look at the descriptors online to see if he meets the support group criteria - they are really tough though!

Eyeballs99

I forgot that only having 1 leg prevents you from working any job

My apologises

GlasweJen

Eyeballs, the OP states that his brother also had cancer so there may be more underlying conditions than just having his leg amputated.

paulwellerfan

lol- just- thats a big thing in its self....

[Deleted User]

Eyeballs99 wrote: »

I forgot that only having 1 leg prevents you from working any job

My apologises

why dont you either grow up or go away ?

JS477

woodbine wrote: »

why don't you either grow up or go away ?

and also learns how to spell