Housing benefit, assets and joint accounts

cjm66

My mother and I share bank accounts, but don't live together. She is claiming housing benefit, but because of an error by the local authority has been over paid £700 which they are not claiming back. However that has taken the total assets just over £16000, and they have pulled the plug. As its a joint account shouldn't half of it be classed as mine?

real1314

cjm66 wrote: »

My mother and I share bank accounts, but don't live together. She is claiming housing benefit, but because of an error by the local authority has been over paid £700 which they are not claiming back. However that has taken the total assets just over £16000, and they have pulled the plug. As its a joint account shouldn't half of it be classed as mine?

Do you have money paid into the account?
Did you ever pay any money into the account?
What is the purpose of having a joint account with your mother?

fluffymovie

So if I read this correctly, the LA have paid your mum £700 more than they should have done and her capital is now above £16,000 so you want to know if they should treat half of that as yours so that she can continue to claim benefit as well as keep the £700 that she wasn't entitled to?

Sorry, that sounds a bit off to me.

Unless you can show that the capital in the account is made up of both your monies, which is more than having your name on the account, then the money will be considered hers. I presume you did not query this when she was considered to have capital of £15,000?

I am sure that if she paid her rent or Ctax for a few months, her capital will reduce again and she can correctly claim the benefits that she is entitled to at that time.

cjm66

Thanks for the replies but not the tone. Perhaps I should have given some more background. I was being brief.

She has currently £16,400 assets.

September 1st my father died suddenly. As he was in a care home my mother had been getting pension credit- she's 77. We notified the pension service the day after his funeral, who advised us that my mother's pension would increase and she would no longer be eligible for pension credit. They also said they would liaise with the LA. This didn't happen and I have spent the last 3 months trying to get her housing/council tax benefit sorted. Meanwhile my mother went into hospital 29th September for stomach cancer and after spending a month in intensive care and having 3 operations, is still there (Although she might be discharged next week.)

She only has so much money because she's been in hospital for so long and because she got £1000 insurance pay out when my Dad died. In the next few weeks at least £2000 will be coming out of the account to pay for my Dad's gravestone so she'll be below £16000 soon but if it takes another 3-4 months to have her re-assessed correctly I might just lose the will to live.

In the last 3 weeks she has received 14 letters from the LA only 1 of them makes any sense.

Perhaps it does sound a bit 'off' but I am simply trying to sort out a mistake that was made by the LA 3 months ago, and avoid having to go through the whole hideous process again.