Benefits, savings & inheritance question

Bettykassar

My mother recently pased away, and when she died, she was on a state pension and in receipt of housing benefit. She had savings of around £18000, but after funeral expenses this was around £15000. I applied for probate and the DWP are now asking how much she had in savings. I understand that people on benefits are allowed to have £16000. Will the DWP be looking at how much she had before the funeral expenses or how much was left afterwards?
Also, I have now inherited the £15000 that was left. I'm in a wheelchair, I claim ESA and already had savings of around £10,000. With the money I have inherited, I would rather buy a second-hand car and give some of it to charity. If I do this, so that I have less than £16000 left, will I be forced to show proof of how I have spent the money?

Mojisola

Benefits start to be affected once you have £6000 in savings. DWP will want to know the details of your mother's capital while she was alive because that is when she was claiming benefits. From what you say here, they will be reclaiming some of the money she was paid.

You won't know your inheritance until that has been paid. As you already have £10,000, you need to get some advice yourself in case you are claiming when you shouldn't.

viktory

Oh joy, another thread looking for a work around of the benefit rules. Second one today. OP, Google deprivation of capital. Personally, I would rather you use your savings and inheritance to live on as opposed to benefits.

Jowo_2

You should have no problems with ordinary living expenses, such as buying a car and so forth. You will encounter problems if you try to artificially deplete your capital, deliberately depriving yourself of your income in order to maximise your entitlement to means tested benefits. The rules around deprivation of capital are complex.

Do as Viktory says and investigate similar posts on this forum. It will almost certainly be seen in a negative light if you give your money away to charity to get under the threshold.

And yes, keep good records. You could well be investigated by the DWP and/or HMRC (if tax credits are involved) if you are perceived to have hammered down your inheritance as quickly as you can on non-ordinary living expenses, such as gifts of cash to others.

I don't know the exact position on whether the DWP will try to recoup any overpayment from your late mother's estate but other forum members will know.

EDIT - sorry for your loss.

Incyder

Sadly Betty, it looks like your mother was a benefit fraudster, as she had 18k in savings but was claiming HB. As you know, 16k is the maximum she could have had whilst claiming.

Anyway, moving onto your dilemma. You want to give money to charity to get down to 16k so the tax payer can start paying again for you to live ?

Thats not very charitable on the tax payer is it ?

Have you told the benefits folk that you now have 25k not 10 anymore ?

RAS

Hi

Who adminster her estate? As it is apparent that your mother's estate has outstanding debts to the DWP that need sorting out before any money is transferred to any beneficiaries. This could be substantial. The executor/administraor needs copies of her accounts for the last 6 years.

hurricanewyn

Did your mum get Pension Credit as well as a state pension. If she got the guarantee element of Pension Credit then she was entitled to HB regardless of her capital.

Why are the DWP asking about your mum's capital though? If she just had a state pension then that's not means tested and the Pension Service administer Pension credit. The Local authority do the HB. Or is it for your ES claim?

Donating money to charity will always be considered deprivation, as it can never be considered a living expense. Even if you donated the money to a charity that helped looked after your mum in illness or in her last few years, it's still not allowable. If you did want to make a gesture like that, as I'm assuming that you want to donate for this kind of reason and not to deliberately deprive yourself of capital, then a better gesture might be to donate time rather than money.

OP, are you on Contributions based or Income Related ESA because this will make a difference. I too am sorry for your loss.

sader1

First of all we don't know if it was cash in the bank or a life insurance policy that has now been cashed. Everybody is assuming that it was all in cash!

Next, the responsibility of the executor/administrator is to gather the assets togeher, pay the debts of the estate leaving the residual for the beneficiary.

It is not for the executor/administrator to start carry out an investigation as to what the deceased debts are. It is up to the creditors to prove the debts to the executor/administrator. Obviously if a debt is known then that is recorded.
The DWP must be given the information they ask for as it is up to them to prove their debt. The executor/administrator is at liberty to challenge any debt if there are grounds for believing that it may be wrong.

Once all of the proofs are in and if they are accepted as being correct, the executor/administrator is now ready to settle those debts. Once that is complete, the executor/administrator will put an advert in generally two newspapers/London Gazette advising that the estate is to be wound up shortly and that if there are any further debts they must be proved by a certain date. If nothing comes in, the estate can be distributed.

It is not unusual for a government department to fail to prove by that cut off date. The executor/administrator is not required to pay that late debt! These are normally HMRC & DWP!!!!!

So, give them the info, then let them sit on it. If they don't prove their debt by the final date - tough they don't get paid!
If they do prove before the date, then make damn sure that the executor/administrator goes through it with a fine toothcomb to see if there are any mistakes. Invariably you will find some. then throw the proof back at them to try again!

Oldernotwiser

Beware of any advice from the above poster as he's an AE of our resident troll andyandflo!

DX2

viktory wrote: »

Oh joy, another thread .

Oh joy, another thread from our resident troll

DX2

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Beware of any advice from the above poster as he's an AE of our resident troll andyandflo!

The OP and sader = Andy