Housing Benefit Worry

Jowo_2

brightonqueen wrote: »

..What it comes down to is if they decide overall that i have spent my savings 'in excess' of my needs, will they refuse the HB completely?!

If a claimant is deemed to have intentionally deprived themselves of capital, DWP or HMRC will identify a figure that the claimant should still have and treat them as if they still have that capital, even if they don't.

This is known as 'notional capital' and by searching on this forum or on google for this term and 'deprivation of capital', you should be able to uncover more information on this, plus links to the DWP/HMRC decision makers guides which are the staff guidance manuals.

Claimants that spend their capital on ordinary living expenses, including replacement furniture, cars and so on, should not experience any problems. The main issues come with people burning through their capital on frivolous and expensive goods, holidays or who gift money to relatives, pay back loans/debts early when there is no legal requirement to do so.

Find the decision makers guides so you understand how they identify deprivation of capital, acceptable spending, etc, from the horses mouth rather than second hand. Ultimately, they have to prove a person has deliberately and intentionally deprived themselves of capital.

brightonqueen

Thank you for your sound advice. This has been really helpfull info if the worst comes to the worst!

tazwhoever

"Treatment of capital owned by child/young person

P1.32 Do not include a child’s or young person’s capital with the claimant’s when calculating the
amount of capital to take into account.

HB Reg 25; CTB Reg 15"

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/hbgm-bp1-assessment-of-capital.pdf

Have DWP gone against this rule?

Surely, children under 7 cannot open their own account unless they have a trustee.

paddedjohn

what would happen if a person was earning £2k a week for a couple of years and lived the high life with the cash and then lost their job, and had only £5k left in the bank? would the dwp class this as deprivation if the person made a claim for benefits? this is only hyperthetical as i was just wondering.

McKneff

paddedjohn wrote: »

what would happen if a person was earning £2k a week for a couple of years and lived the high life with the cash and then lost their job, and had only £5k left in the bank? would the dwp class this as deprivation if the person made a claim for benefits? this is only hyperthetical as i was just wondering.

They would be able to claim benefits. They really, while earning a lot and spending a lot, cant see into the future when they could lose their job and be on benefits. So they wouldnt be doing it deliberately, if you see what I mean.

AnnaV

£1600 does sound like a lot to be spending considering it's just you and a toddler...

Oldernotwiser

AnnaV wrote: »

£1600 does sound like a lot to be spending considering it's just you and a toddler...

£1600 plus CB and CTC.

welshmoneylover

brightonqueen wrote: »

Hi all,

I will try to keep this as short as possible...

I have been privately renting my flat for 15 months, with my toddler son, (& my partner who moved in 3 months ago). Before i moved in i had £32K savings, & my son had £11K after a will settlement. I do not work, & to date my only income is Child Benefit & Child Tax Credit.

I am aware you cannot claim HB at all if you have capital of over £16K, & any savings over £6K affect the amount of benefit you may be entitled to.

I therefore have been using my own savings for day to day living costs. By August last year my savings had diminished to £15K (rent & bills per month are £1,600; plus i had to fully furnish the flat on moving in as i previously lived with my mother & had nothing, this totalled around £5K).

So i applied for HB for the first time. I was told i could not claim anything, as i had too much savings (they lumped my own money with my son's, even though i had a solicitors letter to prove where a large part of his money came from). I was told by a HB officer to move his money to an account which was in his name & couldn't be touched by anyone else & with me as a trustee, so it would be seen as 'his money'. After a lot of hunting around i finally found something suitable.

In the mean time, my partner moved in (he has no savings, & works full time but on a very low wage.) we have since applied a second time for HB in December last year, when my savings were down to £4K.

Our claim is still being processed, as they wrote to ask us for statements dating back to before i moved into the flat (& over a year before our application.)
The problem i am forseeing (as i am a worrier!!) is that back then i did have another account which shows up on my current bank account statements from that period. I did not 'declare' this account on the application form, as it was closed by the time of me applying (the money in this account used to live off!). I do still have the paperwork from this account to show when it was closed etc.

My worry is that they will think i am trying to con the system into getting benefits by 'hiding' money in other accounts. In reality, i have been honest by using my savings to live off before applying for HB now i really need it. All the money i have spent can be accounted for & justified- i have not certainly not squandered the money to try & 'get rid' of it.

I just wondered if anyone had a similar experience, or knew what might happen to our claim. really hope this gets resolved asap, as i have only enough to pay the next months rent & bills (my partners wage after tax barely covers rent & coucil tax, not to mention all the other costs...)

Sorry to ramble on, thanks for taking time to read :eek:

Unbelieveable... and you are hoping for housing benefit

Macro_3

brightonqueen wrote: »

Sixer wrote: »

I don't see how, if the son was left the money in a will and the mother has paperwork to prove that? The issue with the son's money, surely, was that she had put it into an account to which she had access? This is a common issue in differentiating whose money is whose and what counts as what for both tax and benefits, especially when children are small - it doesn't cross a parent's mind that the money should go into an account the child itself operates (eg Post Office 7+ accounts) or the operator should be a grandparent or aunt or other trusted adult.


This is it exactly...When i recieved the cheque for his inheritance i paid it into what i thought was 'his account', but it was only when i later applied for HB that i was informed that the account (along with most other accounts for children under 7) was actually in my name, with him just as a named person on the account.
That is when the HB staff member i spoke to told me to transfer it to an account that would be just in his name.
They do have the solicitors letter to show the money was left to him so this is not the main worry.

I suppose that's why I'm a little concerned - it's common for people applying for benefits to have accounts that are shared in some way - for example, to have joint accounts with elderly parents with large amounts in, or to 'lend' an account to a relative who does not have an account of their own, or accounts in the name of adults which actually belong to children. It doesn't mean that the money in the accounts is treated as belonging to the claimant unless the claimant has a beneficial interest in the money, whether they have access or not.

I'm just wondering why, if they had the solicitors letter re the inheritance originally, and the inheritance was in a children's account with your sons name on (albeit with you as account holder) they counted the money as yours. On the face of it, the decision seems wrong unless they had reason to believe that the op had an interest in the money (not just access to it).

OP did you appeal the decision at the time?

brightonqueen

Macro, no i didn't appeal the decision at the time.
My son had had that account since birth (15 months before the will was settled & paid to him), so there was a small amount of money already in it (from birthdays, xmas etc.)
They didn't write to me to tell me their decision either, i eventually went down to their office to find out what was going on with my claim...it was then that they told me his money had been lumped with my savings & to transfer it to another account. I pointed out then the letter that they had a copy of from the solicitors, & they didn't seem to know about it...they eventually found it in their records, but stuck to their decision at the time. He just told me to come back & claim again once i had done that.
So I left it at that, as obviously at that time i had sufficient savings of my own to continue living off.