On benefits and big inheritance - advice agencies?

RAS

Ames wrote: »

how do I edit the title in a thread I've started?

Edit, go to advanced and it becomes and option.

Terrysdelight

Sorry to hear about your mum.

I've read through most of the posts on here and think I've got an understanding of your issues.

Once you become a home owner you will not have a need for housing benefit and your DLA can't be touched. You can also claim incapacity benefit.

I know house prices in Leeds are quite cheap but just a little tip - find out what the maximum threshold for savings is that won't affect your benefits. Years ago, you was allowed to have £8K in savings before it affected council tax benefit etc etc. Also, if you need adaptions to your new home, the local goverment can help with grants for that.

I'm sure your mum would like you to have a little money put aside for a rainy day.

Good luck with everything.

Ames

I can't claim IB as I'm on an old version called SDA, and you can't make new claims for IB anyway it's ESA.

I wont have a need for HB, but I'll have to cover the £350 IS shortfall every month.

The maximum saving is 16k (or 6k with no deductions), but if I make sure I've got just below that in savings it'll look even more like deliberate deprivation of capital.

I am downgrading my hopes for a house so I can get the cheapest I can.

I doubt I'd get help for adaptations so I can move from an adapted flat into my own home, so I'm factoring that cost in. I think it's better to do that than find I'm short.

Mum wanted me to have a house. Mum wanted me to have no issues with benefits so wanted to put my share in a trust. But despite knowing for six months she was dying she didn't make a will, or even write anything down. So it's less about what she wanted than it is about making the best of the situation. Sorry, that sounds bitter I know, but I'm having so many problems now that wouldn't exist if that little piece of paper had existed.

I will look into the help though - they might help me with adaptations, after all I'll be making an adapted place available for someone else.

I'm not sure where I'd find that out though? I've just had my social services file closed so don't have anyone there to ask.

Manicdepressionsucks

Hi Ames, Can't offer any useful advice - just to say I'm so sorry to hear about all this. Im Bipolar too and I seem to remember you offering me some great advice whilst I was going through my Bankruptcy a couple of years ago. Just an aside - do you have a CPN or social worker. I have been battling for eleven years to finally get one who knows what they are on about, and in the short time I have been seeing him he has helped me so much with the practicalities of this bit** of an illness. MDF also have quite a few clued up money experts online too, may be worth giving them a call. Keep strong

RAS

Ames

i am goign to make a really silly suggestion.

Have you considered applying to go to university full-time in September? I know you fell that you would struggle to study FT but you would get a support package and DDA assessment to help you succeed. Most courses are 12 hours a week cntact time anyway.

If after one year, you felt you needed to go part-time, that would be an option on many courses.

The big advantage is that as a student, you would have the right to spend your inheritance as you wish. When the course ends, you may be able tow work, or may need help with benefits but at least you could not be accused of deprivation of capital?

Ames

Thanks.

I don't have a CPN. The crisis team came out last night and referred me for one, she phoned today and arranged an assessment for the week after next. It sounds like they want me to increase my time with my outreach worker though, which I don't think is right. She's not medically trained, so it's not fair to give her that responsibility, and it's not fair on me to not have the right level of support. Hopefully I'm wrong though.

I don't have a social worker either. I did have one, I was assessed at needing 5 hours of care, but the financial assessment wouldnt' take into account my mental health care costs, so I never got it. Because of that I got a letter a few weeks ago saying my case has been closed.

My current diagnosis isn't bipolar - it's cyclothymia, anxiety and affective disorders. Although more psychiatrists have said bipolar than anything else. So I'm not sure if the MDF would help me.

I've been thinking about contacting Shelter for help about the housing and benefits situation, I always think that you can't get too many different perspectives on problems.

Thanks again for the support, and I'm glad I could help before.

Ames

RAS - it's a good suggestion, but I think it's too late to apply to go full time, and I'd have to meet the 'normal' entry requirements, whereas part time it's done through the lifelong learning department and they have more leeway.

Plus, I really don't think I could manage full time.

I've already got a DSA package from my OU study, which I can transfer.

I think I'm just going to have to buy the house, then appeal appeal and appeal, with as much evidence as I can from medical people that this place is no good for my needs.

One of the reasons I want the stability of a home is that I'm hoping I can do a very small amount of work before too long. I'm building contacts and a portfolio to do a tiny bit of freelance work. But I couldn't cope with doing work one week, having all my benefits stopped the next, reapplying the week after that, rince and repeat. Not when it was my home that's at risk.

RAS

Not sure about that; at your age they would probably be very flexible about entry criteria.

Plus you would be trading in your OU credit?

And even if you are registered full-time, you do not actually have to submit all the assignments at the end of the year, just what you can manage. As long as you get half in, you can take the remaining modules the following year.

Ames

RAS wrote: »

Not sure about that; at your age they would probably be very flexible about entry criteria. oi! :rotfl:

Plus you would be trading in your OU credit? No, I wouldn't, I haven't done well in my OU credits, I'd rather start from fresh and do better.

And even if you are registered full-time, you do not actually have to submit all the assignments at the end of the year, just what you can manage. As long as you get half in, you can take the remaining modules the following year.

I'm not sure about the last bit - from my reading, I do half of the modules each year. I have to do the first year (or two years) part time before I'm allowed to go full time.

It's not the assignments that worry me, it's the anxiety of being in a room full of people, having to give my views - especially since I can get quite heated about politics, and studying it with naive 18 year olds could get a bit frazzled! Not to mention that two modules in the first couple of years are about the welfare state...

I just think I need to build up gently.

I've even started buying the textbooks (luckily if I don't get in it's a subject that interests me and I want to read around it anyway) so that I can make a head start on the reading, so that I don't get behind if I freeze up due to the anxiety.

Oldernotwiser

Ames wrote: »

I'm not sure about the last bit - from my reading, I do half of the modules each year. I have to do the first year (or two years) part time before I'm allowed to go full time.

It's not the assignments that worry me, it's the anxiety of being in a room full of people, having to give my views - especially since I can get quite heated about politics, and studying it with naive 18 year olds could get a bit frazzled! Not to mention that two modules in the first couple of years are about the welfare state...

I just think I need to build up gently.

I've even started buying the textbooks (luckily if I don't get in it's a subject that interests me and I want to read around it anyway) so that I can make a head start on the reading, so that I don't get behind if I freeze up due to the anxiety.

I wonder if you've thought of doing a Foundation Degree? Although classed as full time, attendance is normally only a day or so a week and is less academically demanding than a BA, although you could top up to that later. Normal HE funding applies and you need relevant work experience.

http://www.leedstrinity.ac.uk/study/foundation/Documents/FD%20prospectus%20July%202011.pdf