surprise HB and CTB

[Deleted User]

After talking to 2 people at our council benefits dept i was somewhat surprised to be told that as long as you get income support(even 1p)you qualify for full HB and full CTB,regardless of how much savings you have between £6000 and £16000,has anyone else had experience of this?

DX2

John this doesn't sound right.
ETA: how can you have saving of £6k to £16 if getting IS?

Macro_3

woodbine wrote: »

After talking to 2 people at our council benefits dept i was somewhat surprised to be told that as long as you get income support(even 1p)you qualify for full HB and full CTB,regardless of how much savings you have between £6000 and £16000,has anyone else had experience of this?

It's correct. If someone is in receipt of Income Support, even 1p, their capital is ignored and they receive full HB/CTB. Logically, it has to work that way to be fair - the claimant has the capital taken into account when calculating their entitlement to IS and their IS would be reduced accordingly. To reduce their HB/CTB also would penalise them twice.

[Deleted User]

DX2 wrote: »

John this doesn't sound right.
ETA: how can you have saving of £6k to £16 if getting IS?

I/S is redcued by £1 for every £250 between 6k and 16k

robpw2

if its a suprise then how would they know they were getting it

[Deleted User]

Macro wrote: »

It's correct. If someone is in receipt of Income Support, even 1p, their capital is ignored and they receive full HB/CTB. Logically, it has to work that way to be fair - the claimant has the capital taken into account when calculating their entitlement to IS and their IS would be reduced accordingly. To reduce their HB/CTB also would penalise them twice.

thats exactly as it was eventually explained to me,tbh i was expecting hb and ctb to be reduced the same way as I/S has been