Dreams of owning a house shattered?

D.Hardy

Me and my partner are disabled, we recieve Incapacity Benefit @ £427.92pm and Income Support @ £202.29pm. We also get our rent paid by the council which is £400pm. We have been saving for 7 years and have £5000 in savings so far. We were planning to buy a plot of land and a static caravan and live there until we were old and grey. Living off the £427 Incapacity Benefit and cancelling the IS and HB.

I recieved a letter saying the Incapacity will soon stop and I will be switched onto Employment Support Allowance which is means tested. This means any money over £6,000 will effect the benefits we currently recieve. If we have over £16,000 the money will stop altogether. We've been saving for so long and it really is the only light left at the end of the tunnel. They would save so much money by not paying us the IS and HB, I can't understand why they have changed the rules.

Is there any way around this? Thank you.

Lady_gaga

Oh dear, what a shame, it's terrible you'll maybe have to live off your own money!!! Well, money that you've actually saved from benefits.
I'm sure there are lote of people who dream of building there own house. The reality very often is, it's never gonna happen...

Oldernotwiser

You can't usually just buy a plot of land and stick a residential caravan on it and live there anyway!

D.Hardy

If we used up the money on living expenses then it would only last 5 months. The government would be £602.29pm better off if we did what we had planned. If we live another 40 years that's £289,099 in total. It seems stupid to do this. If what we want saves the government money why are we not allowed to do it?

Obviously we would need planning permission, I wouldn't just "buy a plot of land and stick a residential caravan on it", not sure what relevance that has to this topic.

Whiteknight

Income Support which you claim is also a means tested benefit so your savings would have the same effect on that once it got to £16,000. Unless you were going to buy the land and caravan with less than £6,000?

BrettMorganxD

D.Hardy wrote: »

If we used up the money on living expenses then it would only last 5 months. The government would be £602.29pm better off if we did what we had planned. If we live another 40 years that's £289,099 in total. It seems stupid to do this. If what we want saves the government money why are we not allowed to do it?

Obviously we would need planning permission, I wouldn't just "buy a plot of land and stick a residential caravan on it", not sure what relevance that has to this topic.

I do see your point but unfortunatly benefits do not work that way.

A plot of land would cost alot more than that, last time I looked a plot of land is about £30,000

A caravan is expensive also for a decent one around £7,000

D.Hardy

Whiteknight wrote: »

Income Support which you claim is also a means tested benefit so your savings would have the same effect on that once it got to £16,000. Unless you were going to buy the land and caravan with less than £6,000?

Yes, I said that. The IS and HB would stop once we saved enough. The IB would have still remained because it wasn't means tested. The new ESA is means tested so that would leave us either costing the government £600+ extra per month in our current situation OR us living off fresh air in our caravan with no income at all.

NASA_2

IB has pretty much the same rules as ESA(C) - and especially with transitional protection.

IS has exactly the same rules as ESA(IR) so I am really quite puzzled at what you are going on about here?

D.Hardy

BrettMorganxD wrote: »

I do see your point but unfortunatly benefits do not work that way.

A plot of land would cost alot more than that, last time I looked a plot of land is about £30,000

A caravan is expensive also for a decent one around £7,000

Thanks, there are several plots in our area for less than £10,000. Ebay is selling some decent caravans for £3,000-£4,000. so in total with planning costs + other fees we're still talking less than £16,000 which is the shut off point for IS and HB.

nannytone_2

you'd be in exactly the same position on income based ESA as you are now!
youre receiving income support which is also income based, so one your savings go over 6k you'd start losing benefit.

D.Hardy

NASA wrote: »

IB has pretty much the same rules as ESA(C) - and especially with transitional protection.

IS has exactly the same rules as ESA(IR) so I am really quite puzzled at what you are going on about here?

Income based ESA not contribution based.