housing benefit and declaring savings

Cashtyke

We are due to claim housing benefit soon. We roughly have £5000 in ISA's between us and two regular current accounts that we live off (currently about £1000 between us-used for rent/food/bills).
i wondered firstly is it £6000 that you are allowed in savings before you lose housing benefit? Are our current accounts also classed as savings? Apparantly we have to hand in the last 3 statements of any bank accounts we have at the time of claim. With this info how do they work out the amount of money you have as it fluctuates up and down. Is it what is left on the last staement or do they take an average or what?

Any info would be much appreciated.

jenchin66

You start losing housing benefit if you have £3000 in totoal. We have just had to claim and all money is taken in to account, even our 3 childrens saving accounts are added into the total.

Cashtyke

Just been on enitled.co.uk and that said any joint savings over £6000 would start to affect housing and council tax benefit.
Thats where i got the £6000 figure from.

CIS

The threshold starts at £6000 and at £16000, you lose all entitlement.

Does the amount of capital/savings I have affect my housing benefit claim?

It will depend on the amount of capital/savings you and your partner have as to whether it will affect your benefit entitlement.

If you and your partner have joint capital of more than £16,000 you will not normally be able to get housing benefit entitlement
If you or your partner are aged 60 or over you can have up to £6,000 capital before it affects your benefit entitlement
Income of £1 for every £500 between £6,000 and £16,000 is taken into account when we work out entitlement to benefit
•If you and your partner are aged less than 60 you can have up to £6,000 capital before it affects your benefit entitlement
•Income of £1 for every £250 between £6,000 and £16,000 is taken into account when we work out entitlement to benefit
Capital includes cash, current accounts, other bank/building society/post office accounts, unit trusts, ISAs, TESSAs, National Savings Certificates, shares, premium bonds and property (other than the home you live in) or land you own.

jenchin66

Yes you can have £6000, but for money between £3000 and £6000 the council start deducting a certain percentage

CIS

The reduction in your housing benefit starts at £6000, it then redueces at £1 per £250 of excess savings until its completely withdrawn at £16000.

babyboo42

yes it does include current accounts.they should use the balance as at when you claimed,usually they ask for the past few statements to check you haven't suddenly disposed of huge wads of cash prior to claiming.

Morglin

This is a good link for info:

http://england.shelter.org.uk/advice/advice-120.cfm?r=gaw&WT.srch=1&frmAlias=/housingbenefit/

Lin

real1314

jenchin66 wrote: »

Yes you can have £6000, but for money between £3000 and £6000 the council start deducting a certain percentage

The lower limit is now £6000.00 savings below this level do not affect HB or IS or JSA(ib), this limit came into effect in April 06 I think (might have been April 05)

link here: http://www.childpoverty.org.uk/cro/wrb/wrb191/capital.htm

Flash_2

The lower limit used to be £3000 & it is now £6000.

suelees1

To clarify, the lower limit has been £6000 since April 2006