housing benefit and savings

charley73

im about to move in with my partner who claims jsa at £71 a week and also housing benefit.
i work part time (22hrs).
just wondering i have an Isa and premium bonds, do i have to declare them and if i dont will they find out.
thanks in advance

princessdon

Yes but only over £6000 count

charley73

i have £10,000 in bonds and a £5000 Isa?

princessdon

Over £16000 means no housing benefit or very little with your income I'd expect nothing

midnight_express

They have access to all bank and building society accounts. Premium bonds are issued by national savings - a government organisation. If you don't declare your savings you will get done for fraud. You can go to prison for benefit fraud.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

Yes we will find out eventually. We get data matching reports. It might be a month or it might be several years but at some stage a report will land on a fraud officers desk showing your premium bonds etc.

Have a read of this document:- http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/national-fraud-initiative/nfi-reports/

You can sit tight and do nothing - let any potential overpayment grow thus increasing your chance of being prosecuted, ending up with a criminal records or even being chucked into jail - with the proceeds of crime act they can seize your assets rather than having any overpayment paid back at £5 per week - or you can admit you have made a mistake and have your claim recalculated.

brovahelpa

So are you saying a one off win of £25 should be reported to the b enefits office ?. How do they work out a change in HB from that

Housing_Benefit_Officer

brovahelpa wrote: »

So are you saying a one off win of £25 should be reported to the b enefits office ?. How do they work out a change in HB from that

Where does it say that?

brovahelpa

Its just that in your previous post you say that eventually a data matching report lands on the desk of benefits fraud desk. So I am just asking if a one off win of £25 from premium bonds should be notified. I get a small amount of help with my rent and it never occoured to me it should be reported. Obviously if a win was much higher i would, coz I hate being "a scrounger". I should be so lucky.! As a pensioner I used up most of my savings before claiming.

nannytone_2

have you declared your premium bonds?

letthemeatcake

brovahelpa wrote: »

So are you saying a one off win of £25 should be reported to the b enefits office ?. How do they work out a change in HB from that

They need to know about the total amount invested in premium bonds which in the OP's case is £10000.

No sure about small payouts such as £25 though.