JSA and inheritance question

mrmcc

Hello


I am on IB-JSA and have just inherited £13,000 from my father. i know that when i report it to the DWP my JSA will decrease, and i know my HB and CTB will cease. my question is, i have existing court orders to pay (Rent arreas, CT, and Water) im going to pay thse using the money but does that get taken into account before or after they decide how much to reduce my benefits, i.e. when i pay these it will be £2000 in total, do they take this off the 13,000.


also what would happen if i decided to stop claiming JSA until 've spent all the money?


also the job centre let me off signing on for the last few weeks as my father died and I had to organise the funeral, will they now sanction me for not doing as much job search?

pmlindyloo

mrmcc wrote: »

Hello


I am on IB-JSA and have just inherited £13,000 from my father. i know that when i report it to the DWP my JSA will decrease, and i know my HB and CTB will cease. my question is, i have existing court orders to pay (Rent arreas, CT, and Water) im going to pay thse using the money but does that get taken into account before or after they decide how much to reduce my benefits, i.e. when i pay these it will be £2000 in total, do they take this off the 13,000.


also what would happen if i decided to stop claiming JSA until 've spent all the money?


also the job centre let me off signing on for the last few weeks as my father died and I had to organise the funeral, will they now sanction me for not doing as much job search?

You need to tell the Job Centre Plus and the council about your inheritance.

You will be allowed to pay off your debts since you have court orders for them.

When you go to the Job Centre take your court orders with you and tell them that you are going to pay off these debts. (Make sure you ask them to scan in these documents and get a receipt for this)

Ditto with the council for HB and CT reduction.

You may find that you are still entitled to some JSA after you have paid off your debts. You can then continue with the claim (to get your NI credits) and do your job search.

You should not be sanctioned as regards not doing your normal job activities because of the death of your father. Take in the death certificate as your evidence (get it scanned in )

In all these things you need to be proactive and inform the relevant departments of your circumstances giving them the proof. it should then be written up on your 'file'.

As regards signing off it is up to you. You won't get your NI credits and your HB and CT reduction will be stopped. HB and CT reduction could be claimed separately even if you don't claim JSA but they may question why you aren't receiving JSA. Talk to them if you want to live off your savings and get them to note it on your file.

rogerblack

mrmcc wrote: »

£2000 in total, do they take this off the 13,000.

As others have said - 11000.
This will reduce JSA by (11000-6000) / 250 = 20 quid a week initially.
Once you are down to 8500, this goes down to 10 quid a month, till not affecting at all at 6000.

In addition to debts which you have been court ordered to pay - are there any others which are being requested to be immediately repaid - even if you have not been taken to court?

These can also be paid without question.

As a general point, to help avoid questions about deprivation of capital - make a seperate bank account, and put this into it.

Do all your routine essential spending from this account. Your JSA should be paid into another account - and any frivolous spending should be done from income - transferring over the remainder of the JSA you have been paid at the end of the period into the savings account.

This is because you cannot deprive yourself of income, and the way you spend it cannot be questioned.

TELLIT01

I know rogerblack is only giving an example, but you don't need to wait until your savings have dropped by £2.5k before providing new bank statements. Any time your savings have reduced by over £250 you can take a statement to the Job Centre and they should get the balance adjusted for you.

billywilly

pmlindyloo wrote: »

You will be allowed to pay off your debts since you have court orders for them.
Ditto with the council for HB and CT reduction.

If the Court Orders show that the debts are to be settled by regular installments, then you SHOULD NOT pay them off in full. You would only be allowed to pay them at the rate the court had set.

abrockall

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

In response to your question... if you really are left with only £2,000 after payments then yes you are still entitled to benefits. As long as you can prove that's all you have left. Especially to housing benefit.

Sorry for your loss, and try not to worry. Only Tory voters will use their scare antics. You are quite safe in relation to your benefit claim

konark

This thread raises 3 perennial questions;

1) Which type of debts can be paid off legitimately to reduce capital, and which can't?

2) What sort of capital expenditure can be allowed under benefit rules without risking being deemed 'capital deprivation,. New cooker, fridge,settee etc, holiday, new car? Reading other threads, people claim to have had these OK ed by decision makers.

3) If capital expenditure is not allowed , how the 'notional capital' rules run down your capital. I am given to understand that notional capital only gets decreased by the amount your benefits are reduced. i.e if you have £11,000 you will lose £20 a week so your notional capital will decrease only by this £20 per week. Meaning it would take about a year for notional capital to fall from £11,000 to £10,000.

mrmcc

Hi again, thank you all for your advice, one more question. i'm considering signing off JSA and living of my savings. I calculated these will last me until the new year. my main reasons are this was the 5th close family death in 8 years, I am on anti-depressants and haven't had a proper break away for over 6 years. where would I stand in reclaiming when I need to.

Londonsu

Is there any possibility of you getting a job between now and the new year, surely the question should be 'if I need to' not 'when I need to'

HappyMJ

billywilly wrote: »

If the Court Orders show that the debts are to be settled by regular installments, then you SHOULD NOT pay them off in full. You would only be allowed to pay them at the rate the court had set.

That's actually not true (with court debts)...they can be immediately and paid in full. The regular instalment ordered is to temporarily prevent further action and therefore costs being incurred. If the creditor were to find out the OP's had a windfall they can take further court action with further costs to take it directly from the bank account of the OP.

amersall

The op is not left with £2000, the advice given is correct as op will have £11000 left after paying debt of £2000.

i have just inherited £13,000 i have existing court orders to pay (Rent arreas, CT, and Water) im going to pay thse using the money but does that get taken into account before or after they decide how much to reduce my benefits, i.e. when i pay these it will be £2000 in total, do they take this off the 13,000.

If you had read the op properly, you would not have needed to use "tory scum" in your response, the posters gave the correct advice regardless of political preference..... And I have no political preference at all so am not " Tory scum" either, for "defending" the other posters.