Housing Benefits Investigation

hamidg84

HappyMJ wrote: »

£13,000 over 5 years is some serious frugal living. Tax credits don't pay enough to save that much. You are saving £50 a week.

I highly suspect you have other income from your business. Is the business covering the rent that you pay on the property so you show a zero profit and you are keeping the housing benefit for yourself?

As the application form asks...do you have savings in excess of £6,000. You answered "no".

At the time of applying HB, we had no saving at all so Answer was No.

I earn around £10K a year being director of small business. Whatever HB came in account, went straight to landlord + Im responsible for paying bills ( all going out via DB every month ).

£50 saving every week isnt difficult if you could manage with care.

hamidg84

HappyMJ wrote: »

That's fine to save it but you've got to declare it so your benefits are stopped so you can live on the savings and reclaim once they fall again. You must know that...you signed the declaration saying you would.

If you were saving every penny from the kids benefits then how did you pay for their living costs. As you say 3 young boys are not easy to manage...they don't come cheap.

Wife was getting around £900 per month so saving small portion out of this is simple. Also it's kid money. We didnt even think of spending on us.

We always thought DWP is linked to council and when you renew tax credit form, council gets this information automatically.

If we knew all these saving rules, why would we want to trouble ourselves and save for no reason? Being honest is also crime now

marleyboy

In all reality, if you can afford to put every penny of their benefits into a savings account, they will question why you think its an entitlement.

hamidg84

marleyboy wrote: »

In all reality, if you can afford to put every penny of their benefits into a savings account, they will question why you think its an entitlement.

I have no answer to this. I wish we had spent all money. Feel like crying now and being so stupid.

HappyMJ

hamidg84 wrote: »

At the time of applying HB, we had no saving at all so Answer was No.

I earn around £10K a year being director of small business. Whatever HB came in account, went straight to landlord + Im responsible for paying bills ( all going out via DB every month ).

£50 saving every week isnt difficult if you could manage with care.

I think you can expect to give back quite a large percentage of the £13,000 that you've saved.

Just a back of envelope calculation. £13,000 less £6,000 is £7,000 from which it's deemed that you earn £28 a week from (impossible really but that's the rule - £1 per week for every £250 in excess of £6,000). Let's say that the cash in the bank exceeded £6,000 for the last 3 years as the first 2 years you had under £6,000. The penalty is usually 100% of the overpayment so you could be liable to repay around £6,000 plus the costs of investigating this matter by the council. That's over £5,000 so they may go for a prosecution in court as it's not a small amount we're talking about.

hamidg84

HappyMJ wrote: »

I think you can expect to give back quite a large percentage of the £13,000 that you've saved.

Just a back of envelope calculation. £13,000 less £6,000 is £7,000 from which it's deemed that you earn £28 a week from (impossible really but that's the rule - £1 per week for every £250 in excess of £6,000). Let's say that the cash in the bank exceeded £6,000 for the last 3 years as the first 2 years you had under £6,000. The penalty is usually 100% of the overpayment so you could be liable to repay around £6,000 plus the costs of investigating this matter by the council. That's over £5,000 so they may go for a prosecution in court as it's not a small amount we're talking about.

So the main issue is why we saved this money? If this is the case, they can just take it back. They have given to us and they have full rights on it but i don;t want to go to court :-(

Im regretting now! Should have spent all money, well never mind. This is how we all learn.

missbiggles1

hamidg84 wrote: »

So the main issue is why we saved this money? If this is the case, they can just take it back. They have given to us and they have full rights on it but i don;t want to go to court :-(

Im regretting now! Should have spent all money, well never mind. This is how we all learn.

The main issue is that you didn't declare your savings and that they were, for a large part of the time, over the level that affects benefit entitlement.

It states very clearly on form's accompanying notes that you should inform them when your savings or capital changes, regardless of your situation when you made the initial claim.

HappyMJ

hamidg84 wrote: »

So the main issue is why we saved this money? If this is the case, they can just take it back. They have given to us and they have full rights on it but i don;t want to go to court :-(

Im regretting now! Should have spent all money, well never mind. This is how we all learn.

They'll take it back don't worry about that.

You don't really have a choice about court. Many believe repaying the overpayment can just avoid court but all that does is just minimize the penalty given. If you can show you voluntarily repaid the overpayment promptly the court will see that as a mitigating factor and may reduce or suspend any sentence.

The starting point for benefit fraud (by misrepresentation) not fraudulent from the outset but carried out over a significant period of time is 6 weeks. Plead guilty and it knocks a third off down to 4 weeks. If the sentence is not suspended you'd only serve half that so 2 weeks. It's not a very long sentence as it reflects the severity of the crime which is on your part as you say an oversight. They could give you a community order. The council may offer you a penalty or they may not. That's up to them to decide and for you to accept or not. Sorry if I'm scaring you just want to make you aware of what might happen.

Londonsu

hamidg84 wrote: »

Wife was getting around £900 per month so saving small portion out of this is simple. Also it's kid money. We didnt even think of spending on us.

We always thought DWP is linked to council and when you renew tax credit form, council gets this information automatically.

If we knew all these saving rules, why would we want to trouble ourselves and save for no reason? Being honest is also crime now

But you are not honest are you, even if you didn't realise you needed to inform people about your changes surely a true honest person would think I am getting money to help with my rent I can afford my rent now so I am not entitled to this help.


If you want your kids to be prepared for grammar school I am afraid you will have to get a paying job and fund things yourself.

FBaby

My wife started working in Jan 2015 and we called up HM Revenue and informed about this change

this saving and increase of salary by £125 per month in 2014.

Which was is it then, 2014 or 2015? Surely when your wife started working and you reported it, you expected a revision of what you were getting in HB? When you heard nothing from them, didn't you think of contacting them to ensure they were aware?

You have two issues here or information not reported, the savings AND the increase in income. That's a bit difficult to defend two instances of forgetfulness.

Also, when you say that you wife got £900 a month, does this include HB (since you say it goes straight to landlord), because if not, with what you claim to get and your wife working, it sounds like quite a high amount, even with 3 kids.