Inheritance and housing benefit

mum2twoboys

Hi In April 2015 my dad passed away and as a result, his flat was sold and the money left over was divided between myself and my brother. previous to that my partner and I had been on benefits for years and massed loads of debt over the years. Anyway, when my inheritance came through. about £60,000 my partner knowing it would come through came off benefits.. we were getting housing benefit as he was working for an agency at the time so low income. anyway in the last year we have paid off all debts, rent arrears which were in the £1000's as he was only getting one or two days work from the agency, , council tax arrears, credit cards etc. he had to get a car as he started a new job which involved a lot of distance driving and the rest we were living off and paying rent, full council tax etc. My step daughter also got her first flat with her baby, and we kitted her out completely for that as she had no money at all, anyway our last splurge was for me to get a divorce and pay solicitors fee's etc. as a result we now have no savings at all, and although my partner is earning we are just scraping by now, we get no tax credits etc as there was an overpayment apparently, when he did the agency work, only child benefit for two kids, I was wondering if we are allowed to claim housing benefit or if there is a timeline before we can claim it. or will they say we should have some of the money left? some have said we won't get any as despite paying off years worth of debts etc we wasted it, which we haven't. it's not like we have had holidays etc. we got some new furniture for the boys but only because they were sleeping on a mattress on the floor and got a new tv. if we are not entitled then fair enough. our fault for paying off debt but I have been told by so many that we should get something towards our rent, even though my partner is working, any advice welcome, please

Ames

No one can give you a definitive answer, deprivation of capital is a very grey area. Some of what you spent the money on sounds fine to me - particularly the rent arrears. Some could be debatable, depending how much it was on.

All you can do is apply for housing benefit and see what they say.

Hopefully you kept receipts for everything?

TELLIT01

From the list of items the money has been spent on, the most likely problem area is going to be paying off all your credit cards and similar debts. That tends to be one of the first areas looked at when considering 'Deprivation of Capital'.
As Ames said, apply for HB and see what the answer is. The worst that can happen is a negative answer.

haras_nosirrah

how big was the debt? to burn through 60k in a year is going to be scrutinised very closely

FBaby

Depend on the car, depend on the how much you gifted your step-daughter etc...

£60K tax free is the equivalent of over £90K a year job. Even with debt, I very much it will be accepted that it was reasonable to spend that much in one year.

Alice_Walker

ThomasMJacobs wrote: »

Your case is a bit complex and no once can give you the exact advice. It's better if you ask someone who is having that knowledge and can share with you. You can arrange some resources like an attorney or something and can talk about it with them.

An attorney is unlikely to have knowledge of the UK legal system.

Something to keep in mind before you start spamming.