Child savings and Universal Credits

herbs49

Hello, I am after clarification on a point as I don't want to commit fraud.

I will shortly have to apply for Universal Credit after stopping work to look after my terminally ill wife. My children have some savings and this has been added to by my wife's early release of her pension.
I have been advised by Macmillan that
[FONT=&quot]"Savings held by children are not counted as your savings when claiming means tested benefits. The following is from section 5 of the Welfare Rights Act 2012[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Ownership of Capital of a child or young person[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]H1077 Capital owned either legally or beneficially by a dependent child or qualifying young person is not to be included in the capital of the claimant1. However, the DM may still need to make enquiries about such capital if it appears to be owned by the claimant but is actually beneficially owned by a child or young person for whom they are responsible. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]1 WR Act 12, s5 "[/FONT]


Can someone please provide some direction before I submit a claim and is there anyway of making sure my children keep their money?
[FONT=&quot][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

pmlindyloo

I am sorry to hear of your circumstances. Macmillan nurses are usually very skilled where benefits are concerned.

And just to add the second part to clarify:

From Decision Maker's Guide Universal Credit

Ownership of capital of a child or young person
H1077 Capital owned either legally or beneficially by a dependent child or qualifying young
person is not to be included in the capital of the claimant1
. However, the DM may
still need to make enquiries about such capital if it appears to be owned by the
claimant but is actually beneficially owned by a child or young person for whom they
are responsible.
1 WR Act 12, s 5
H1078 Children and young people may not be the legal owners of the capital of which they
are the beneficial owners. This is because businesses, such as banks, will not enter
into a contract with them. If they are the beneficial owners and not the legal owners
their capital will be held on trust by another person.

I can think of no way that you can protect the children's savings so close to making a claim.

If the decision maker decides that the money is to be treated as yours then you have right to appeal that decision.

TELLIT01

Money held in Child Trust Funds or any similar accounts will be disregarded, but broadly speaking the money must be in an account to which the parents don't have easy access.
It would all to easy for a parent to transfer funds into a standard bank account in the child's name simply to be able to claim benefits. I'm not suggesting that the OP is attempting to do that but sadly it is not that rare.
The issue for the OP may be the money from a pension being paid into the children's accounts when she knew she was going to be claiming benefits. It is certainly possible that would be treated as deprivation of capital.

Bogalot

I would take advice on the deprivation of capital issue also. At what point was the money transferred to your children?

To reasure, even if you are treated as still having the money, they're not going to accuse you of fraud. That would only be the case if you willfully hid the money, or if you concealed other relevant information.