Income Support and Cashing a Pension

Degsy76

My mum is close to retirement, and is on income support. She recently cashed in an old pension from a previous employer, and received around 5k.
She has now been told her income support has been cancelled with immediate effect and isnt allowed to appeal it.
I know that means testing benefits says your allowed 6k savings before your benefits are affected, so can anyone offer any advice on where she stands?
She used the money to get much needed work done to her house. She hasn't stuck it in the bank.

SnowMan

My understanding is that a one off payment such as this shouldn't be treated as income only as capital for the purposes of income support. So if her capital remained below 6K it shouldn't have affected her payments.

The treatment is set out in DMG 12/15 as far as I am aware (see para 4).

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/419053/m-12-15.pdf

She should ask the DWP to look at their decision again by way of mandatory reconsideration quoting DMG 12/15 (she must do this within one month of the original decision) and then if they give no reasonable explanation of their actions she should take it to independent appeal within one month of the DWP turning down her mandatory reconsideration.

If she is coming up to State Pension age she won't be able to claim income support after then, but might be able to claim pension credit (although that will depend on her state pension and whether she has any other unaccessed pensions).

She may wish to seek advice from her nearest Citizens Advice Bureau.

xylophone

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/417473/pension-flexibilities-dwp-benefits.pdf