Housing benefit and deprivation of assets

elljay

Hello helpful people. Back in 2016, and with much encouragement from people on here, I applied for housing benefit - as a pensioner I had begun to struggle. It was my first foray into the unfathomable world of benefits but to my absolute amazement found I was entitled to £30 a week. I felt very rich. However after a couple of months of this, I received a windfall which took me over the savings limit so I promptly cancelled the housing benefit.

With the money I bought myself a small campervan (also used as my every day car)and obviously used it to live off as well as gave some to my children who are setting up home and starting their families - how lovely to be able to do this.

However now this money has gone down and I'm back well within the savings limit again. I still have enough to live on, together with my 2 pensions and 2 part time jobs for a little while but the pot is going down. If at some point in the future I need to reapply for housing or indeed any other type of benefit, will they look at how I've spent my windfall and expect me to sell the van before I can get anything? How far back can they ask to see account details?

I absolutely don't want to do the wrong thing if I'm not entitled to anything and can understand people saying I've been incredibly fortunate which I have. If necessary I'll sell the van so I can live off the proceeds for a bit though I would still need a car and I'm not sure it would fetch a huge amount and would only put off the day.

Sorry for war and peace but can anyone advise or help me plan going forward? Thanks

EJ

Alice_Holt

My opinion (and there are no hard and fast rules on this) is that it is unlikely you will be found to have deprived yourself of capital.
There has to be an intention have spend the money in order to secure an award of benefits. This would not be the situation in your case.

If the LA where to look at deprivation, the most contentious area would be gifting money to your children. I guess it would then depend on the values involved, and the time elapsed since those gifts.

I presume with 2 pensions and 2 part time jobs you are currently above the income threshold for HB entitlement?
When you are not working / or fall below this threshold, I would certainly put in a claim and see what their decision is. From memory, you may be asked for 6 prior months banks statements, etc.
At that time also check to see if you have an entitlement to Pension Credit (PC).
PC does not have a capital limit.
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs48_pension_credit_fcs.pdf

Silvertabby

AS Alice says, stop fretting about the campervan. The days of being expected to sell assets before being allowed to claim benefits are long gone.

However, be prepared for questions about the money you gave to your children.

elljay

Gosh that was quick, thank you. I did a hypothetical turn-to-us calculation and it says that I would be entitled to just over £30 a week again, plus a bit of council tax credit which it didn't suggest last time. I'm pretty frugal so can manage for quite a while yet. I also used a hypothetical £5k as savings on the form just to get a rough illustration

I gave the children (2) £5k each. If I applied say in a year's time, presumably they won't need to look back that far - but if they did, presumably they would just treat it as if I had that money in savings?

Thanks, and I will look into those links. I wasn't entitled to pension credit before but this might have changed now.

EJ

poppy12345

elljay wrote: »

I gave the children (2) £5k each. If I applied say in a year's time, presumably they won't need to look back that far - but if they did, presumably they would just treat it as if I had that money in savings?

EJ

Yes, that's exactly what may happen.