Compliance interview undeclared capital freaking out

xxxxxxxx

For it to be deprivation you would have had to  

a) Know that you were going to claim benefits
b) Know that spending your money would increase the amount of benefits you were going to be entitled to
c) Deliberately spend the money for the sole purpose to enable yourself to get more benefits that you would otherwise have got.


If you did not know or do these things then it is not deprivation of capital.

In order for the DWP to say it was deprivation the DWP would have to show that a b & c are true.  If you think any of these are not true then you have to right to an appeal. 

It does not matter what you spent the money on. 


In a different scenario a person who was already on benefits had £X thousands. 
They know b) that if they spend the money they will get more benefits. 
But if c) is true then it is deprivation. 
If c) is not true then it is not deprivation.  i.e. if there is a NEED to spend the money for good reason then it is not deprivation.


Both of your reasons for spending the money sound perfectly reasonable, as long as you can show receipts you should be ok.  

calcotti

xxxxxxxx said:

...
c) Deliberately spend the money for the sole purpose to enable yourself to get more benefits that you would otherwise have got.

Disagree with the word sole, the purpose can be mixed but the intention to increase benefit has to be one of the operative reasons for it to be depdivation.

tomtom256

It's a compliance interview. so worst case scenario is that they could raise an overpayment if they doubt what you tell them.

They won't specifically be looking at deprivation of capital and should be mainly asking if at any time during your claim, you had either over £16k or had between £6k to £16k, that you failed to declare.

Depending on your answers and what you initally declared, they then may (probably will) ask for bank statements for the period of your claim and possibly 6 months before the claim and a DM may then look into any capital you may have had and they may query where it went at that point.

Alice_Holt

Some info here:

https://medium.com/@rachel.ingleby/a-guide-to-deprivation-of-capital-income-a5f26cd9188c

As has been mentioned the key test is whether the intention in disposing of / depriving themselves of income / capital is to retain or increase entitlement to means tested benefits.

Any decision carries appeal rights, so if that was not one of your reasons when spending the money (and the decision goes against you), then do appeal (possibly with the help of your local advice charity):
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/universal-credit/problems-with-your-payment/challenging-a-universal-credit-decision-mandatory-consideration/

TELLIT01

If you weren't claiming, or planning to claim, UC at the time you purchased the car and had the repair work done, it will be virtually impossible to prove deprivation of capital.  If you were in employment and not under threat of redundancy or working notice there is absolutely no basis for DWP to make any such accusation.