Unusual Benefit question.

Daveinlincoln

I'm trying to work out if I'll be eligible to claim some help or not?....my situation is:

I am 55 and currently on furlough as a Limited company director ( I get £560 a month) It's just me in the company and its highly unlikely that I'll be able to get the business up and running again since covid has kind of killed it off.

I've been hanging in on in there in the vague hope that things will pick up but its now clear that i'm going to have to close the business when furlough ends in October.

To supplement my income and pay my bills i decided to pull on my pension pot as soon as I turned 55 ( I would have lost my house if I hadnt). I had a small pot of £100k 25% of which i took as a tax free lump sum and the rest is in flexible drawdown and I currently take £833 a month.

My question is would I be able to claim some benefits once I have closed my business down and I were to take less per month from my pension,for arguments sake I take £10 a month.

You can assume the tax free lump sum is now gone too.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

calcotti

You don’t say anything about your household situation so I’ll assume you are single. Universal Credit claiming as a jobseeker which is means tested or new style JSA which is not means tested but only payable for six months.

Any pension income will reduce UC £ for £ so it makes no sense to take any pension income if you claim UC.

Pension income over £50/week will also reduce JSA.

Try a benefit calculator https://www.gov.uk/benefits-calculators

poppy12345

Daveinlincoln said:

 the rest is in flexible drawdown and I currently take £833 a month.

If you're single then your maximum UC entitlement would currently be £411.51 (reducing to £324 from October) per month, if you own your home because there will be no help with the mortgage. This means that your pension income would reduce your UC to zero.