Disregard - moving forward.

[Deleted User]

Hi everyone, I’m sure you can remember me asking many months ago about my home loss payment and disregards. It was confirmed that my £6500 would be disregarded by the DWP and the LA. 

It’s nearly reaching the 6 months point. 

I spent a considerable chunk within weeks anyway and most of it after a few months, so I’m well under the savings limit of £6000 as I had hardly any previous savings. 

My question is, do I just leave it at that because it was disregarded and now I’m under after that disregard I only need to inform them if it was over £6000?

Or should I write them both a letter, photocopy the invoices and receipts and send them all off to demonstrate it was spent on what it should have been like white goods, buying furniture I didn’t have, a sofa, carpeting, curtains, painting and decorating, etc?

TELLIT01

If I'm reading this correctly the disregard was for money from the sale of a property.  If that is the case the you will need to tell DWP what your current savings are or they will assume you still have the money.

[Deleted User]

No, sorry, I should have explained better. It wasn’t from a sale of a property. The place I lived in through a HA was been pulled down so I was forced to move and received a home loss payment of £6500. This was then disregarded by the DWP and LA for 26 weeks. 

calcotti

You told them about the payment so it seems sensible to inform them what your savings now are. I wouldn’t provide any more information than that unless requested to do so. I admit however that I don’t know what is expected.

[Deleted User]

I think I’ll be sensible and write a letter and then let them decide if they need further information or evidence. 

[Deleted User]

Update - I spoke to the DWP. They said I would receive a form in October which is when the 26 weeks is up and if I dont receive it by the end of October I should send a letter anyway. 

She did happen to mention that my annual verification form was received this month and I had indicated there were no changes. 

Did I do the right thing? As I was under the impression that because my payment was disregarded for the 26 weeks I was treated as not having the money for that period so therefore had no change to report on the annual verification. Is that right? 

She did say she didn’t think it would be an issue because the notes say they agreed to the disregard in April and they would contact me again in October. 

pmlindyloo

MarkN88 said:

Update - I spoke to the DWP. They said I would receive a form in October which is when the 26 weeks is up and if I dont receive it by the end of October I should send a letter anyway. 

She did happen to mention that my annual verification form was received this month and I had indicated there were no changes. 

Did I do the right thing? As I was under the impression that because my payment was disregarded for the 26 weeks I was treated as not having the money for that period so therefore had no change to report on the annual verification. Is that right? 

She did say she didn’t think it would be an issue because the notes say they agreed to the disregard in April and they would contact me again in October. 

When you received the verification form you probably should have reported the change in savings and the fact that this money was to be disregarded by the DWP as per letter dated ******.

However, this was a simple mistake since you literally took the meaning of 'disregarded' as being 'it didn't count.'

I agree that this wouldn't be an issue.

Always wise to tell the DWP exactly what is happening as it just makes things a lot easier.

They are not the best at 'joining up' correspondence and mistakes can be made.

No reason to be concerned.

Just keep a copy of all correspondence from you and obviously their correspondence to you.

Plus, a good idea to write down dates of telephone calls, the names of the people you speak to and a summary of the conversation.

[Deleted User]

I did speak with CAB too and they said not to be concerned.