First time considering Universal Credit - help!

Mr_Countdown

Loza2016 said:

Do you know your tenants will definitely move out in may? 

The fixed term may be ending but doesn’t mean your tenants have to leave. You may have to evict them through the courts which can take a long time. 

Absolutely nothing wrong with claiming what you’re entitled to so please don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. 

Hi Loza. Yes the tenants will definitely be moving out. I know them and they have somewhere else to move to in June. 

And thank you for your kind words. It’s appreciated. 

Mr_Countdown

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Mr_Countdown said:

One of the questions on the ‘entitled to’ calculator was “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs per week”? 

I have service charge and ground rent costs of about £2,000 a year and obviously lots of other housing costs like utility bills etc. Can these be put in this answer?

Some service charges can have help on UC, but utility bills not at all.  (To the point that if someone pays rent to their landlord with bills included, UC will not pay any housing element until the landlord gives a brwakdown of what is rent and what is bills.)

Thanks Spoonie-Turtle. 

Does anyone know exactly what things are included when it asks for “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs?”
I don’t want to put false information in or miss anything out. 

Thanks. 

HillStreetBlues

Mr_Countdown said:

Thanks Spoonie-Turtle. 

Does anyone know exactly what things are included when it asks for “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs?”
I don’t want to put false information in or miss anything out. 

Thanks. 

You put in the total you pay for both service charge & ground rent
But you will need to deduct any personal items that are on the service charge
for example if you are charged for communal gardening then that's allowed, but if you have your own garden and the service charge includes gardening for that, then this has to be deducted.
Same with water,  communal use is included, but your personal supply excluded.

Also have to be "reasonable" so if you have a communal swimming pool,  that wouldn't be allowed.

Mr_Countdown

HillStreetBlues said:

Mr_Countdown said:

Thanks Spoonie-Turtle. 

Does anyone know exactly what things are included when it asks for “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs?”
I don’t want to put false information in or miss anything out. 

Thanks. 

You put in the total you pay for both service charge & ground rent
But you will need to deduct any personal items that are on the service charge
for example if you are charged for communal gardening then that's allowed, but if you have your own garden and the service charge includes gardening for that, then this has to be deducted.
Same with water,  communal use is included, but your personal supply excluded.

Also have to be "reasonable" so if you have a communal swimming pool,  that wouldn't be allowed.

Many thanks HillStreetBlues for your reply. The complex just has a communal garden (no separate gardens for flat owners) so there is just a twice yearly service charge and once a year ground rent cost which total about £2000. No swimming pool!!
Breaking that £2000 into weekly amounts and putting the figure into the Benefits calculator brings the universal figure up to just over £500pm and council tax discount to about £100pm. 

Not enough to live on but still a great help. 

Do you (or anyone) know if there is a maximum amount I could take as a lump sum each year out of my pension and still get full universal credit?

HillStreetBlues

Mr_Countdown said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Mr_Countdown said:

Thanks Spoonie-Turtle. 

Does anyone know exactly what things are included when it asks for “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs?”
I don’t want to put false information in or miss anything out. 

Thanks. 

You put in the total you pay for both service charge & ground rent
But you will need to deduct any personal items that are on the service charge
for example if you are charged for communal gardening then that's allowed, but if you have your own garden and the service charge includes gardening for that, then this has to be deducted.
Same with water,  communal use is included, but your personal supply excluded.

Also have to be "reasonable" so if you have a communal swimming pool,  that wouldn't be allowed.

Many thanks HillStreetBlues for your reply. The complex just has a communal garden (no separate gardens for flat owners) so there is just a twice yearly service charge and once a year ground rent cost which total about £2000. No swimming pool!!
Breaking that £2000 into weekly amounts and putting the figure into the Benefits calculator brings the universal figure up to just over £500pm and council tax discount to about £100pm. 

Not enough to live on but still a great help. 

Do you (or anyone) know if there is a maximum amount I could take as a lump sum each year out of my pension and still get full universal credit?

If  they disallow any of the service charge,  then feel free to post to see if it that's correct.
DWP wrongly disallowed some of my mothers service charge so they do make mistakes.

AFAIK any withdrawal of pension is treated as capital, so if you then have over £6k there would be deduction and if over £16k then UC would stop. (someone can confirm this)

Spoonie_Turtle

HillStreetBlues said:

Mr_Countdown said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Mr_Countdown said:

Thanks Spoonie-Turtle. 

Does anyone know exactly what things are included when it asks for “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs?”
I don’t want to put false information in or miss anything out. 

Thanks. 

You put in the total you pay for both service charge & ground rent
But you will need to deduct any personal items that are on the service charge
for example if you are charged for communal gardening then that's allowed, but if you have your own garden and the service charge includes gardening for that, then this has to be deducted.
Same with water,  communal use is included, but your personal supply excluded.

Also have to be "reasonable" so if you have a communal swimming pool,  that wouldn't be allowed.

Many thanks HillStreetBlues for your reply. The complex just has a communal garden (no separate gardens for flat owners) so there is just a twice yearly service charge and once a year ground rent cost which total about £2000. No swimming pool!!
Breaking that £2000 into weekly amounts and putting the figure into the Benefits calculator brings the universal figure up to just over £500pm and council tax discount to about £100pm. 

Not enough to live on but still a great help. 

Do you (or anyone) know if there is a maximum amount I could take as a lump sum each year out of my pension and still get full universal credit?

AFAIK any withdrawal of pension is treated as capital, so if you then have over £6k there would be deduction and if over £16k then UC would stop. (someone can confirm this)

Correct if they're one-off lump sums with no regularity.  If they were regular (even if infrequent) they could be deemed as unearned income and deducted in full from that month's UC payment.

Mr_Countdown

Thank you again. 

So just to confirm if I have £4000 in savings then the most I could take from my pension would be £2000 before I start to lose some part of universal credit?

HillStreetBlues

Mr_Countdown said:

Thank you again. 

So just to confirm if I have £4000 in savings then the most I could take from my pension would be £2000 before I start to lose some part of universal credit?

That is correct

Numberwang_2

Mr_Countdown said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Mr_Countdown said:

One of the questions on the ‘entitled to’ calculator was “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs per week”? 

I have service charge and ground rent costs of about £2,000 a year and obviously lots of other housing costs like utility bills etc. Can these be put in this answer?

Some service charges can have help on UC, but utility bills not at all.  (To the point that if someone pays rent to their landlord with bills included, UC will not pay any housing element until the landlord gives a brwakdown of what is rent and what is bills.)

Thanks Spoonie-Turtle. 

Does anyone know exactly what things are included when it asks for “How much do you pay in charges, ground rent and housing costs?”
I don’t want to put false information in or miss anything out. 

Thanks. 

Just a thought, as you are the homeowner you won’t be entitled to housing benefit help and so possibly would exclude you from help with the SC as this would be part of any HB claim? 

elsien

I’m guessing you have a mortgage, given that your estimated monthly costs are so high for someone without a mortgage. You can look at SMI but it is a loan and you can’t claim it for the first 39 weeks.

https://www.gov.uk/support-for-mortgage-interest/eligibility