Inheritance and DWP

Shelldean

Sorry it's indefinite assessed income period. The last two paragraphs!!!!

Assessed Income Period

An assessed income period (AIP) is a period during which your customer does not need to report changes to pensions (we treat payments from the Pension Protection Fund or Financial Assistance Scheme in the same way as a pension), annuities, equity release payments or capital as they happen. Other changes in circumstances still have to be reported.

Section 28 of the Pensions Act 2014 provided for the abolition of the AIP. Since 6 April 2016, no new AIPs have been set, and all AIPs with a specified end-date have now been phased out.

If your customer was aged 75 or over when the AIP was set, it will have been set indefinitely. Your customer may have an indefinite AIP if they were aged 75 or over at 6 April 2016.

Indefinite AIPs already in place at 6 April 2016 will only end if one of the circumstances described under When the assessed income period ends early applies.

Shelldean

Was from this page

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pension-credit-technical-guidance/a-detailed-guide-to-pension-credit-for-advisers-and-others#assessed-income-period


We had the same when OH Nan died but was several years ago so couldn't recall the name.

retiredbanker1

Shelldean said:

It's all to do with an old rule that has since been scrapped.
Protected savings I think it was called.
If they were of a certain age when they claimed and before a certain date. It didn't matter how much their income increased it did not stop them receiving pension  credit. They could essentially win a million on the lottery and still be able to claim pension credit

It's true it has been scrapped now but anybody who benefited from this would still benefit (or their estate would in this case) as it is not retrospective - this is why I stated from the beginning of this thread - get the SAR done, confirm one way or the other whether they were assessed.

Shelldean

retiredbanker1 said:

Shelldean said:

It's all to do with an old rule that has since been scrapped.
Protected savings I think it was called.
If they were of a certain age when they claimed and before a certain date. It didn't matter how much their income increased it did not stop them receiving pension  credit. They could essentially win a million on the lottery and still be able to claim pension credit

It's true it has been scrapped now but anybody who benefited from this would still benefit (or their estate would in this case) as it is not retrospective - this is why I stated from the beginning of this thread - get the SAR done, confirm one way or the other whether they were assessed.

Yes if they was getting the scrapped benefit before it was scrapped it just continued.
But does cause problems with probate as we discovered

retiredbanker1

Shelldean said:

retiredbanker1 said:

Shelldean said:

It's all to do with an old rule that has since been scrapped.
Protected savings I think it was called.
If they were of a certain age when they claimed and before a certain date. It didn't matter how much their income increased it did not stop them receiving pension  credit. They could essentially win a million on the lottery and still be able to claim pension credit

It's true it has been scrapped now but anybody who benefited from this would still benefit (or their estate would in this case) as it is not retrospective - this is why I stated from the beginning of this thread - get the SAR done, confirm one way or the other whether they were assessed.

Yes if they was getting the scrapped benefit before it was scrapped it just continued.
But does cause problems with probate as we discovered

I think the problem lies with the DWP - it seems to be policy that you are guilty of trying to defraud them without a shred of evidence.

Shelldean

retiredbanker1 said:

Shelldean said:

retiredbanker1 said:

Shelldean said:

It's all to do with an old rule that has since been scrapped.
Protected savings I think it was called.
If they were of a certain age when they claimed and before a certain date. It didn't matter how much their income increased it did not stop them receiving pension  credit. They could essentially win a million on the lottery and still be able to claim pension credit

It's true it has been scrapped now but anybody who benefited from this would still benefit (or their estate would in this case) as it is not retrospective - this is why I stated from the beginning of this thread - get the SAR done, confirm one way or the other whether they were assessed.

Yes if they was getting the scrapped benefit before it was scrapped it just continued.
But does cause problems with probate as we discovered

I think the problem lies with the DWP - it seems to be policy that you are guilty of trying to defraud them without a shred of evidence.

Possibly!

But with this protected savings the claimants savings can rise and rise and it doesn't need to be declared. This is unusual.
As I said previously they could win the lottery and still claim!
So when they applied for pension credit they had £ in savings. Then when they died they suddenly have ££ DWP want to know why the difference?
As most pair on PC have to declare their higher savings.

The problem is simply the fact DWP don't seem to have a list of who has the protected savings.
That alone would stop quite. Few of these letters

Ammah45

Just heard back from the solicitor who was contacted by DWP. Apparently my father was supposed to have informed DWP with each £500 that his account increased by! He didn't do this apparently, and I never knew about it. So now they have to carry out a full investigation. This seems totally bonkers to me. How do they expect an elderly disabled person in a care home to contact them every few weeks with an update on his account. 

I am now fearing that they will deduct loads of what little is left.

Spendless

Ammah45 said:

Just heard back from the solicitor who was contacted by DWP. Apparently my father was supposed to have informed DWP with each £500 that his account increased by! He didn't do this apparently, and I never knew about it. So now they have to carry out a full investigation. This seems totally bonkers to me. How do they expect an elderly disabled person in a care home to contact them every few weeks with an update on his account. 

I am now fearing that they will deduct loads of what little is left.

I should imagine they expected the person with POA for you father would do that and  the DWP would also tell them how frequently they needed this information.   

Ammah45

I was also wondering whether I would be allowed now to "fire" the solicitor and take over myself? They are not doing anything that I can't do myself. Would they release the funds to me and deduct their fees for work they have done so far? Or will this complicate matters more?

BooJewels

As @Spendless states, the deceased's Attorney would normally handle such admin, if the individual were unable to manage such matters for themselves.  This particular requirement is because (as explained up-thread) every £500 in savings, above £10,000, is counted at the rate of £1 per week as income, so Pension Credit is deducted by a pound a week for every extra £500 in savings.  From the Government web site:

"Your savings and investments

If you have £10,000 or less in savings and investments this will not affect your Pension Credit.

If you have more than £10,000, every £500 over £10,000 counts as £1 income a week. For example, if you have £11,000 in savings, this counts as £2 income a week."

Do you have bank statements, so that you could go back and work out for how long he had more savings than £10,000?

I think it might be a good time to have a conversation with the solicitor about how this aspect is going to be billed by them - is it part of the 'Probate' service for which they are already charging a flat fee (I've been quoted 1% of the estate as a fee for the process and seen others post similar) or are they now billing you by the hour?  That may well prove to be the expensive bit of the process - so it might be the time to say that you'll take over and handle this aspect.

And going by my own experience, it would also seem odd that the local authority would be assessing your father regularly, but also allow his contributions towards his care to be low enough to allow his savings to accumulate, without asking him to contribute more towards his care costs - they're normally very enthusiastic about squeaking every penny that they can out of care home residents to minimise their own exposure.

ETA:  I didn't see your latest post @Ammah45 as I was typing - as above, I think this is perhaps the time to take over and finalise matters yourself.  You'll just have to discuss it with them.