Maximum savings - DLA, Pension recipient

seans_elysees

I started to help my pensioner mum with her finances as she’s got older. 

Her finances were previously in a real mess but I helped her through bankruptcy and it stabilised things to the point that she now has a decent amount of savings. 

She receives a number of benefits and I want to check if there’s a saving limit that could impact her benefits, if she had too much in savings: 

Benefits: 

- State pension (no private pension)
- Housing benefit 
- Council Tax reduction 
- Disability Living Allowance 
- Others (winter fuel, cost of living) 

Spoonie_Turtle

Housing Benefit as a pensioner - savings over £10,000 will cause a deduction, £16,000 she'd be ineligible unless she also claimed b Pension Credit.
Council Tax support - each council may have different rules but I think the absolute cutoff is £16,000.

State Pension, DLA, any appropriate others e.g Winter Fuel Allowance, disability CoL are not means-tested so unaffected.

What component/s of DLA does she receive, and does she live by herself?  She may be entitled to the SDP which might give her some Pension Credit entitlement (savings under £10,000 would not affect it).

awindup

Firstly hello,  
There are a couple of things that seemed to contradict each other, such as the question of savings But the list of benefits including some that are already means tested
Primarily, if somebody has 16000 pounds in assets other than the house that they live in as the main home, this includes savings and. Things like holiday homes... Then I should not be in receipt of any benefit whatsoever.
The thing that shocked me most is that your mother is. It receipt of means-tested benefits. Yet she doesn't Receive or hasn't applied for pension credit? That would be the first thing I would investigate. Also I would check weather she should have been getting a Full entitlement pension... I think I used to call it a widow's pension. But basically some people have been massively, massively underpaid. But please looking into pension credit. Go to gov.uk to see if she may qualify. 
If she is getting dla You can also look at things like attendance allowance. If she's overr Retirement age Ore careers allowance if she is under. Use the benefits calculator on the turn2us website. 

To Answer your question then...
Excluding the d l a which is not means tested.
If it's less than 16000 then there are 3 barriers you can break through which can affect certain types of benefit.

1.£3000
2. £6000
3 £10,000
As somebody has stated already there are exceptions like the Pension credit which can indeed negate savings limits.
Rather than type it all out. Here is a link to a credible accurate and safe Page from scope.
This explains it in very clear terms And also tells you about the pitfall of.wasting or Giving money away Just to stay below the limit as this is illegal and fraudulent.
Your best bet might be to claim everything she's entitled to, Which could then change some of the calculations.
Any other answer is just guess work. Because individual circumstances and individual councils rules make it very difficult to be accurate..
Paul pengelly 

https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/how-savings-affect-means-tested-benefits/#:~:text=State Pension age.-,You can have up to £10,000 in savings before,it affecting your Housing Benefit.

seans_elysees

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Housing Benefit as a pensioner - savings over £10,000 will cause a deduction, £16,000 she'd be ineligible unless she also claimed b Pension Credit.
Council Tax support - each council may have different rules but I think the absolute cutoff is £16,000.

State Pension, DLA, any appropriate others e.g Winter Fuel Allowance, disability CoL are not means-tested so unaffected.

What component/s of DLA does she receive, and does she live by herself?  She may be entitled to the SDP which might give her some Pension Credit entitlement (savings under £10,000 would not affect it).

Thanks for the helpful reply. I’ll keep all of that in mind, although she’s not quite at those thresholds. 

To answer your final paragraph questions:

- She lives alone. 

- She was on the middle tier DLA for daily living at which point I’m sure she got an automatic increase to her pension without us anticipating that. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re referring to as SDP? She certainly receives a split payment - which was always a SP (State Pension) and PC (Pension Credit). I think the PC always had a ‘Guaranteed’ amount to top up her SP because it wasn’t enough to live on, but then it also got a bump like I say, when the DLA middle tier award was approved a while back. 

I think that middle tier of DLA has since been streamlined to only ‘Standard’ or ‘Enhanced’ - and she’s currently on ‘Standard’. 

I’m anticipating a pending change of circumstances will push her to the ‘Enhanced’ for both ‘Daily Living’ and ‘Mobility’ components. 

poppy12345

awindup said:

If she is getting dla You can also look at things like attendance allowance. If she's overr Retirement age Ore careers allowance if she is under. Use the benefits calculator on the turn2us website. 

That's not correct. AA and DLA can't be claimed at the same time. AA doesn't have mobility part either. If they claimed AA then their DLA would end once a decision is made on the AA.

Carers allowance is a benefit that people claim if they look after someone that claims a qualifying disability benefit like, DLA mid/high rate care, AA, daily living PIP or ADP daily living. It's also an overlapping benefit with state pension, so if their state pension is more than the carers allowance then they won't receive CA.

A benefits calculator will not tell anyone if there's any entitlement to a disability benefit.

awindup said:

If it's less than 16000 then there are 3 barriers you can break through which can affect certain types of benefit.

1.£3000
2. £6000
3 £10,000

The £3,000 applies to children, so likely doesn't apply here. Neither does the £6,000 because the person is state pension age or above.

seans_elysees

awindup said:

Firstly hello,  
There are a couple of things that seemed to contradict each other, such as the question of savings But the list of benefits including some that are already means tested
Primarily, if somebody has 16000 pounds in assets other than the house that they live in as the main home, this includes savings and. Things like holiday homes... Then I should not be in receipt of any benefit whatsoever.
The thing that shocked me most is that your mother is. It receipt of means-tested benefits. Yet she doesn't Receive or hasn't applied for pension credit? That would be the first thing I would investigate. Also I would check weather she should have been getting a Full entitlement pension... I think I used to call it a widow's pension. But basically some people have been massively, massively underpaid. But please looking into pension credit. Go to gov.uk to see if she may qualify. 
If she is getting dla You can also look at things like attendance allowance. If she's overr Retirement age Ore careers allowance if she is under. Use the benefits calculator on the turn2us website. 

To Answer your question then...
Excluding the d l a which is not means tested.
If it's less than 16000 then there are 3 barriers you can break through which can affect certain types of benefit.

1.£3000
2. £6000
3 £10,000
As somebody has stated already there are exceptions like the Pension credit which can indeed negate savings limits.
Rather than type it all out. Here is a link to a credible accurate and safe Page from scope.
This explains it in very clear terms And also tells you about the pitfall of.wasting or Giving money away Just to stay below the limit as this is illegal and fraudulent.
Your best bet might be to claim everything she's entitled to, Which could then change some of the calculations.
Any other answer is just guess work. Because individual circumstances and individual councils rules make it very difficult to be accurate..
Paul pengelly 

https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/how-savings-affect-means-tested-benefits/#:~:text=State Pension age.-,You can have up to £10,000 in savings before,it affecting your Housing Benefit.

Thank you for your reply.  

My mum does receive a PC line on her weekly pension payment. I neglected to mention that on my opening post, but realise now I shouldn’t have conflated it to just be State Pension. 

Thanks 👍

poppy12345

seans_elysees said:

My mum does receive a PC line on her weekly pension payment. I neglected to mention that on my opening post, but realise now I shouldn’t have conflated it to just be State Pension. 

Thanks 👍

That means there's no maximum amount of saving she can have. There would be a deduction of £1/week for every £500 or part thereof over £10,000.

Spoonie_Turtle

seans_elysees said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Housing Benefit as a pensioner - savings over £10,000 will cause a deduction, £16,000 she'd be ineligible unless she also claimed b Pension Credit.
Council Tax support - each council may have different rules but I think the absolute cutoff is £16,000.

State Pension, DLA, any appropriate others e.g Winter Fuel Allowance, disability CoL are not means-tested so unaffected.

What component/s of DLA does she receive, and does she live by herself?  She may be entitled to the SDP which might give her some Pension Credit entitlement (savings under £10,000 would not affect it).

Thanks for the helpful reply. I’ll keep all of that in mind, although she’s not quite at those thresholds. 

To answer your final paragraph questions:

- She lives alone. 

- She was on the middle tier DLA for daily living …

I asked those questions because you didn't mention Pension Credit, but clearly she is already in receipt of it which is good.

So the only thing really to check are her local council's rules for Council Tax support

Alice_Holt

As she is in receipt of Pension Credit, then the important savings / capital number is £10k. 
Above this, and she will need to notify the DWP of her savings. They will then apply a tariff income calculation that will reduce her PC.
If she fails to notify the DWP of savings over £10k, there will be an overpayment of PC occurring (which the DWP will seek to recover once they become aware of it).

Since PC automatically passports her to HB, CT reduction, etc it is probably sensible for her to keep below the £10k amount (you don't say how much savings she has).
She could do this my upping her day to day spending, more social activities, replacing old / worn household items, etc.

Age UK have a comprehensive fact sheet on PC:

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs48_pension_credit_fcs.pdf

Page 15-17 will answer your question.


Unfortunately, as Poppy has said, some of the information given by awindup is incorrect / misleading - you are better going to the links provided for accurate info.
   

HillStreetBlues

Alice_Holt said:

As she is in receipt of Pension Credit, then the important savings / capital number is £10k. 
Above this, and she will need to notify the DWP of her savings. They will then apply a tariff income calculation that will reduce her PC.
If she fails to notify the DWP of savings over £10k, there will be an overpayment of PC occurring (which the DWP will seek to recover once they become aware of it).

Since PC automatically passports her to HB, CT reduction, etc it is probably sensible for her to keep below the £10k amount (you don't say how much savings she has).
She could do this my upping her day to day spending, more social activities, replacing old / worn household items, etc.

Age UK have a comprehensive fact sheet on PC:

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs48_pension_credit_fcs.pdf

Page 15-17 will answer your question.


Unfortunately, as Poppy has said, some of the information given by awindup is incorrect / misleading - you are better going to the links provided for accurate info.
   

Just to expand on Alice's post, it's full HB & CT reduction (minus any non-dependent deductions).

poppy12345

HillStreetBlues said:

Alice_Holt said:

As she is in receipt of Pension Credit, then the important savings / capital number is £10k. 
Above this, and she will need to notify the DWP of her savings. They will then apply a tariff income calculation that will reduce her PC.
If she fails to notify the DWP of savings over £10k, there will be an overpayment of PC occurring (which the DWP will seek to recover once they become aware of it).

Since PC automatically passports her to HB, CT reduction, etc it is probably sensible for her to keep below the £10k amount (you don't say how much savings she has).
She could do this my upping her day to day spending, more social activities, replacing old / worn household items, etc.

Age UK have a comprehensive fact sheet on PC:

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs48_pension_credit_fcs.pdf

Page 15-17 will answer your question.


Unfortunately, as Poppy has said, some of the information given by awindup is incorrect / misleading - you are better going to the links provided for accurate info.
   

Just to expand on Alice's post, it's full HB & CT reduction (minus any non-dependent deductions).

There wouldn't be any non dependant deductions if someone is claiming a qualifying disability benefit (as is the case here)