£6000 in savings

Spoonie_Turtle

Sea_Shell said:

Also AIUI, any cost of living additional payments that you've received can be disregarded.

So worth checking how much of those (if any) you've received over the last couple of years.

Happy to be corrected though, but I think that's how it works for pension credit, if UC is the same.

That's correct, they don't affect any means-tested benefits as long as they remain unspent.

R200

What happens if you go slightly over£6k in a qualifying period?

peteuk

R200 said:

What happens if you go slightly over£6k in a qualifying period?

Depending on the circumstances on paper for every £250 or part of, over £6K your UC is reduced by £4.35.  So in theory if you have £6001 in capital then your UC is reduced by £4.35. For £6251 it’s £8.70 etc. until you get to £16K.  Anything above £6K needs reporting, even if you have the COL payments to disregard.

Now if you recieved the COL payments then those you recieved and kept can be disregarded, so if like my son he recieved the last payment and stuck it into a savings account - His limit would now be £6300 (rounded up for ease) however the payment went into his account and he pushed it into a savings account that day.   Had he not done this and his account dropped below £300 then he wouldnt be able to say he still has the payment and so his limit would go back to £6K.

As noted above UC and wages don't count until the following assessment period so if you have £5250 in your account and are paid £800 on 30 April and your assessment period  26 Apr - 25 May, you are expected to use the £800 to life off.  Anything left of the £800 on 26 May is now classed as capital. Again any UC payment after 26 Apr wont count towards capital until the next assessment period. 

Sea_Shell

peteuk said:

R200 said:

What happens if you go slightly over£6k in a qualifying period?

Depending on the circumstances on paper for every £250 or part of, over £6K your UC is reduced by £4.35.  So in theory if you have £6001 in capital then your UC is reduced by £4.35. For £6251 it’s £8.70 etc. until you get to £16K.  Anything above £6K needs reporting, even if you have the COL payments to disregard.

Now if you recieved the COL payments then those you recieved and kept can be disregarded, so if like my son he recieved the last payment and stuck it into a savings account - His limit would now be £6300 (rounded up for ease) however the payment went into his account and he pushed it into a savings account that day.   Had he not done this and his account dropped below £300 then he wouldnt be able to say he still has the payment and so his limit would go back to £6K.

As noted above UC and wages don't count until the following assessment period so if you have £5250 in your account and are paid £800 on 30 April and your assessment period  26 Apr - 25 May, you are expected to use the £800 to life off.  Anything left of the £800 on 26 May is now classed as capital. Again any UC payment after 26 Apr wont count towards capital until the next assessment period. 

So in this example, and the COL were not spent, but moved to savings, would you have to ring up and declare it every month, even though it would be disregarded, which would bring you back below £6k?  

Are you not allowed to do your own sums and so, if the net value of capital remains below £6k after disregards, you don't need to ring up?

peteuk

Sea_Shell said:

peteuk said:

R200 said:

What happens if you go slightly over£6k in a qualifying period?

Depending on the circumstances on paper for every £250 or part of, over £6K your UC is reduced by £4.35.  So in theory if you have £6001 in capital then your UC is reduced by £4.35. For £6251 it’s £8.70 etc. until you get to £16K.  Anything above £6K needs reporting, even if you have the COL payments to disregard.

Now if you recieved the COL payments then those you recieved and kept can be disregarded, so if like my son he recieved the last payment and stuck it into a savings account - His limit would now be £6300 (rounded up for ease) however the payment went into his account and he pushed it into a savings account that day.   Had he not done this and his account dropped below £300 then he wouldnt be able to say he still has the payment and so his limit would go back to £6K.

As noted above UC and wages don't count until the following assessment period so if you have £5250 in your account and are paid £800 on 30 April and your assessment period  26 Apr - 25 May, you are expected to use the £800 to life off.  Anything left of the £800 on 26 May is now classed as capital. Again any UC payment after 26 Apr wont count towards capital until the next assessment period. 

So in this example, and the COL were not spent, but moved to savings, would you have to ring up and declare it every month, even though it would be disregarded, which would bring you back below £6k?  

Are you not allowed to do your own sums and so, if the net value of capital remains below £6k after disregards, you don't need to ring up?

Im not 100% sure on how you declare this, however if youve over £6K with a COL then yes you declare this but on declaration you can disregard the COL eg declare £7K but then disregard £1K COL. 

R200

Every now and then they ask for all statements so they will be able to work out if anything not disregarded is over £6k.

if you get close to that then just spend it🤩

Newcad

No - You are not supposed to 'do your own sums'.

You should report the fulll amount(s) and they will calculate what is disregarded and what isn't.

You can of course add a note saying what you believe should be disregarded and why.

But they won't trust you to get the sums right. (Just like you should always check their sums and complain if you think they are wrong).

In the end though they are the ones dishing out the the benefits money and so they want to calculate how much to dish out.

HillStreetBlues

Newcad said:

No - You are not supposed to 'do your own sums'.

You should report the fulll amount(s) and they will calculate what is disregarded and what isn't.

You can of course add a note saying what you believe should be disregarded and why.

But they won't trust you to get the sums right. (Just like you should always check their sums and complain if you think they are wrong).

In the end though they are the ones dishing out the the benefits money and so they want to calculate how much to dish out.

If you couldn't do your own sums then you would have to report every bit of monies every month so they could check it. Where would the legal cut off be?

Spoonie_Turtle

HillStreetBlues said:

Newcad said:

No - You are not supposed to 'do your own sums'.

You should report the fulll amount(s) and they will calculate what is disregarded and what isn't.

You can of course add a note saying what you believe should be disregarded and why.

But they won't trust you to get the sums right. (Just like you should always check their sums and complain if you think they are wrong).

In the end though they are the ones dishing out the the benefits money and so they want to calculate how much to dish out.

If you couldn't do your own sums then you would have to report every bit of monies every month so they could check it. Where would the legal cut off be?

I think it's the distinction between doing your own sums for determining what is capital and what is income, vs doing your own sums for which parts of the capital should be disregarded.

It is ultimately the Decision Maker who has to officially determine the amounts to be disregarded.

HillStreetBlues

Spoonie_Turtle said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Newcad said:

No - You are not supposed to 'do your own sums'.

You should report the fulll amount(s) and they will calculate what is disregarded and what isn't.

You can of course add a note saying what you believe should be disregarded and why.

But they won't trust you to get the sums right. (Just like you should always check their sums and complain if you think they are wrong).

In the end though they are the ones dishing out the the benefits money and so they want to calculate how much to dish out.

If you couldn't do your own sums then you would have to report every bit of monies every month so they could check it. Where would the legal cut off be?

I think it's the distinction between doing your own sums for determining what is capital and what is income, vs doing your own sums for which parts of the capital should be disregarded.

It is ultimately the Decision Maker who has to officially determine the amounts to be disregarded.

It would depend if a DM has the power to make a decision on the issue.
If it's subjective for example DoC then yes a DM would made a decision and if not agreed with then could be appealed.
If it's in statute then a DM has no power, for example if a person only has the property they live in then they don't need to have the property valued as this is disregarded by statute, so the value is immaterial