£6000 in savings

kaMelo

HillStreetBlues said:

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

Property a claimant lives in has not been mentioned as part of the discussion.
The legislations allows for capital of up to £6000 to be disregarded and no declaration of an amount required, capital of over £6000 needs declaring. There may be capital held by a claimant that can be disregarded for a period of time or indefinitely which would mean the total capital to be disregarded is in excess of £6000 but that is not something a claimant can do, any capital in excess of £6000 should be declared along with notes on the journal to explain why you feel a disregard should apply to some or all of it.  It is then up to a decision maker to apply any disregard that may apply,  they are the only ones with that authority.

HillStreetBlues

kaMelo said:

Property a claimant lives in has not been mentioned as part of the discussion.
The legislations allows for capital of up to £6000 to be disregarded and no declaration of an amount required, capital of over £6000 needs declaring. There may be capital held by a claimant that can be disregarded for a period of time or indefinitely which would mean the total capital to be disregarded is in excess of £6000 but that is not something a claimant can do, any capital in excess of £6000 should be declared along with notes on the journal to explain why you feel a disregard should apply to some or all of it.  It is then up to a decision maker to apply any disregard that may apply,  they are the only ones with that authority.

I brought up property to show the myth that a DM is the only authority that can disregard something. A DM only has a view on if something is disregard or not, that view can be challenged. The true arbiter would be a judge.
If a person didn't declare something that was disregard, and a judge decided that it was correct to be disregard, then a DM opinion would not matter.

Sea_Shell

kaMelo said:

HillStreetBlues said:

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

Property a claimant lives in has not been mentioned as part of the discussion.
The legislations allows for capital of up to £6000 to be disregarded and no declaration of an amount required, capital of over £6000 needs declaring. There may be capital held by a claimant that can be disregarded for a period of time or indefinitely which would mean the total capital to be disregarded is in excess of £6000 but that is not something a claimant can do, any capital in excess of £6000 should be declared along with notes on the journal to explain why you feel a disregard should apply to some or all of it.  It is then up to a decision maker to apply any disregard that may apply,  they are the only ones with that authority.

Is this "journal" method specific to UC?

Is it paper or online?

Does pension credit work the same way, or is that all done by phone?

R200

So once again if someone has around £5K in a savings account and a few hundred in a current account, then when UC payment of about £3K comes in and earnings of about £1200 come in it will be total well over £6K.

but then the rent payment a few weeks later is £2600 and living costs bring down the total 


should you declare it every month and ask for the rent money to be disregarded just before it’s paid?

poppy12345

That question was already answered here. 

peteuk said:

R200 said:

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

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. 

NedS

HillStreetBlues said:

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

That's not entirely correct - all capital should be declared and a DM will decide (based on the law) if it can be disregarded. Some decisions are non-complex (the law clearly states it must be fully disregarded - e.g, value of a property being occupied as the primary residence), whereas other decisions are complex and require the DM to interpret and apply the law in making their determination (e.g, deprivation of capital, where the DM must determine if deprivation has occurred and if the intent of the deprivation was to claim (more) benefit(s)).

In some cases, UC advises a claimant which capital they need to declare. In the example of property, the claimant is advised that they do not need to declare the property in which they live as capital (or to only declare second properties which they do not live in).

NedS

Sea_Shell said:

kaMelo said:

HillStreetBlues said:

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

Property a claimant lives in has not been mentioned as part of the discussion.
The legislations allows for capital of up to £6000 to be disregarded and no declaration of an amount required, capital of over £6000 needs declaring. There may be capital held by a claimant that can be disregarded for a period of time or indefinitely which would mean the total capital to be disregarded is in excess of £6000 but that is not something a claimant can do, any capital in excess of £6000 should be declared along with notes on the journal to explain why you feel a disregard should apply to some or all of it.  It is then up to a decision maker to apply any disregard that may apply,  they are the only ones with that authority.

Is this "journal" method specific to UC?

Is it paper or online?

Does pension credit work the same way, or is that all done by phone?

@Sea_Shell

The 'journal' is part of a UC claimant's online account where they can exchange online messages with UC.

Pension Credit does not have an online account (AFAIK), so would be done by phone (or post).

HillStreetBlues

NedS said:

HillStreetBlues said:

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

That's not entirely correct - all capital should be declared and a DM will decide (based on the law) if it can be disregarded. Some decisions are non-complex (the law clearly states it must be fully disregarded - e.g, value of a property being occupied as the primary residence), whereas other decisions are complex and require the DM to interpret and apply the law in making their determination (e.g, deprivation of capital, where the DM must determine if deprivation has occurred and if the intent of the deprivation was to claim (more) benefit(s)).

In some cases, UC advises a claimant which capital they need to declare. In the example of property, the claimant is advised that they do not need to declare the property in which they live as capital (or to only declare second properties which they do not live in).

If all capital had to be reported then most people would need to update UC every month, as there would be a difference in capital that they held last month (even if it only by pennies).
A person declares £1000 capital but they have £4000 it matters not, as there won't be an overpayment and that is the key to what has be be declared.
So If you don't declare something and there is not an overpayment then there is no offence, it's only matters when an overpayment occurs.

If a person doesn't declare a CoL payment (not counted by statute) and it's later found that they didn't declare it but it is disregarded then no action can be taken against that person as their benefit remains unaffected.

R200

Do the funds in your help to save accounts count towards that £6k amount?

kaMelo

R200 said:

Do the funds in your help to save accounts count towards that £6k amount?

Yes, it's capital.