Too much savings!!

tacpot12

I'm not sure I would be looking to get rid of the £3000 of capital you have in savings until you know what the DWP are going to o about the overpayment of Universal Credit. You might own them about £3000.

You can continue to clear your debts, but it there are overpayments, the DWP will take them back by reducting your Universal Credit payments.

I don't think they will sanction you, or stop your benefits, or regard your actions as fraudulent as you seem to have made a genuine mistake as a result of ignorance of the rules. However, they may look at future claims more carefully, so do be careful to check whther any changes in circumstances that occur in the future need to be reported to the DWP. There is lots of information on when changes in circumstances needed to be reported on the GOV.UK website.  

A pension would seem to be premature until you have cleared all your debts and have found out whether you owe the DWP any money for the overpayment.  

Pandora_2

tacpot12 said:

I'm not sure I would be looking to get rid of the £3000 of capital you have in savings until you know what the DWP are going to o about the overpayment of Universal Credit. You might own them about £3000.

You can continue to clear your debts, but it there are overpayments, the DWP will take them back by reducting your Universal Credit payments.

I don't think they will sanction you, or stop your benefits, or regard your actions as fraudulent as you seem to have made a genuine mistake as a result of ignorance of the rules. However, they may look at future claims more carefully, so do be careful to check whther any changes in circumstances that occur in the future need to be reported to the DWP. There is lots of information on when changes in circumstances needed to be reported on the GOV.UK website.  

A pension would seem to be premature until you have cleared all your debts and have found out whether you owe the DWP any money for the overpayment.  

Yeah I will definitely clear my debts before I start investing in a pension. You're right about needing the money to pay them back as well. Just don't want to get in more trouble by having too much. Never thought I would have the problem of too much money!! How ridiculous, hey?! Now it's winter I will be spending a fortune on the gas heating bill so maybe I won't have too much money again until the summer!! 

HillStreetBlues

The nearly £6k back payments, how did that happen? When did you get it?

peteuk

Pandora_2 said:

peteuk said:

Newly_retired said:

As well as CoL, your PIP payments are disregarded.

Pip is only disregarded for the assessment period it was received in, after that anything left over is classed as capital.

Ah ok. Sounded too good to be true! Haha! Thanks 😊 

It the same as your UC payment and income (for capital) this is what you are expected to live off for the month.  So if you have no capital and your UC is paid 01 Month - £1500 but by the end of that assessment period you've spent £1000 on living  - then you have £500 capital at the end of that assessment period. 

Next month UC Payment is £1500 - total funds £2000 - you spend £1100 on living during that assessment period your capital is £500 at the end you add the remaining £400.  So capital becomes £900

(For example purpose only figures are rounded for easy of understanding, and of course with less than £6K capital you don't declare it)

Pandora_2

HillStreetBlues said:

The nearly £6k back payments, how did that happen? When did you get it?

I got it when I first claimed about 5 years ago. It took about 4 or 5 months before I got a payment and each monthly payment was over £1k so it all added up to a massive lump sum! I just opened an ISA straight away and put most of it in there. Then it just sort of grew as I wasn't spending all I was getting and I kept topping up my ISA with what was left over each month. Started paying debts off but was still saving loads. In hindsight I should have paid more towards my debts at the time and cleared them sooner rather than building up savings. Oh well, I'm gonna pay for my mistakes now!! 

HillStreetBlues

I see in your sig you're still not debt free,  have you been in debt is some accounts while having over £6k is others? (a debt doesn't counterbalance a credit, but will make a difference on any possible charges/fines)

Pandora_2

HillStreetBlues said:

I see in your sig you're still not debt free,  have you been in debt is some accounts while having over £6k is others? (a debt doesn't counterbalance a credit, but will make a difference on any possible charges/fines)

Yes I've been paying off debts the whole time I had savings and have just slowly increased the payments. I've been making lump sum payments as well as monthly payments and I'm down to about £1700 debt now.

HillStreetBlues

The fact you have a debt counts is your favour as if you had know you have the deductions you would have paid of the debt sooner.
What is your total monies you have now?  include everything cash and all money in bank accounts.

Pandora_2

HillStreetBlues said:

The fact you have a debt counts is your favour as if you had know you have the deductions you would have paid of the debt sooner.
What is your total monies you have now?  include everything cash and all money in bank accounts.

There's about £5.5k in my ISA and £1500 in my current account. About £20 in my purse! So I'm still over but apparently this month's money won't count until the end of the pay period? I did have more in my bank account but I've been making some payments and purchases this morning. 

peteuk

Pandora_2 said:

HillStreetBlues said:

The fact you have a debt counts is your favour as if you had know you have the deductions you would have paid of the debt sooner.
What is your total monies you have now?  include everything cash and all money in bank accounts.

There's about £5.5k in my ISA and £1500 in my current account. About £20 in my purse! So I'm still over but apparently this month's money won't count until the end of the pay period? I did have more in my bank account but I've been making some payments and purchases this morning. 

So of the £1.5K in your account - how much of that was in the account at the start of this UC assessment period. If for arguments sake it was £750 then your Capital is £6.250 but then your take off the disregard for COL.  

What you may wish to do, and I am sure DWP will also do this is go through your accounts.   If there is a period in which you are obviously over the £6K limit then an overpayment has occurred (£4.35 for every £250 or part of there on in).  Im not sure but they then may look at what you did to reduce that amount back under the £6K (eg pay debt, normal spending ect) 

Once worked out you’ll potentially get an amount of which they say is over paid and you’ll be expected to pay that back. It’s tough but thats the way it is. This overpayment may be taken out of your current claim or you can pay it from your ISA. 

I would add that having been through debt management, I was always advised to save where I could or at least have a plan B in case something happened, so I totally get that whilst you have been paying your debt off you've been saving.  It’s just difficult to get the balance right. Good luck and please do let us know how you get on.