UC and Self Employment and Business Capital

JChild56 · 22 January at 5:54PM

Hello,

I'm hoping someone in the know can give me some advice -

I was migrated from TC over to UC over a year ago (not my choice - I'm not here to get into a debate over it being my choice or not).

During that time I was massively misled. I won't go into the details cos it's too long. But I was. DWP even admitted catalogue of BIG failings.

At time of migration to UC, - I wrongly declared my business capital as personal. Which I only learned through research myself 9 months later I didn't need to do. I spent best part of ten months asking why they were including my business capital within my deductions. To date - well over a year, they never engaged with me on the subject or told me why. I only found out myself through research that business capital did not need to be declared.

This misdeclaration was later corrected with the DWP and my business capital was excluded.

Fast forward a few more months and I now discover, through a letter from my bank that the (monies) business capital I held in a separate bank account, is not in what is seen legally as a business bank account. The account is used solely for my business. It only has money going in and out for my business. Although I do pay myself a small wage from it now and again.

I have neurological issues which meant I didn't realise this wasn't legally a business account. However it is used solely as an account for my business. I thought it was a business account. Not least because I was getting access to exclusive subscriptions only available to business account holders. Despite all of this, and clear signs of payments only coming into that bank account referring invoice numbers I have issued, and the fact that I was getting subscriptions exclusive to business account holders, my bank never even noticed this in years. And I argue that they have a duty to monitor all their accounts (not least for money laundering purposes) to ensure they are being operated appropriately. So if the bank can't even notice - how was I supposed to know when all the evidence suggested to me it was an actual account for businesses. That's what I thought I opened over a decade ago.

So I'm looking for some advice or guidance from people in the know or who have experienced similar situation.

My business capital is in a bank account that is used solely for business and has only ever been used for this. When claiming UC credit, and in terms of capital disregard does it matter that it's not actually seen [legally / in name] as a business account by my bank?

This situation is already stressful enough and worrying me to the point its making me very unwell. The DWP continue to refuse to engage with me and have ignored multiple requests for support. So I'm getting no joy there. So please can we not get into debate about how or why I didn't realise this wasn't actually a business account, as it won't help and you don't know my individual neurological and mental circumstances. Please only focus on the question asked in the paragraph above in bold.

Thank you in advance.