Advice on how to declare capital while disregarding COL payments

Dragonrider

Hello,

I know there are some very knowledgeable people on this forum, so I'm hoping someone can help me with this because I feel like I'm going round in circles!

I was migrated to UC from Tax Credits last June. At that time I had £19,000 in a LISA which I was trying to save for retirement. I was therefore grateful for the year disregard for savings over £16,000 for the first year after migration. 

Unfortunately, my ex-husband hasn't paid me any maintenance since last Feb due to being unemployed. As we have 4 kids together amd he previously had a high-paying job, this led to a big drop in income for me. As I thought initially he'd get a new job quite quickly, I put the stuff I couldn't afford to pay for on a 0% credit card, thinking that I would pay it off once he started paying maintenance again. However, he still hasn't got a permanent job and has instead picked up unpredictable shift work, so even though he has now paid me one payment, it's much less than before.

I have therefore been looking for ways to permanently reduce my monthly outgoings (I can't increase my hours at work or go for promotion for another 6-12 months).

One big monthly outgoing is ULEZ fees, costing me about £200 per month. So I have taken £15,000 out of my LISA (paying a £3750 penalty to do so!) which meant I got £11250 into my bank account. I spent £10750 on a ULEZ-compliant car and have sold the old car for £7700. The balance of the money from the LISA will then go towards the credit card.

All this means that my capital is now way under £16,000 and so I have been trying to declare this in my UC account.

I put a message with all the figures in my journal at rhe same time as reporting rhw cahnge, saying::

The total in all my accounts is £A
In this assessment period I have received £B (made up of Child Benefit, UC, maintenance and salary)
I would like my COL of £C to be disregarded because my savings have never dipped below that figure since then.
Therefore although my total monies are £A, I think my capital should be recorded as £A - £B - £C = £D.

When I got my statement through, they have used the £A number.

I've put a number of messages in my journal asking for the COL disregard and explaining about the capital, but they just keep telling me to "Report a Change" and put in all the totals of my accounts again, which won't make any difference.

I'm really stuck now in knowing what to do next - has anyone got any suggestions? And going forwards, now that my savings are under £16,000 and I need to report any change of more than £250, should I report my balances on the last day of each assessment period? My balances fluctuate a lot over the month as my different forms of income all come in at different times.

Any advice gratefully received.

Many thanks,
Dragonrider

HillStreetBlues

Dragonrider said:

Hello,

I know there are some very knowledgeable people on this forum, so I'm hoping someone can help me with this because I feel like I'm going round in circles!

I was migrated to UC from Tax Credits last June. At that time I had £19,000 in a LISA which I was trying to save for retirement. I was therefore grateful for the year disregard for savings over £16,000 for the first year after migration. 

Unfortunately, my ex-husband hasn't paid me any maintenance since last Feb due to being unemployed. As we have 4 kids together amd he previously had a high-paying job, this led to a big drop in income for me. As I thought initially he'd get a new job quite quickly, I put the stuff I couldn't afford to pay for on a 0% credit card, thinking that I would pay it off once he started paying maintenance again. However, he still hasn't got a permanent job and has instead picked up unpredictable shift work, so even though he has now paid me one payment, it's much less than before.

I have therefore been looking for ways to permanently reduce my monthly outgoings (I can't increase my hours at work or go for promotion for another 6-12 months).

One big monthly outgoing is ULEZ fees, costing me about £200 per month. So I have taken £15,000 out of my LISA (paying a £3750 penalty to do so!) which meant I got £11250 into my bank account. I spent £10750 on a ULEZ-compliant car and have sold the old car for £7700. The balance of the money from the LISA will then go towards the credit card.

All this means that my capital is now way under £16,000 and so I have been trying to declare this in my UC account.

I put a message with all the figures in my journal at rhe same time as reporting rhw cahnge, saying::

The total in all my accounts is £A
In this assessment period I have received £B (made up of Child Benefit, UC, maintenance and salary)
I would like my COL of £C to be disregarded because my savings have never dipped below that figure since then.
Therefore although my total monies are £A, I think my capital should be recorded as £A - £B - £C = £D.

When I got my statement through, they have used the £A number.

I've put a number of messages in my journal asking for the COL disregard and explaining about the capital, but they just keep telling me to "Report a Change" and put in all the totals of my accounts again, which won't make any difference.

I'm really stuck now in knowing what to do next - has anyone got any suggestions? And going forwards, now that my savings are under £16,000 and I need to report any change of more than £250, should I report my balances on the last day of each assessment period? My balances fluctuate a lot over the month as my different forms of income all come in at different times.

Any advice gratefully received.

Many thanks,
Dragonrider

DWP is terrible about working out capital and even give incorrect info of their website, sadly many staff are totally clueless about this issue.
They ask you to declare all monies but "forget" to into account income and disregarded capital, leading to people either wrongly told they aren't entitled to UC or a deduction much larger then it should be.
If I ever breach the capital limit, I would just spoonfeed  the info and just declare the bottom line of my capital. If they want bank statements I give them with and the working out at the same time .

Dragonrider

Thanks for your reply.

I guess I'm totally confused as to how this system is supposed to work.....

My calculations put my current capital at just over £4,000 but they make it as approx £8,000 - and therefore needing reporting.

It feels like there should be more sections in the "Report a Change" part to allow you to specify what is what.

Should I be deducting income and COL myself before declaring? Eg if I have £3,000 in savings and COL payments were £1,000 should I only report a balance of £2,000? I don't feel comfortable with that because I'm not reporting the "true" balance of the account, and don't want to get accused of lying/fraud at a later date!

Has anyone had any success with getting accurate figures for capital recorded? If so, how did you do it??

Thanks again,
Dragonrider

HillStreetBlues

At the end of my next AP I will have about £9k in monies, £3.5k of that is income / CoL payments, so I don't report it as it's under £6k. I simply don't trust them to calculate it corrected. Legally all I have to do is report counted capital over £6k, you don't have to declare disregarded capital.

I look at my UC statement and it beggars belief how they can get it so wrong, Under Money, Savings and investments it gives a figure (The one I gave when I started my claim) but it's totally wrong, what matters is capital and that should be the title.  If I put all my monies down then they would be incorrectly deducting about  £60 a month.

Others might say you should inform them just in case they think you're hiding somethingand that's fine, everyone makes their own choice. Whatever advice you get on this forum will always apply with the law,