Do I have to report this?

Furzeguy

I am on UC. Last week they sent me over £2000 as arrears of underpayment because they messed up TP when I migrated in 2021.

All well and great but this takes my bank balance over £6000 now. I know arrears are disregarded for a year but someone told me I still need to declare being over limit even though they gave it to me and have records and without it I am no where near 6000

Was also told by a carer that I have to do that every month until it falls below 6000 .
. (which will be a while as I've nothing to spend it on and if I did splash out I probably get accused of deliberate deprivation! If I bought a posh new gaming pc or something, that I don't actually need but would love to have) 

This seems mad, just so they can ignore it ! But then it's the DWP so I am not sure lol.

Any advice appreciated.

HillStreetBlues

Furzeguy said:

I am on UC. Last week they sent me over £2000 as arrears of underpayment because they messed up TP when I migrated in 2021.

All well and great but this takes my bank balance over £6000 now. I know arrears are disregarded for a year but someone told me I still need to declare being over limit even though they gave it to me and have records and without it I am no where near 6000

Was also told by a carer that I have to do that every month until it falls below 6000 .
. (which will be a while as I've nothing to spend it on and if I did splash out I probably get accused of deliberate deprivation! If I bought a posh new gaming pc or something, that I don't actually need but would love to have) 

This seems mad, just so they can ignore it ! But then it's the DWP so I am not sure lol.

Any advice appreciated.

I wouldn't declare it as like you say it's disregarded. All it would do is add confusion.

NedS

HillStreetBlues said:

Furzeguy said:

I am on UC. Last week they sent me over £2000 as arrears of underpayment because they messed up TP when I migrated in 2021.

All well and great but this takes my bank balance over £6000 now. I know arrears are disregarded for a year but someone told me I still need to declare being over limit even though they gave it to me and have records and without it I am no where near 6000

Was also told by a carer that I have to do that every month until it falls below 6000 .
. (which will be a while as I've nothing to spend it on and if I did splash out I probably get accused of deliberate deprivation! If I bought a posh new gaming pc or something, that I don't actually need but would love to have) 

This seems mad, just so they can ignore it ! But then it's the DWP so I am not sure lol.

Any advice appreciated.

I wouldn't declare it as like you say it's disregarded. All it would do is add confusion.

DWP would disagree with you. The OP has capital over £6,000 and that must be declared. Only a DWP decision maker can decide if a portion of it falls to be disregarded, and for how long. It's certainly not our place as random strangers on a forum to make that decision, nor the place of the OP.

HillStreetBlues

NedS said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Furzeguy said:

I am on UC. Last week they sent me over £2000 as arrears of underpayment because they messed up TP when I migrated in 2021.

All well and great but this takes my bank balance over £6000 now. I know arrears are disregarded for a year but someone told me I still need to declare being over limit even though they gave it to me and have records and without it I am no where near 6000

Was also told by a carer that I have to do that every month until it falls below 6000 .
. (which will be a while as I've nothing to spend it on and if I did splash out I probably get accused of deliberate deprivation! If I bought a posh new gaming pc or something, that I don't actually need but would love to have) 

This seems mad, just so they can ignore it ! But then it's the DWP so I am not sure lol.

Any advice appreciated.

I wouldn't declare it as like you say it's disregarded. All it would do is add confusion.

DWP would disagree with you. The OP has capital over £6,000 and that must be declared. Only a DWP decision maker can decide if a portion of it falls to be disregarded, and for how long. It's certainly not our place as random strangers on a forum to make that decision, nor the place of the OP.

I disagree, The OP does not have capital over £6k as by law it's disregarded so not included in any calculation
 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/376/schedule/10

18.—(1) A payment received within the past 12 months by way of arrears of, or compensation for late payment of—

(a)universal credit;

(b)a benefit abolished by section 33 of the Act; or

(c)a social security benefit which is not included as unearned income under regulation 66(1)(a) or (b).

(2) “Social security benefit” means a benefit under any enactment relating to social security in any part of the United Kingdom [F2and includes armed forces independence payment under the Armed Forces and Reserve Forces (Compensation Scheme) Order 2011].

Saying it has has to be declared makes no sense unless you list every item that is disregarded
Property you live in is disregarded (Number  1)  you don't have to give the value of it when claiming UC as disregarded.
Pension Pots are also disregarded for UC along with funeral plans.

You can either say everything the on list value needs to be declared or none of it, there is no cherry picking as they are all treated by law equally.

born_again

I know this is slightly different. Mrs got a £5K backdated PIP payout. I reported the amount in journal, this generated a please submit your balances on accounts. Submitted them. Got a reply from DWP stating that balance was now £5K lower than the actual balance.

I get what @HillStreetBlues is saying. But end of the day for clarity it might be worth dropping a message in journal about the refund, although they should know about it.

HillStreetBlues

born_again said:

I know this is slightly different. Mrs got a £5K backdated PIP payout. I reported the amount in journal, this generated a please submit your balances on accounts. Submitted them. Got a reply from DWP stating that balance was now £5K lower than the actual balance.

I get what @HillStreetBlues is saying. But end of the day for clarity it might be worth dropping a message in journal about the refund, although they should know about it.

If someone does want to declare it and they feel better in doing so then that's they away forward for them.
What I do feel is important is whatever a person chooses there is no issue or penalty or any form of law breaking either way, as there could be people reading threads who might feel they could be in trouble when they would not be.

sheramber

Can you spend some or ll of it before your current  AP ends. . 

You declare what you have on the last day of your AP so if you have spent before then it  you will not have it. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Furzeguy said:

I am on UC. Last week they sent me over £2000 as arrears of underpayment because they messed up TP when I migrated in 2021.

All well and great but this takes my bank balance over £6000 now. I know arrears are disregarded for a year but someone told me I still need to declare being over limit even though they gave it to me and have records and without it I am no where near 6000

Was also told by a carer that I have to do that every month until it falls below 6000 .
. (which will be a while as I've nothing to spend it on and if I did splash out I probably get accused of deliberate deprivation! If I bought a posh new gaming pc or something, that I don't actually need but would love to have) 

This seems mad, just so they can ignore it ! But then it's the DWP so I am not sure lol.

Any advice appreciated.

As it is disregarded for 12 months you can, before that 12 months is up, do whatever you want with the money.  Which includes buying things that are wants rather than needs (subject to the usual considerations of whether you can afford them / whether they're worth the money to you).

When I was paid PIP arrears I did send a journal message and they just said about the lines of 'thanks for letting us know but it's disregarded so we don't need to know'.  Which I knew it was disregarded, but for me, telling them put my mind at ease because it covered me for if/when they saw the amount I had in my bank accounts, the evidence was already there so they wouldn't need to investigate.

[Also, just so you know, capital is the amount you have minus any income e.g. regular benefit payments.  So at the end of this assessment period you add up the benefits you've received, minus that from your bank account totals, and the result is your total capital before anything's disregarded. 
So depending on how much you receive in benefits each month you might not even be over the £6,000 capital threshold anyway even before disregarding anything.]