Universal credit

Sootycat112

Hi all. 

I’ve recently had a review requested from universal credit wanting back statements, tenancy agreement etc. 
which isn’t an issue. 

The only thing I’m worried about it that my boyfriend that doesn’t live with me (I’m a single parent and like to spend as much time as I can with my little girl) sends me money every month just to help me out for “nice” things for example - getting my hair done, toys for the little one. 

Things I wouldn’t spend money on usually as they aren’t essential. 

Would this go against my claim ? 

Thank you. 

Robbie64

Whilst it's impossible to say with any certainty, it shouldn't do if it's just small amounts of money now and again. Is the money a fixed amount each month, or paid on a fixed date? Or is it random amounts at random times? Is it a large sum of money? Also, is your boyfriend the father of your baby girl? The reason for asking is that if he was any payment could be treated as child support, which is ignored when assessing UC.

Spoonie_Turtle

Gifts from friends/relatives are supposed to be ignored as income by UC.  They may take an interest but from what other people have said and in my experience, they are more interested in payments out from our accounts.  Just my speculation, but I can see two main purposes for the questions they ask:
1. Wanting to make sure we're not squirreling money away trying to hide it
2. Ensuring that we ourselves do actually use the accounts we're declaring, that they're not really someone else's but in our name.

HillStreetBlues

They might enquire about it but if it's money gifted then it's capital it isn't unearned income.

Yamor

HillStreetBlues said:

They might enquire about it but if it's money gifted then it's capital it isn't unearned income.

Depending on the exact situation, this could well be income not capital, although it definitely isn't taken into account as income for the purposes of the UC calculation.
(Only certain types of income are treated as being capital immediately - see Reg. 72(3).)

Difference is that it could only affect the capital side of the UC means-test from the following AP (if still retained).

huckster

"My boyfriend that doesn't live with me" is a red flag to those who review benefits, as something they all say. This is down to the large volume of single claims, where there may be evidence of  living with a partner in contradiction to what was declared on the claim.

So I expect further investigations will follow into the financial relationship between the boyfriend and the claimant in this case.

RunsFromRobots

huckster said:

"My boyfriend that doesn't live with me" is a red flag to those who review benefits, as something they all say. This is down to the large volume of single claims, where there may be evidence of  living with a partner in contradiction to what was declared on the claim.

So I expect further investigations will follow into the financial relationship between the boyfriend and the claimant in this case.

This. Look up 'collusive separation'.

Sootycat112

RunsFromRobots said:

huckster said:

"My boyfriend that doesn't live with me" is a red flag to those who review benefits, as something they all say. This is down to the large volume of single claims, where there may be evidence of  living with a partner in contradiction to what was declared on the claim.

So I expect further investigations will follow into the financial relationship between the boyfriend and the claimant in this case.

This. Look up 'collusive separation'.

We have been together for 6 years and he has never lived with me. 

I went through a bad divorce and my ex took everything and left us with nothing as it was all in his name. 

I made a promise to myself and my daughter that that would never happen again and that we would always stand on our own 2 feet without needing a man’s help. 

HillStreetBlues

Sootycat112 said:

RunsFromRobots said:

huckster said:

"My boyfriend that doesn't live with me" is a red flag to those who review benefits, as something they all say. This is down to the large volume of single claims, where there may be evidence of  living with a partner in contradiction to what was declared on the claim.

So I expect further investigations will follow into the financial relationship between the boyfriend and the claimant in this case.

This. Look up 'collusive separation'.

We have been together for 6 years and he has never lived with me. 

I went through a bad divorce and my ex took everything and left us with nothing as it was all in his name. 

I made a promise to myself and my daughter that that would never happen again and that we would always stand on our own 2 feet without needing a man’s help. 

The issue is there is a financial link between you with the payments into your bank.
They are currently doing UC checks, but with mine they never asked for my tenancy agreement, maybe others can say if they were asked during their checks. This might indicate if it was a "random" one or a targeted one  possible someone reported you.
 

NedS

Sootycat112 said:

RunsFromRobots said:

huckster said:

"My boyfriend that doesn't live with me" is a red flag to those who review benefits, as something they all say. This is down to the large volume of single claims, where there may be evidence of  living with a partner in contradiction to what was declared on the claim.

So I expect further investigations will follow into the financial relationship between the boyfriend and the claimant in this case.

This. Look up 'collusive separation'.

We have been together for 6 years and he has never lived with me. 

I went through a bad divorce and my ex took everything and left us with nothing as it was all in his name. 

I made a promise to myself and my daughter that that would never happen again and that we would always stand on our own 2 feet without needing a man’s help. 

One of the easiest ways to prove he doesn't live with you is to provide evidence that he has his own address at which he does live. If he is registered as paying Council Tax in his own name at a different address, then clearly he lives there, and not with you at your address. DWP can check council tax records to see who is registered as living at a given address so just tell them his name and the address he lives at and they can easily verify that.

As others have said, gifts from him are treated as capital and not income. It is not relevant what the gifts are for. They are only relevant if they take the total amount of your capital over £6,000, but as you are sending them rather than saving them, I assume this is unlikely to be the case.

Yamor

As per my earlier post, if the money is paid regularly and by reference to a period, then I would argue it is income, albeit not taken into account as income for UC purposes.
That could well be the case here, if the OP is given money each month for that month.

The advantage of this is that it will only become capital the following month.