Home Lease Extension Renewal while on Universal Credit

michelletaylor4

Hello,

Am in a bit of a fix and am looking for help. My flat lease is approximately 81 yrs and 8 months, and if I don't renew it soon I am going to end up paying a lot more due to marriage value. The problem is I am a unpaid carer on Universal Credit due to looking after sick family members. To pay for the extension I would need to take an early pension, which is a lump sum of around £15,000. Does anyone know the impact this will have on Universal Credit please?  Will they just stop my claim as soon as I tell them about the lump sum? I cannot spend all of the money immediately as the lease extension takes a few months to complete. I know the freeholders aren't happy with the reforms going through and have appealed. I don't see the marriage value being taken off, also the freeholder could just increase the deferment rate bringing up the sum total again. I am worried if I delay the lease extension past 80 years I am not going to be able to afford to do it. Thanks for your time. 

huckster

If money savings and investments exceed £16000, your UC claim would be closed, unless you applied for any capital to be disregarded and a Decision Maker agreed to this. You could say and provide evidence that £15000 was going to be used to deal with legal issues regarding the lease on your property and see if you can get a 6 month disregard period.

For capital of of over £6000, UC would apply a deduction to benefit of £4.35 for each £250 you hold about this.

NedS

michelletaylor4 said:

Hello,

Am in a bit of a fix and am looking for help. My flat lease is approximately 81 yrs and 8 months, and if I don't renew it soon I am going to end up paying a lot more due to marriage value. The problem is I am a unpaid carer on Universal Credit due to looking after sick family members. To pay for the extension I would need to take an early pension, which is a lump sum of around £15,000. Does anyone know the impact this will have on Universal Credit please?  Will they just stop my claim as soon as I tell them about the lump sum? 

Just to clarify, are you also taking any regular income from the pension in addition to the lump sum? If so, this must also be declared and will reduce your UC award pound for pound.
As per @huckster's answer above, the limp sum is treated as capital.

Muttleythefrog

This seems a tricky one... not sure any way around it unless you are better at timing the money in and out to occur in a UC assessment period. Otherwise capital to declare. I don't know if others agree but tightening timeline may be option... your solicitor would surely request the monies only when within days of transacting... how defined/short notice can you make the pension withdrawal?

To add... agree with Huckster above... there may be possibility of disregard... I think you'd have to carefully look at how to engineer the justification given it doesn't seem to fit nicely with the usual property related disregards of capital specified in the rules. The problem with this route is you may not be able to get a decision in advance so you could fall victim to a decision you rely on after the event.


https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/benefits/universal_credit/universal_credit_capital_rules#disregarded-capital

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67d982dba87d546feeda0193/admh2.pdf

HillStreetBlues

Muttleythefrog said:

This seems a tricky one... not sure any way around it unless you are better at timing the money in and out to occur in a UC assessment period. Otherwise capital to declare. I don't know if others agree but tightening timeline may be option... your solicitor would surely request the monies only when within days of transacting... how defined/short notice can you make the pension withdrawal?

Agreed
OP needs to find out the time-frame of withdrawing their pension.