UC query after only £1.50 received today.

geewcee

This is on behalf of my sister, as she rang me in distress today over finances. She has just been medically 'retired' from work due to her worsening OCD, which means after 16 years she's now out of work. During the last year or so she's been unable to work so been in full receipt of UC, which has enabled her to pay her rent, and feed her two young children.

She got a small payment from her work (they have been very supportive towards her) and they also included a 15 years of service bonus when retiring her. She declared this to UC, and they asked her to attend an interview at the local Job Centre the previous Saturday (28th) to go through exactly what she was given when leaving the company. They looked at bank statements etc and were happy that her payment received would not affect her UC at all.

Roll on to today, and UC have sent her a payment for £1.50 instead of her usual amount. Of course she is in bits, and worried about keeping her head above water financially. She said she sent messages on her UC journal to query it this morning but received no reply, so once she picked the kids up from school she rang them direct and she was told that the interview panel were wrong and that she will have to use the redundancy payment in lieu of UC. 

Now she's a natural born worrier and thinks the worst of every situation, and I've never claimed benefits and have zero clue on how it all works so I cannot really advise her at all. In her eyes, UC has come to an end and she now has to fend for herself and the kids with no job and zero income.

Can anyone shed any light on whether this is usual, I see just by browsing the forum quickly that people have mentioned having up to £16k in savings is allowed, but I presume this is before any UC claim had gone in. (Just to clarify she has £0 in savings). Is it a case of any money you receive whilst claiming must be used and then you reclaim UC once it runs out?

Muttleythefrog

The only way to make sense of this is to look at the UC monthly statement which should show calculations... she needs to look at that... and details needed here if we're to advise.

geewcee

Muttleythefrog said:

The only way to make sense of this is to look at the UC monthly statement which should show calculations... she needs to look at that... and details needed here if we're to advise.

OK will let her know thankyou. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Also in the meantime as long as her savings haven't gone over £16,000 her UC claim isn't closed.  The fact she still got a payment indicates it's fine.  Her UC claim remains open and she will get future payments.  She doesn't even fall foul of the surplus earnings rule because her UC wasn't nilled.

Yes it would be best to make sure they did correctly deal with the money received, but the fact she got a payment (albeit very small) is a sure sign she'll still get UC henceforth.

TimeLord1

If she has no savings whatsoever, that's an odd amount to pay out. If she gets into any financial difficulties, she can apply for a loan from UC, but obviously whatever her previous employer has paid out has been treated as capital.

It's best to look at the statement to see how they've calculated the deduction, and she will probably have to report the reduction in capital to UC. 

Whoever she spoke to at the job centre clearly gave her bad advice. They were happy that her payment received would not affect her UC at all.
This suggests they might have misunderstood or misapplied the rules regarding capital, or perhaps the full amount of the redundancy payment wasn't clear at that point. It's possible they focused only on it not being treated as earned income for that assessment period, without fully considering its impact as capital.

geewcee

Thankyou both, thats reassuring to know her UC is still open. She has zero savings so she certainly hasn't gone over any threshold but she was hoping to save some of her payout, but seems like she will have to use it to pay her rent, bills and food this month. 

elsien

I am wondering if using the word redundancy is confusing things because retirement through ill health is not redundancy. Having said that, if the amount is so small, it shouldn’t make any difference to her savings anyway unless they are classing the payments as income? 

geewcee

Muttleythefrog said:

The only way to make sense of this is to look at the UC monthly statement which should show calculations... she needs to look at that... and details needed here if we're to advise.

I have quickly spoken to my sister and she says she has never received a statement or breakdown of her UC ever. All she has access to is an online journal, and a to do list where you have to report any change in circumstances. She will ring them tomorrow to ask about how she gets access to the statements. 

geewcee

She did mention that when she received her payment from work, she rang UC to tell them and she was told to move her payment into a savings account and declare it on her online journal, as she could have up to 15k in savings. But the journal didn't accept the payment input and that's why she was called into the job centre for the interview where she was told it wouldn't affect her UC. So two people have told her that receiving her final payment wouldn't affect her UC. Sorry for dripfeeding the info, she is going to ring again tomorrow. 

Spoonie_Turtle

geewcee said:

Muttleythefrog said:

The only way to make sense of this is to look at the UC monthly statement which should show calculations... she needs to look at that... and details needed here if we're to advise.

I have quickly spoken to my sister and she says she has never received a statement or breakdown of her UC ever. All she has access to is an online journal, and a to do list where you have to report any change in circumstances. She will ring them tomorrow to ask about how she gets access to the statements. 

Access to statements is through her online account.  They've actually recently changed the mobile view, I don't know what she normally uses to access her account, but it's in the Payments section where all of her statements will be.


I'll see if I can find an older screenshot … here:



It should be the home screen that she sees when she logs in every time anyway.

NedS

geewcee said:

Muttleythefrog said:

The only way to make sense of this is to look at the UC monthly statement which should show calculations... she needs to look at that... and details needed here if we're to advise.

I have quickly spoken to my sister and she says she has never received a statement or breakdown of her UC ever. All she has access to is an online journal, and a to do list where you have to report any change in circumstances. She will ring them tomorrow to ask about how she gets access to the statements. 

Everything is online, in her online account. Monthly statements can be found in the Payments section.