UC query after only £1.50 received today.

geewcee

Thankyou, I rang her back and let her know. She's dyslexic and didnt realise you could go into the Payments section on there as she doesnt like to mess with things she knows nothing about. I got her to read to me what this months statement said and it said that they classed the redundancy payment as wages so it has reduced her UC to £1.53 this month. But she read her journal entries where two separate people told her that it would not affect it so told her to screenshot those for her phonecall tomorrow. Whole thing stresses her out terribly, and I really appreciate your help this evening to all that replied. 

Uriziel

You write that she has no savings but she has very obviously received the bonus from her employer which they will use as "savings". They want you to use your own money before you start claiming any benefits. The £16k thing you said is not correct. Above £16k you do not receive any UC at all however if you receive less than that they will still lower your UC payment which is what they seem to have done. She should be looking at the calculation and do as they said. Use the money that she has and update her UC account online as there is a field to enter your savings. Once she has done that they will also increase the UC payment next month.

Uriziel

geewcee said:

Thankyou, I rang her back and let her know. She's dyslexic and didnt realise you could go into the Payments section on there as she doesnt like to mess with things she knows nothing about. I got her to read to me what this months statement said and it said that they classed the redundancy payment as wages so it has reduced her UC to £1.53 this month. But she read her journal entries where two separate people told her that it would not affect it so told her to screenshot those for her phonecall tomorrow. Whole thing stresses her out terribly, and I really appreciate your help this evening to all that replied. 

If this is the case then you are lucky because it means that the next UC payment will be full since she will not be getting another salary payment but if they ever notice that the bank balance is this high they will probably take action.

geewcee

Uriziel said:

You write that she has no savings but she has very obviously received the bonus from her employer which they will use as "savings". They want you to use your own money before you start claiming any benefits. The £16k thing you said is not correct. Above £16k you do not receive any UC at all however if you receive less than that they will still lower your UC payment which is what they seem to have done. She should be looking at the calculation and do as they said. Use the money that she has and update her UC account online as there is a field to enter your savings. Once she has done that they will also increase the UC payment next month.

I'm just trying to understand how the system works. Let's rewind a little, she has zero savings as she hasnt been able to declare her redundancy payment as savings despite being told she could. So that money now gets used to pay this months bills (which wipes the full payment out) and then next month she gets her normal payment? If so that's fine, she was panicked as she was thinking they were cutting her off completely. 

HillStreetBlues

geewcee said:

Thankyou, I rang her back and let her know. She's dyslexic and didnt realise you could go into the Payments section on there as she doesnt like to mess with things she knows nothing about. I got her to read to me what this months statement said and it said that they classed the redundancy payment as wages so it has reduced her UC to £1.53 this month. But she read her journal entries where two separate people told her that it would not affect it so told her to screenshot those for her phonecall tomorrow. Whole thing stresses her out terribly, and I really appreciate your help this evening to all that replied. 

There are people with far better knowledge than me, but I believe that incorrect.
Redundancy is classed as capital not income.

  Termination of employment payments
H3119 There is a limited tax liability for payments made by an employer in respect of redundancy1
. A
redundancy payment is excluded from the meaning of earnings for the purposes of UC and falls to be
treated as capital in the assessment period in which it is received. ADM Chapter H1 provides guidance on
capital.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6717bc20a71f39bdb1c9c18a/adm-chapter-h3-earned-income-employed-earnings.pdf

Hopefully someone will correct me if wrong, or confirm it's correct.

geewcee

HillStreetBlues said:

geewcee said:

Thankyou, I rang her back and let her know. She's dyslexic and didnt realise you could go into the Payments section on there as she doesnt like to mess with things she knows nothing about. I got her to read to me what this months statement said and it said that they classed the redundancy payment as wages so it has reduced her UC to £1.53 this month. But she read her journal entries where two separate people told her that it would not affect it so told her to screenshot those for her phonecall tomorrow. Whole thing stresses her out terribly, and I really appreciate your help this evening to all that replied. 

There are people with far better knowledge than me, but I believe that incorrect.
Redundancy is classed as capital not income.

  Termination of employment payments
H3119 There is a limited tax liability for payments made by an employer in respect of redundancy1
. A
redundancy payment is excluded from the meaning of earnings for the purposes of UC and falls to be
treated as capital in the assessment period in which it is received. ADM Chapter H1 provides guidance on
capital.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6717bc20a71f39bdb1c9c18a/adm-chapter-h3-earned-income-employed-earnings.pdf

Hopefully someone will correct me if wrong, or confirm it's correct.

This is exactly what she has been told previously by 3 different people working for UC, but they have now noted down her redundancy as wages. I'm hoping she will speak to someone tomorrow who actually knows the rules.

Spoonie_Turtle

geewcee said:

HillStreetBlues said:

geewcee said:

Thankyou, I rang her back and let her know. She's dyslexic and didnt realise you could go into the Payments section on there as she doesnt like to mess with things she knows nothing about. I got her to read to me what this months statement said and it said that they classed the redundancy payment as wages so it has reduced her UC to £1.53 this month. But she read her journal entries where two separate people told her that it would not affect it so told her to screenshot those for her phonecall tomorrow. Whole thing stresses her out terribly, and I really appreciate your help this evening to all that replied. 

There are people with far better knowledge than me, but I believe that incorrect.
Redundancy is classed as capital not income.

  Termination of employment payments
H3119 There is a limited tax liability for payments made by an employer in respect of redundancy1
. A
redundancy payment is excluded from the meaning of earnings for the purposes of UC and falls to be
treated as capital in the assessment period in which it is received. ADM Chapter H1 provides guidance on
capital.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6717bc20a71f39bdb1c9c18a/adm-chapter-h3-earned-income-employed-earnings.pdf

Hopefully someone will correct me if wrong, or confirm it's correct.

This is exactly what she has been told previously by 3 different people working for UC, but they have now noted down her redundancy as wages. I'm hoping she will speak to someone tomorrow who actually knows the rules.

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high.  The people on the phone are not trained beyond the basics (and even then not always!).

I don't know what the answer is so I don't have anything helpful to say, I just thought you should be aware that phoning up may not get the right outcome.

elsien

I will repeat because my previous post may have been missed, giving her a ex-gratia payment because she’s given up work due to illness is not redundancy.
Redundancy is when the post is no longer needed, not when the person doing it is no longer able to do so. Any redundancy specific rules will not apply. 

itsthelittlethings

So she got a payment from work and can afford to eat and feed her children this month?

I would imagine she’ll get UC as normal next month. Unless the payment was huge.

itsthelittlethings

Usually when you say medically retired it refers to a pension being drawn.