Which of these two unspent back payment calculations is used by the DWP?

Spoonie_Turtle

MrHeisenberg said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

MrHeisenberg said:

Robbie64 said:

^

I personally would have opened an online savings account with my bank and put the back payment into there, leaving it untouched as long as possible. My way of thinking is that it would make it easier for the Review team to see that the amount of savings I had never went down below the amount of the back payment (until of course I started to spend some of it).

The type of savings account I was thinking about is the type banks offer where all transactions for the savings account have to go through the main bank account to make a deposit into and a withdrawl from the savings account, creating a straightforward paper trail.

Interesting. They could still probably argue that some of your pre-existing capital went into the savings account. E.g. you initially had £4K, received £10K in a back payment, then transferred £10K to the savings account, £4K of which was your initial capital.

In theory perhaps, they could try if they really wanted, but it defies all logic and I can't imagine it would ever stand up at tribunal.

I think there is still a bit of a problem in that the rules simply state that the capital should be disregarded, but they don't state how to make that calculation, so its wide open to interpretation.

Looks like accountants even stay away from this stuff:

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/universal-credit-advisory

At some point basic logic and common sense have to kick in.  A 10k sum paid in, then shortly a 10k sum transferred into a separate account, nobody could realistically expect to win an argument claiming that some of that transferred 10k was partly from the lump sum and partly from existing capital.  That would just be absurd.

I do understand being wary of how DWP interpret things and that their systems certainly can work in ways that defy common sense, but in this case this would be an actively strange interpretation given by a human which wouldn't stand up to any kind of challenge, not even from their colleagues if an MR is properly considered and certainly not at tribunal if it had to go that far.

MrHeisenberg

Spoonie_Turtle said:

MrHeisenberg said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

MrHeisenberg said:

Robbie64 said:

^

I personally would have opened an online savings account with my bank and put the back payment into there, leaving it untouched as long as possible. My way of thinking is that it would make it easier for the Review team to see that the amount of savings I had never went down below the amount of the back payment (until of course I started to spend some of it).

The type of savings account I was thinking about is the type banks offer where all transactions for the savings account have to go through the main bank account to make a deposit into and a withdrawl from the savings account, creating a straightforward paper trail.

Interesting. They could still probably argue that some of your pre-existing capital went into the savings account. E.g. you initially had £4K, received £10K in a back payment, then transferred £10K to the savings account, £4K of which was your initial capital.

In theory perhaps, they could try if they really wanted, but it defies all logic and I can't imagine it would ever stand up at tribunal.

I think there is still a bit of a problem in that the rules simply state that the capital should be disregarded, but they don't state how to make that calculation, so its wide open to interpretation.

Looks like accountants even stay away from this stuff:

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/universal-credit-advisory

At some point basic logic and common sense have to kick in.  A 10k sum paid in, then shortly a 10k sum transferred into a separate account, nobody could realistically expect to win an argument claiming that some of that transferred 10k was partly from the lump sum and partly from existing capital.  That would just be absurd.

I do understand being wary of how DWP interpret things and that their systems certainly can work in ways that defy common sense, but in this case this would be an actively strange interpretation given by a human which wouldn't stand up to any kind of challenge, not even from their colleagues if an MR is properly considered and certainly not at tribunal if it had to go that far.

I'm inclined to agree. 

In other circumstances, though, it is so incredibly stressful trying to estimate how the DWP are going to interpret the rules, and how a Claimant is expected to interpret the rules.

The letter that I recently got states that I cannot provide incorrect or incomplete information, but what if use a calculation method that the respective DWP Decision Maker tends not to use e.g. ending up with a £10K unspent backpay figure as opposed to £6K based on the example I have used? I could be in a world of trouble.

I also reverted back to the DWP on this issue, explaining my difficulties. My worry is that they could also now argue that I have provided incomplete information, even though I have just sent them a huge pile of bank statements.

The DWP guidance on this states as follows (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-overpayment-recovery-staff-guide/benefit-overpayment-recovery-guide#chapter-2---when-and-from-whom-do-we-seek-recovery):

"Misrepresentation or failure to disclose

2.4. Where as a result of any person’s misrepresentation or failure to disclose a material fact, a payment of a relevant benefit has been made, the Secretary of State can recover:

any payment which would not otherwise have been made, or

the sum which the Secretary of State would have received if there had been no misrepresentation or failure to disclose

2.5. The terms misrepresentation and failure to disclose apply to both innocent errors and omissions and deliberate fraud."

The last sentence in the most worrying one. There seems to be very little differentiation between an innocent error and deliberate fraud. 

This person believes that is it best to let the DWP interpret the disregard rules:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BenefitsAdviceUK/comments/1kmyftr/comment/msey6z8/

I really don't know the DWP expect people in my position to cope with all this. Some of the calculations are completely overwhelming at the best of times, and I suffer from really debilitating health problems.

Spoonie_Turtle

Sorry but I think you're ovethinking this.

The detail about recovering overpayments is irrelevant because any overpayment on UC is recoverable, regardless of what type (deliberate fraud, innocent error, official error where THEY got it wrong, anything else).  That's written into the legislation.

If you've given them bank statements and have explained what the backpayment was for, that it should be disregarded, and when received (and willing to provide proof if they ask, but I don't know that they do) then there is no other information you can supply 🤷

MrHeisenberg

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Sorry but I think you're ovethinking this.

The detail about recovering overpayments is irrelevant because any overpayment on UC is recoverable, regardless of what type (deliberate fraud, innocent error, official error where THEY got it wrong, anything else).  That's written into the legislation.

If you've given them bank statements and have explained what the backpayment was for, that it should be disregarded, and when received (and willing to provide proof if they ask, but I don't know that they do) then there is no other information you can supply 🤷

Sincere thanks, I hope you are right. I suppose I don't want to be accused of fraud for making an understandable and innocent mistake, or for being reluctant to take a guess.

They asked me if my total capital has exceeded £5500 when disregarding the back payment. If it did, they asked me to supply bank statements from the date it did. Alternatively, they asked me to confirm that my total capital hasn't exceeded £5500. This was in response to a letter I sent to them in June (they took a few months to respond) letting them know that I am unclear about whether or not I have inadvertently gone over the £6000 limit slightly.