Deprivation of assets prior to claiming UC.

Rubyroobs

Can anyone tell me if DWP ever look back at a claimant's financial situation prior to claiming UC. For example if someone has given away proceeds of a house in the past couple of years to a family member and then gone on to make a claim for UC would this be picked up by DWP ?
It's been a while since I assisted anyone to make a UC claim but I can't recall them asking anywhere on the initial claim whether a house was recently  sold ?

elsien

I don’t know what the form itself says, but if they suspect something they can look back as far as they like. 

Grumpy_chap

Part of any assessment should consider intent.

Why did the individual give away so much capital?
To the point they have now left themselves short?
Who did they give the money to?
Where does the individual live now, and with whom?
How much, order of magnitude, was the capital proceeds that are no longer available?  Could be a big difference between a mortgage free mansion or a heavily mortgaged studio flat.

The individual might reasonably expect some considerable challenges around this large amount of capital which they no longer have.

Keep_pedalling

There is a very strong chance that this would be picked up as they have access to property sales records. 

Has anything else changed since they gave the money away? For instance were they earning good money at the time of the gift but can no longer work because of illness.

Newcad

For something to be D-of-C there has to have been an intent to claim or increase benefits.

So the first question has to be 'Did they give the money away so that they could then claim benefits?'

Mainly the answer that a Decision Maker will come to is going to depend on just how long ago they gave it away, who they gave it too, and at that time could they have reasonably expected not to have to claim benefits in the near future?

What they have been doing, and especially where they have been living, between giving the house proceeds away and now claiming benefits will also be a big factor.

TELLIT01

If there was a gap of a couple of years between gifting money and claiming benefits, it will be extremely difficult for DWP to show it was done with the intention of claiming benefits.  That doesn't mean they won't try.

rosewalk

I think that it is unlikely that they would pick up on this if there was a significant gap in time between giving the money away and claiming UC. It would very difficult for DWP to argue that the intent of giving away the money was to secure themselves Universal Credit. However as others have commented they could investigate this if they chose to. They won't ask on the UC claim whether someone has recently sold a house. 

Rubyroobs

rosewalk said:

I think that it is unlikely that they would pick up on this if there was a significant gap in time between giving the money away and claiming UC. It would very difficult for DWP to argue that the intent of giving away the money was to secure themselves Universal Credit. However as others have commented they could investigate this if they chose to. They won't ask on the UC claim whether someone has recently sold a house. 

Thanks. It was about three years ago that the property was sold and started claiming UC possibly eighteen months ago due to loss of job and income.

TELLIT01

A gap of that period would make it virtually impossible for DWP, or any other body, to link the events.

Grumpy_chap

TELLIT01 said:

A gap of that period would make it virtually impossible for DWP, or any other body, to link the events.

I am not sure that the information shared is clear enough for that to be certain.

In the OP, the impression (that I had at least) was that this query related to a new UC claim yet to be made and the money was gifted in the past couple of years.

The latest information from the OP is that it was about three years ago that the property was sold and the UC claim possibly 18 months ago.

The OP needs to be clear, precise and accurate in the consideration of the dates.
It is quite possible from what has been said that the time line is as follows:
 - 36 months ago = house sold
 - 24 months ago = money gifted
 - 18 months ago = UC claim started
That could mean as short as 6 months between gifting the money and making the UC claim.

The OP has also not commented on any of the other requests for clarification that have been made in the thread:
 - Why did the individual give away so much capital?
 - To the point they have now left themselves short?
 - Who did they give the money to?
 - Where does the individual live now, and with whom?
 - How much, order of magnitude, was the capital proceeds that are no longer available? 
 - Has anything else changed since they gave the money away?
 - What they have been doing between giving the house proceeds away and claiming benefits?

I will add to the previous questions.  Given the UC claim started "possibly 18 months ago", what has prompted this issue to be queried now?

It must be quite an edge case for there to be individuals giving away such a large proportion of their house sale value that the individual finds themselves short of finance within a short timeframe such as three years.

Spoonie_Turtle

Do you know what the timeline was between selling and giving the money away?

Did they have any idea their job might be under threat at the time?  Obviously I'm not a DM but I can't help thinking that may be key.  If they had no idea that they might have to claim benefits in the short or medium term then the DWP would be hard pressed to argue it was with the intention of maximising benefit entitlement.  Whereas if they did know, or their health had started to decline (as you mention ESA) that would definitely complicate things.

IIRC the burden of proof is supposed to be on DWP to prove intentional DoC and ultimately only the claimant knows the truth, whether they had any inkling of needing to claim future benefits, but in reality depending on the facts of the case ('the optics') it could be hard to prove if they didn't.