How much savings you are allowed before it affects the benefits

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  • lucia15
    lucia15 Posts: 47 Forumite
    Gazella77 wrote: »
    Right, so what is the difference in them? Who can have a lower/ higher limit?

    Also I was told by a friend today that I shouldn't even declare cash ISA as the idea of ISA is not to be taxed anyway. Any ideas about that?
    This limit applies to everyone. The lower limit used to be £3000 for those under 60 but this change about a year ago. So now the lower limit is £6000 for everyone. For every £250 you have over £6000, an extra £1 is added to your total income. If you have over £16,000 you will not qualify for benefit. Hope this helps.

    Lucy (Benefits Assessor)
  • lucia15
    lucia15 Posts: 47 Forumite
    Ps.
    ALL bank & building society accounts, shares, Premium Bonds and other investments such as land or property must be declared.
  • Gazella77
    Gazella77 Posts: 201 Forumite
    Thank you very much, I appreciate a lot. I haven't got as much as £6 000, and anyway I think I will leave only ISA with its £3 000 for rainy days and and put the rest into my mortgage.

    On the land and properties, I suppose the one I own abroad I need to declare as well. How would it affect my claims? I bought it for approximately £10 000 and it's worth around £20 000 - 25 000 now so obviously it wouldn't bym me anything here.
  • Hapless_2
    Hapless_2 Posts: 2,619 Forumite
    Gazella77 wrote: »
    Thank you very much, I appreciate a lot. I haven't got as much as £6 000, and anyway I think I will leave only ISA with its £3 000 for rainy days and and put the rest into my mortgage.

    On the land and properties, I suppose the one I own abroad I need to declare as well. How would it affect my claims? I bought it for approximately £10 000 and it's worth around £20 000 - 25 000 now so obviously it wouldn't bym me anything here.

    You have to declare everything. You even have to declare one of those gimmick "acre of moon" plots if you have one in some areas.

    If you make your savings disappear then it could be deemed "deprivation of income" too.
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  • lucia15
    lucia15 Posts: 47 Forumite
    Gazella77 wrote: »
    Thank you very much, I appreciate a lot. I haven't got as much as £6 000, and anyway I think I will leave only ISA with its £3 000 for rainy days and and put the rest into my mortgage.

    On the land and properties, I suppose the one I own abroad I need to declare as well. How would it affect my claims? I bought it for approximately £10 000 and it's worth around £20 000 - 25 000 now so obviously it wouldn't bym me anything here.

    Hi Gazella,
    If the property abroad is up for sale, it would be disregarded for 26 weeks from the date it was put on the market. If not, a valuation would be done by the Valuations Agency. From the figure they give us, we deduct the outstanding mortgage amount and the remainder is treated as capital.
    Lucy
  • Voyager2002
    Voyager2002 Posts: 15,277 Forumite
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    Please visit a site like "entitled to" and work out which benefits are likely to be available to you. I can tell you from my own experience (savings over 30 grand; unemployed; children) that my tax credits are not affected by my savings, nor any interest on them. However, I cannot claim council tax benefit (and if I were a tenant I could not claim Housing Benefit) and I can only get contributions-based Job Seeker's Allowance, which only lasts for six months.
  • jay1jay
    jay1jay Posts: 146 Forumite
    Gazella77. You definately don't need to declare savings (or other properties you own) to tax credits, just the interest etc (or rent if you rent out your other property). This is not the same for most other benefits though!
  • Gazella77
    Gazella77 Posts: 201 Forumite
    Oh, dear, now I am getting really confused:-(

    I went to entitled to but I put my annual earnings, as they are now and there wasn't that much I could claim. I am also unsure about child care costs. Will go again though.
  • Gazella77
    Gazella77 Posts: 201 Forumite
    and forgot to add the property is not for sale, I want to keep it just in case.
  • damo73_2
    damo73_2 Posts: 23 Forumite
    hi,
    take this as gospel as i work in DWP for Income Support (IS). you have to declare all capital ie savings, bank, building society and post office accounts when u make a claim. its fruad if u don't.
    you can have £16000 pounds in savings, but anything over £6000 is taken into account at the ratio of £1 off your personal allowance (PA) for every £250 over the £6000. IS will also pay the mortage interest but there is a qualifing period.
    hope this helps

    Damo
    IS Decision Marker
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