HB and inheritance

hopeless1234 · 10 December 2012 at 5:15PM

I just cant find any info on this and hope you can help me. I will try and be as brief as possible.

I am in a situation where I need to apply for housing benefit. As my husband is self employed, I have submitted 12 months audited accounts (april 2011 to March 12) even tho my claim doesnt start until 10 dec (potentially)

In April 2012 we received an inheritance of £55k. At the time I took advice and was told that I did not need to declare this unless it attracted over £300 in interest. Well, we paid an enormous amount of debt with it and so never got anything like £300 interest.

My claim for HB would be from today (10 dec if accepted) and so after we had the inheritance but because my husband is self employed, we had to give accounts prior to the inheritance.

Now my question is, will the inheritance be taken into account at all? If he wasnt self employed,they would simply ask for 3 months payslips, and so if they do take it into account, I think this is discriminating against us for being a self employed family. The reason we need to claim HB is because my husband had an accident and has had to reduce the amount of hrs he works.

Can someone please advise me. Thanks

paddedjohn · 10 December 2012 at 5:39PM

Even if you were employed they would still ask about the inheritance. They will need to know where the money has gone will need to satisfy themselves that you haven't disposed of it just to be eligible for benefits.

Dunroamin · 10 December 2012 at 6:08PM

How much of this money is left?

sleepless_saver · 10 December 2012 at 6:35PM

hopeless1234 wrote: »

In April 2012 we received an inheritance of £55k. At the time I took advice and was told that I did not need to declare this unless it attracted over £300 in interest. Well, we paid an enormous amount of debt with it and so never got anything like £300 interest.

There is no rule of this kind for housing benefit. The amount of capital you have will always be taken into account, and anyone with over £16k capital will not receive housing benefit (unless they are receiving guarantee pension credit).

The £300 interest threshhold is just for tax credits, which do not currently take capital into account.

hopeless1234 · 10 December 2012 at 10:15PM

We have about £2k left as I said we paid lots of debt, bought a new van as our last one was repossessed, moved house with hefty deposit. We wouldn't need to claim if he wasn't having to reduce hours and certainly didn't plan on clAiming its just the way it's worked out.

hopeless1234 · 10 December 2012 at 10:20PM

paddedjohn wrote: »

Even if you were employed they would still ask about the inheritance. They will need to know where the money has gone will need to satisfy themselves that you haven't disposed of it just to be eligible for benefits.

Had we known what a desperate situation we would find ourselves in now we would prob have bought a cheAper van, not moved house nor paid our debts off. But we thought the inheritance would be the key to a bright financial future and were happy to spend it to make our lives better but now my husband has had the accident and has had to reduce working hours it's not really worked out the wAy we planned.

hopeless1234 · 10 December 2012 at 10:23PM

So if our claim starts now but they want backdated accounts which includes the period of time we had the inheritance will they just not pay for that period of time? I'm really struggling with the concept of proving income and expenditure for a period of time which is irrelevant to the period of my claim.

Dunroamin · 10 December 2012 at 11:13PM

hopeless1234 wrote: »

So if our claim starts now but they want backdated accounts which includes the period of time we had the inheritance will they just not pay for that period of time? I'm really struggling with the concept of proving income and expenditure for a period of time which is irrelevant to the period of my claim.

What benefits were you claiming when you received this money?

hopeless1234 · 11 December 2012 at 8:53AM

Working tax credit and child tax credit

sleepless_saver · 11 December 2012 at 5:24PM

My best guess is that if you can show that you spent the money before your OH had the accident and that your income has fallen as a direct result of the accident, you should be OK. This is because there would be no question of your having deliberately spent the money in order to get benefits.

If they do query it, I'd suggest getting expert help from welfare rights or CAB.

CAB_Wyre_Forest_representative · 12 December 2012 at 11:29AM

Hello hopeless1234

When you make a claim for any income related benefit such as housing benefit then all of your income and capital are taken into account at the point that you make a claim. Under normal circumstances any capital that you received before making a claim should be disregarded unless you can be shown to have deliberately deprived yourselves of capital in order to get help with your rent or any other monies. This is called the deprivation of capital rule.

If you received money in April then firstly the council would have to know that you had received it. They would then have to prove that you would know that in December you would need to claim housing benefit and they would have to prove that you deliberately spend or moved all that money in April so that you could claim housing benefit in December.

You could be asked to provide bank statements for the last six months and it would be reasonable for the council if they say the money coming into your account to ask what you spent it
on. You would then have the opportunity to show how you had spent the money. It is for them to show that your actions were deliberate ( such as transferring the remainder into a relatives account) in order to be able to claim benefit

HB and inheritance

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free