ISA & Income support

mark6 · 16 February 2010 at 5:43PM

Hi there,Wondered if anyone can advise on this situation.

I've just been out of work now for 5 months for the first time in my life and have been claiming JSA due to national insurance contributions. I will soon be put onto income support if I can. When I first claimed I declared I have more than £16000 savings.

The problem is, £14000 of this is in an ISA and it isn't all sort of mine.

I'm 37 and still currently living at home. I originally moved out with a friend but he lost his job so couldn't afford it on my own. My parents took me back at £250 lodge a month. As I wasn't really saving money after a year or so they decided to make me bank the lodge to save for a house deposit, so all the money in my Isa is the lodge of £250 a month that my parents have allowed me to save + interest, as they also helped my sister years ago when she got married. Now i'm still out of work after 5 months they are asking I pay them the money back,not all of it,just £9000=3yrs of lodge as with this money I won't be elegible to income support and will end up using it to live on and then end up back on square one with no savings and living at home and dependant on my parents still. They have struggled to accomodate me financially up to now due to this and I feel guilty living at home still but as I have a profound hearing loss have struggled to progress in life and work.

The problem is i suppose, I've told them this would look like deprivation of capital on my behalf and am worried I could get accused of conning the system.

Can anyone help on this,as my parents don't want to chuck me out and then be dependant on the system for housing benefit ect. But they also don't want to be seeing me have no deposit for a house when I eventually get another job.

I had just applied for a mortgage about a month before losing my job.

Thanks if anyone can help

Mark

healy · 16 February 2010 at 5:52PM

mark6 wrote: »

Hi there,Wondered if anyone can advise on this situation.

I've just been out of work now for 5 months for the first time in my life and have been claiming JSA due to national insurance contributions. I will soon be put onto income support if I can. When I first claimed I declared I have more than £16000 savings.

The problem is, £14000 of this is in an ISA and it isn't all sort of mine.

I'm 37 and still currently living at home. I originally moved out with a friend but he lost his job so couldn't afford it on my own. My parents took me back at £250 lodge a month. As I wasn't really saving money after a year or so they decided to make me bank the lodge to save for a house deposit, so all the money in my Isa is the lodge of £250 a month that my parents have allowed me to save + interest, as they also helped my sister years ago when she got married. Now i'm still out of work after 5 months they are asking I pay them the money back,not all of it,just £9000=3yrs of lodge as with this money I won't be elegible to income support and will end up using it to live on and then end up back on square one with no savings and living at home and dependant on my parents still. They have struggled to accomodate me financially up to now due to this and I feel guilty living at home still but as I have a profound hearing loss have struggled to progress in life and work.

The problem is i suppose, I've told them this would look like deprivation of capital on my behalf and am worried I could get accused of conning the system.

Can anyone help on this,as my parents don't want to chuck me out and then be dependant on the system for housing benefit ect. But they also don't want to be seeing me have no deposit for a house when I eventually get another job.

I had just applied for a mortgage about a month before losing my job.

Thanks if anyone can help

Mark

You would need to claim income based JSA not IS.

The money will be counted as yours because it clearly is.

If you you try to pass it back to your parents it will be considered deprivation of capital.

There is no way to fiddle this.

dmg24 · 16 February 2010 at 5:53PM

healy wrote: »

The money will be counted as yours because it clearly is.

If you you try to pass it back to your parents it will be considered deprivation of capital.

There is no way to fiddle this.

Agreed, agreed and agreed!

karenx · 16 February 2010 at 7:08PM

On what grounds do you think you will get Income Support? Are you disabled or a lone parent????

Whether you give your parents the money or not you will still be regarded as having that. You cant have all that savings then just pass it onto someone else in the hope you can claim benefits from it? It has been in your account for years so therefor its yours.

[Deleted User] · 16 February 2010 at 7:19PM

dmg24 wrote: »

Agreed, agreed and agreed!

same here.looks very iffy if you ask me;)

mark6 · 16 February 2010 at 7:22PM

It's not on about fiddling, it's about not living at home forever and been a burden on my parents. It was agreed with my parents that the money was to be used for nothing else except towards a house deposit. They could have banked it but ISA's was the best way to make the money grow the most. They used their allowance so it was best to put it in my allowance.

I've already told the job centre what money was in my account when I first claimed JSA. It's just my JSA end's in 2 weeks time.

If thats the case with what you say, I may as well just move out and rent a place of my own with the money I have left, after paying my parents the £9000 back, and watch the little money I have left slowly fade away on rent,electric,water,council tax that my parents were paying while living at home and when it's all gone have to claim housing benefit as well if I still don't have a job. The funny thing is this is probably gonna save my parents more money but cost the government more money in housing benefit ect in the long run.

[Deleted User] · 16 February 2010 at 7:26PM

mark6 wrote: »

It's not on about fiddling, it's about not living at home forever and been a burden on my parents. It was agreed with my parents that the money was to be used for nothing else except towards a house deposit. They could have banked it but ISA's was the best way to make the money grow the most. They used their allowance so it was best to put it in my allowance.

I've already told the job centre what money was in my account when I first claimed JSA. It's just my JSA end's in 2 weeks time.

If thats the case with what you say, I may as well just move out and rent a place of my own with the money I have left, after paying my parents the £9000 back, and watch the little money I have left slowly fade away on rent,electric,water,council tax that my parents were paying while living at home and when it's all gone have to claim housing benefit as well if I still don't have a job. The funny thing is this is probably gonna save my parents more money but cost the government more money in housing benefit ect in the long run.

I suppose that all depends on how long you plan on being out of work?
Using what is YOUR money meanwhile is how it should be,regardless of what the money was being saved for,you really cant have your cake AND eat it !

dmg24 · 16 February 2010 at 7:27PM

Your parents gave you the money, in a normal bank account. Unless it was set up as a trust, which you were only allowed to access for a specified purpose, your parents have no right to specify what the money can now be used for.

If you claim any means tested benefits in the near future they will look at your accounts. You are still likely to be found to have deprived yourself of capital if you give back the £9,000.

mark6 · 16 February 2010 at 7:37PM

The problem I have job wise is that I've always worked in the fast fit motor industry. I was advised by the doctors that I shouldn't really be working in a noisy environment years ago but it was all I knew and it paid. Since losing my job I've been to the hospital and have been given that facts on how it has made my hearing worse. I can't really go back into the motor trade due to the noise so i'm at a stage in my life where I don't know what sort of a job I can do as most quiet jobs always have the 'Must have excellent communication skills'. I'm good with my hands but not so good on the hearing side.

What annoys me most is I wasn't aware of 'Access to work' which could have helped me in my job supplying equipment and better hearing aids than the N.H.S one's to succeed in my job.

Hopefully some sort of job will come up anyway in the neer future. Who knows??

HappyMJ · 16 February 2010 at 7:39PM

£16k is quite a generous sum of money it can be used as a 10% deposit on a house worth £160k. All you need to do is get your balance under £16k then you can claim some HB. You have had to live for the past 5 months so they do expect you to have spent some of your savings over that time. Could you rent somewhere using some of your money to spend on deposit first months rent and enough (several thousand) to furnish it? That is not depriving yourself it is housing yourself.

mark6 · 16 February 2010 at 7:47PM

dmg24 wrote: »

Your parents gave you the money, in a normal bank account. Unless it was set up as a trust, which you were only allowed to access for a specified purpose, your parents have no right to specify what the money can now be used for.

If you claim any means tested benefits in the near future they will look at your accounts. You are still likely to be found to have deprived yourself of capital if you give back the £9,000.

My parents never gave me the money,they didn't take the lodge of me, at the end of each tax year I put it in an ISA. I never used to earn much money and some months I didn't have to take any money out the bank as I was living of my parents. To me this is proof that the money in the ISA is theirs. You can even see by statements I was drawing £250 a month out on the 28th of every month and then it stopped. That was then when the money in the Isa started.

Is that good enought proof??

ISA & Income support

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