UC Claim review - HELP

Kimmy87

Lots of these reviews happening currently, I believe the aim is 2 million and with 5.1 million on UC (as of May 2023) that's quite a large percentage. 

maddanj

Hi @poppy123456

I only had a message in my journal about a UC payments review rather than a risk review. My claim was verified prior to Covid. After my experiences with their incompetence and decisions made against the regulations, I have great anxiety regarding anything to do with thier handling of benefits.

Hannah_Alumni

I'm so sorry the process has caused you such anxiety @maddanj. Can I ask do you have support? 

legendofall

I've just had a UC claim review and they asked everything.. my account of course has payments going in and out from family, not my money, as I am on UC only and now LCWRA, I been doing a lot of transfers to my own accounts, this totalling to over 10k over the few months, now the account has been closed unfortunately and bank won't give me a reason why, therefore they are asking for my other bank account statements, I have also been gambling and I am getting help for that too but mostly these transfers have been from gambling payments, yet this dude thinks otherwise, I've won from gambling which was 5k and then another 2k from another betting company. At the end of this will my LCWRA be affected? UC he did say that you can either be sanctioned or lose your UC, fined or prosecuted. Only problem is every account I hold is mostly gambling, I did have a bad habit doing it but I don't gamble as much anymore. what I understand is gambling is tax free money therefore they can't hold me against that right?. 

poppy123456

@legendofall yes money from gambling is tax free but UC is a means tested benefit.

This means that if you have savings/capital of more than £6,000 on the last day of each assessment period then you should have reported the changes. It doesn’t matter if the money was in a bank account, savings account or at home, it still affects your UC. For every £250 or part thereof over £6,000 there’s a £4.35/month deduction in your UC. 

If there’s an overpayment you will need to repay that back. There maybe a small fine of about £50 on top for not reporting the changes. It’s unlikely that you will be prosecuted.

I believe you can still ask for bank statements even if the accounts are now closed. 

legendofall

Thanks for the reply, the account that is closed now, I have already sent the statements, now I just need to send statements for my other account, my end balance of the accounts have been £0, that's including the money transferred countless times between my accounts, there is no record of any money saved as I can't save, I struggle to save, so it used to go back into gambling unfortunately and I lost the lot. 

So if I had 7k in total of winnings, but during that period the end balance was £0 for the month, UC are going to deduct money from my benefits? I didn't know I had to report a change if I'm gambling to be honest. As all I knew is gambling is tax free money and JC can't do nothing about it. But this is even more stressful now

poppy123456

@legendofall gambling being tax free is irrelevant for UC. You don’t need to report that you’re gambling as it’s not a change that needs to be reported. 

If on the last day of your assessment periods you didn’t have more than £6,000 in savings then you haven’t done anything wrong. What dates do your assessment periods cover? Or if you don’t know, what date do you usually receive your UC each month? 

legendofall

@poppy123456 I usually receive my UC on 9th of every month, but I never received any UC during the time I won on gambling, I applied for UC again in april.. the very next day I won in gambling, 3700 to be precise, felt like a relief but I was struggling at this point way before due to my mental health, since then that money was being transferred over to my other accounts, using that to eat etc bought a phone, but returned the phone as the condition wasn't as stated, money was going back into gambling, from may I started receiving my UC at a reduced rate because they was taking out a hardship I applied for in april. 

poppy123456

legendofall said:

@poppy123456 I usually receive my UC on 9th of every month, but I never received any UC during the time I won on gambling, I applied for UC again in april.. the very next day I won in gambling, 3700 to be precise, felt like a relief but I was struggling at this point way before due to my mental health, since then that money was being transferred over to my other accounts, using that to eat etc bought a phone, but returned the phone as the condition wasn't as stated, money was going back into gambling, from may I started receiving my UC at a reduced rate because they was taking out a hardship I applied for in april. 

Payment on 9th of every month means your assessment periods are 3rd to 2nd of every month. Using your money for gambling isn't an issue. DWP do not question what you spend your benefits on and there's no rules for that.

If you didn't have more than the lower savings limit at any point on the last day of each assessment period (2nd) then you have nothing to worry about.

What you do have to do is send them everything they've asked for, if you don't do that then yes your UC can be affected.

legendofall

@Danny123 last 4 months of statements for all accounts, I had 3 accounts with halifax including a savings account, and 3 with nationwide - which I am in the process of sending to UC. My halifax bank account got closed on 19th october so not long ago

Kimmy87

I've just been through a UC compliance check, I do disagree with poppy123456 they certainly do ask during a CC about various transactions shown on bank statements. 

@Danny123

Day to day you are correct about not needing to tell them if you have less that £6000 in your bank accounts - Cost of Living payments are excluded as capital so you are actually allowed slightly more depending on how much CoL money you have received. 

The DWP are currently conducting 2 million compliance checks, there are just over 5 million on UC (as of May) so that's quite a big percentage.

So when the claim was started isn't relevant as these checks are part of a big DWP program. 

poppy123456

Kimmy87 said:

I've just been through a UC compliance check, I do disagree with poppy123456 they certainly do ask during a CC about various transactions shown on bank statements. 

Then they certainly shouldn't have. What you spend your benefits on should be no concern to DWP. They may ask what you spent the money on if your savings were more than £6,000. Or if you have multiple lump sums over a short period of time and then they may ask questions.

For those that are interested paying off debt is allowed when claiming UC and will not be seen as deprivation of capital.

poppy123456

Danny123 said:

@legendofall cheers , did they know about all your bank accounts and the closed one ? I was told you didn't have to tell them as long as under the limit , I only ask because I have had a bad gambling addiction and your situation is similar to mine , I've never been over the 6000 limit in a single account or spread out over them , but on my statements it looks bad.... but most of it I won was gambled back within hours / days , it just looks bad the money that has gone in and out over the years , I was literally borrowing off whoever I could to gamble , although my statements show that every bit of money I had I would gamble it and the money I loaned from greinds and family I would pay back so 🤷I was in a terrible place with it but I'm doing alot better now , I haven't been out of my home in 4 years and got myself a nasty addiction , I've used GameStop and cannot gamble anymore 🙂 

You do not need to tell them your savings if they are less than £6,000. I'm sure i remember advising you with this but oddly i can't find that thread of yours. As you never had more than £6,000 at any one time then it wouldn't have affected any of your means tested benefits.

Kimmy87

Danny123 said:

@Kimmy87 do they ask you about what you spend your money on ? 

When I had my compliance check I was asked about various payments out which were for:

Broadband
Credit card x2
Rent
Window cleaner
1 PayPal transaction which was £26, she seemed to ask because it showed as a DD, I had to explain to her that was normal with PP if bank account is used as funding source.

Weirdly no q's about money IN from eBay I'd made a few thousand on, selling personal items to replenish funds after spending practically everything on a house move! 

poppy123456 said:

Kimmy87 said:

I've just been through a UC compliance check, I do disagree with poppy123456 they certainly do ask during a CC about various transactions shown on bank statements. 

Then they certainly shouldn't have. What you spend your benefits on should be no concern to DWP. They may ask what you spent the money on if your savings were more than £6,000.

Hard to tell without hearing others experiences. Could just be normal for compliance checks. I wasn't allowed to redact anything on my statements, asked for 4 months and for one account where that meant sending 2 quarterly statements, not permitted to black out the 2 months they weren't looking at. 

Before my phone appointment I declared how much I had gotten in CoL payments because on paper it looked like I had over £6000.

During my phone appointment, she confirmed my understanding that CoL is excluded from capital and asked me to send in individual statement pages showing CoL received. 
She then did the calculation, which confirmed I was several hundred under £6000.

poppy123456

Kimmy87 said:

Danny123 said:

@Kimmy87 do they ask you about what you spend your money on ? 

When I had my compliance check I was asked about various payments out which were for:

Broadband
Credit card x2
Rent
Window cleaner
1 PayPal transaction which was £26, she seemed to ask because it showed as a DD, I had to explain to her that was normal with PP if bank account is used as funding source.

Weirdly no q's about money IN from eBay I'd made a few thousand on, selling personal items to replenish funds after spending practically everything on a house move! 

poppy123456 said:

Kimmy87 said:

I've just been through a UC compliance check, I do disagree with poppy123456 they certainly do ask during a CC about various transactions shown on bank statements. 

Then they certainly shouldn't have. What you spend your benefits on should be no concern to DWP. They may ask what you spent the money on if your savings were more than £6,000.

Hard to tell without hearing others experiences. Could just be normal for compliance checks. I wasn't allowed to redact anything on my statements, asked for 4 months and for the account where that meant sending 2 quarterly statements, not permitted to black out the 2 months they weren't looking at. 

Before my phone appointment I declared how much I had gotten in CoL payments because on paper it looked like I had over £6000.

After my phone appointment she asked me to send in individual statement pages showing CoL received. 
She then did the calculation, which confirmed I was several hundred under £6000.

The part in bold above, this is probably why you were questioned about spending. However, monthly bills such as broadband, Rent (if it had what it was for next to the payment) shouldn't have been questioned.

I would have expected them to also ask about the money from ebay, so it's odd that they didn't.

I'm not surprised that you weren't allowed to redact anything on any statement because that could look suspicious.

legendofall

@Danny123 because I was sending money to my other accounts, they questioned an account that's under my nickname and I mentioned it must of been my other account, that's when he said send me them aswel and any other accounts you didn't mention to me. my statements for the balance in and out is ridiculous thats all due to gambling winnings, winning money and sending to friends to borrow etc, every single transaction is being questioned in my journal, few of the accounts questioned have been closed for a while now. This is some police interview interrogation going on, if I had something to hide, I wouldn't of even sent them a single statement and would of taken the UC sanction, but this is ridiculous, it's stressing me out even more 

legendofall

I was sanctioned since sept 2021 until april 2023, i never went to any appointment due to my mental health struggles, i gave up going, family supported me all these years and then i decided to go back on UC and apply for ESA because I'm entitled to it, I only applied again in april and 4 months later they decided to do a UC review on me

poppy123456

Danny123 said:

 Also as long as your combined savings were never over 6000 in a single account or spread out over all of them at any one time I thought you should be fine 

Yes, you're correct. It's total savings/capital, regardless of where it is. The only time it's ignored is if it's in a pension pot and you're under state pension age.

legendofall

@Danny123 yes correct the never knew about the transactions as they were coming and going from my other bank accounts and the requested statements for them, but for a period of 2 months I never used my account and they still want a statement, after telling them there is no statement available for them 2 months requested, yet they want to see the statement, with my halifax i had to go into branch and print a statement and get the manager to right there were no transactions for the dates requested, now same thing has happened again where i never used the account for that period, its such a headache man and soo stressful and I've been having problems walking due to gout attacks, yet this UC guy wants me to go to my branch again and get statements for these 'no transactions dates', I had enough and told him in my own time when I get better i will request these statements and send them to your address. that wont be over though because he has asked me about every transaction on there which has nothing to do with him or where the money goes since its gambling related. I am so done with this to be honest

maddanj

@legendofall.  I asked in an initial call prior to getting the ToDos for the bank statements and ID (I provided this prior to Covid). I was told that I'm dealing with the Universal Review Team. There seems to be a number of names for different review teams checking different aspects of claims. They don't appear to have spare resource as the agent allocated to me has been on sick leave for 2 weeks and they can't pass my case to another. I said that this is really poor practive given I have an anxiety condition amongst others and am left in limbo. I was told if all checks out that i would be given an appoinntment after the review which can take 1-2 weeks if straightforward. 

I was not told what would happen if they found anything they felt would negate my claim. They said my payments would not be suspended if I could provide the information within the 2 weeks timescale but said to come back on the journal if this was proving difficult and in some cases, they may give extra time.

@poppy123456 - Do you have a source that verifies they only take the capital into account if over £6k on the last day of your assessment period as I've been told that it's during the whole of the previous AP. I had 3 years back payment from a WCA which I was told by my Case Manager would not be included as income or savings. I was not given a timescale for this but the agent who called me said this could be 12-18 months. This information should have been provided in writing with the decision and backpayment.