TOLD TO REPORT CAPITAL CHANGE AT UC REVIEW

sunshine3

My sister had a UC review a month ago and the lady who did her review told her that everything was fine except she should have reported on her journal that her capital had gone above £3000 which was the amount she had declared she had a year ago after she declared she had gone over £6,000 and had money deducted at the time from her UC payment but then she had to spend the capital to buy furniture and carpet for a flat she has just moved into (as she had never lived alone before and Had no furniture.). This then took her well below £3000 which she reported on her journal and her UC was paid at the full amount again.

My sister then went in her journal to tell them she had gone above £3K (like the review lady told her to do) but not above £6k. She got a reply on her journal to say “are you only declaring this now because you’ve had a review - if so you may be eligible for a fine?

My sister said the UC journal did not allow her to explain her circumstances and only allowed her to put the amount of capital she has.

The UC woman who read her journal entry sent her a message to say she may be fined for only declaring the amount she has since she had her review and not earlier. My sister thought she only had to declare capital over £6k so that’s why she didn’t do it - until the review woman told her she should have declared she had gone over £3k.

The woman who read her journal said she will have to pass this on to a decision maker to decide if she has to be fined ? And they said my sister had declared she had less than £6k when she first claimed UC in 2021 (which she didn’t have) . However my sister was awarded pip in 2022 which accumulated and took her close to £6k but once it took her above the £6k she reported it on her journal and was deducted accordingly.

she is very scared and upset as she suffers with mental health problems and doesn’t know what she’s done wrong. She finds it very confusing to have to deal with.

IndignantPigeon

Tell your sister to contact citizens advice Sunshine. You can send them an email if you cannot see them in person + they get back within a week or so. She really needs backup on this. The UC woman sounds totally wrong, I'd have thought they only need to know once your income has gone over £6k, anything under that doesn't affect your benefit. Check with citizens advice, they're very good at being up-to-date with DWP regulations.

The other thing your sister needs to do at once is put in a complaint, which she can do online. If the DWP woman is wrong, the complaints dept will pick up on it and stop the fines process. Tell your sister to ask for compensation when she sends the complaint in, for the distress this has caused. Threats of losing money are no small matter when you've nothing to live on anyway. If anyone else in DWP has advised her she doesn't need to declare increases in her savings provided they don't exceed £6k, tell her to include that info in the complaint.

sunshine3

thanks for your reply. I will tell my sister .

poppy123456

Capital of less than £6,000 is ignored so she didn't actually need to report anything here. Not sure who left that message onto her journal but they clearly don't know what they are talking about. There won't be any fine here because she's done nothing wrong.

She can also make a complaint about the person that left that message, if there's a name against it, which I would think there is.

I don't think there's need to contact Citizens Advice here because there's nothing they can do, other than to advise that capital under £6,000 is ignored.

sunshine3

ok thanks for your reply