Thank you for this community/ Universal C, not aware of monthly capital reporting after YEARS

Elky44

I realised I'd stepped into a nightmare out of nowhere about 10 days ago…

Post divorce, after relocation to the other end of the country, then house move - all with a very young child, it was 2018 that I was told my child tax credits were migrating to UC. I went into the office and did everything as required.
It wasn't long after that I went onto Enterprise allowance to try and rebuild a business in a new area. That is where my focus was.

Recently I received a notice to say my universal credit payment was being reviewed. So I got the 4 month statements and accounts and wrote a letter to say that my capital had gone up so may need to pay some UC overpayment. This may have accumulated since my part time job started in 2022, as the income is variable.

I have only given a handful of capital statements as I thought it was tiered somehow into the 6000, 16,000 makers.

It is to my shock that I have now learnt that I should have been reporting capital on a particular date every month. This was never explained to me how important this was.

Nor was I told not to include child support or child benefit.

And this goes back to 2018.

I am distraught, but found reassurance online that this has been a common problem.

'Change of circumstances' is simply does not stress the sheer importance of how UC works, especially for older people who come with some capital later in life.

I was reporting my sel-employment section, which has been hardly much after expences as the current world changes have made my qualified skills difficult. I took a part-time job in 2022 and saw a little fluctuation in the payments and earnings which kind of made me feel every thing was okay until I started to earn more, the bells were ringing more loudly that something wasn't right.

I'd ask Q's to work coach such as how the system tally's up, but still it wasn't spotted that I'd somehow fallen through the net and wasn't doing this correnctly.

The implications have shocked me to the core and I've lost a stone and haven't been eating well. Sadly, I've even considered calling samaritans.

But, I've brought myself round and sat with the system I should have been doing, but it's time consuming and overwhelming. I've developed my own approach to focus in on a precise capital allowance. I've then deducted the ChildB and Child S I should have been taking off, and feeling better I may not owe as much back as I thought I might. In fact, as I spot check over the past years, I realise it is probably me that has been underpaid and lost out the most in the long run. I realise this will help demonstrate I had no intent to fraud them.

I feel this system may have been finding its feet at the beginning, but I feel I have not been given enough guidance to navigate it correctly. Everything else I do is on time, i'm reliable, my workplace would say that, and I've done everything asked of me, but how could I have got this so terribly wrong?

I have my first phone call from the UC DWP this afternoon.

I've decided to be pro active and understand the system.
1. I go through each bank account - I say each as when you're older you have a lot of baggage like that from your life, and write down the balance on the date of the month I joint UC.

2. I then add up any other assets.

3. I write a prompt to chat GPT about the UC rates of the date, single mum over 25+, child dob, my income, and then the capital total(that is minus CS and CB!)
It then calculates the payment amount of UC.

I really feel sickened about this situation, and I'd welcome hearing if anyone else has experienced this after YEARS realising you've been doing it wrong.

Thank you.