I haven't been giving monthly capital readings for YEARS - No one told me to!

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.

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 updates 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 self-employment section, which has been hardly much after expenses 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 correctly

The potential 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.

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 have done 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 and I'm frightened.

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 joined UC.

2. I then add up any other assets.

3. Add them up them take off monthly CS and CB.

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.

OverlyAnxious

Hi,

Good luck for the phone call this afternoon.

The date you should use for capital declaration each month is the final date of your payment period.

UC asks you to put the amount in each bank account so there's no need for you to add it all up yourself.

You should deduct any income, but that is not as easy as it sounds, and definitely not possible for AI to manage. Essentially, the income is what's left from your benefits and earnings after paying out your bills for that month.

If you received any Cost of Living payments, those are still deductible, as long as your total capital hasn't dropped below their amount. Most UC staff do not seem to know about this, so they may not tell you or deduct those if you don't specifically tell them to.

Elky44

Thank you for your comments. It is so confusing that I wonder if anyone knows how to navigate this properly.
Do we take off child support and child allowance off the bank balance total before entering it?

anisty

Yours sounds more complicated than our (mine and my son's) situation but same here - no idea i should have been reporting every month so claim has over payments going back to 2019!!

Capital my son had in his building society was all declared in full and on time with the right deductions made.

But it was only when his claim was called for review that i went online and learned i should have reported the balance on his everyday bank account each month. He has never spent that down to nil and some months he has had 2k in there.

So there are various multiples of £4.35 for every month going back 6 years!

Worse - the review team told me via the journal to update capital. I didn't know about AP dates so used his bank balance on the date i updated.

That meant his total capital was 16.5k.

My local job centre closed the claim

The telephone review could not go ahead on a closed claim and got cancelled.

I then find out about the COL payment being permanantly disregarded. Which meant total capital never exceeded 16k.

I put in an MR in January. 12th Feb it is confirmed logged to the system.

Heard nothing since. They have not even been in touch to get all the bank statements.

Although capital never exceeded 16k, it did go over the declared 13k many months.

Everyday, i wish they would call so this can be tidied up.

I agree it is very confusing.

anisty

@OverlyAnxious - those drop down boxes where you enter the exact balance in each type of account - have they always been there or is that a newish thing?

That seemed easy.

But the last time i updated capital was Nov 21 for building soc balance change. I do not remember a box dropping down for bank balance. Or maybe i was so focused on build soc, i never noticed.

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1001133#Comment_1001133

You're welcome. It does seem to have been over complicated unfortunately. I doubt many people are getting it exactly right.

You are correct that Child Support and Child Allowance are disregarded so that's another layer of complexity for your calculations. It might be easiest if those are kept in a separate account in future.

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1001528#Comment_1001528

Yes, the updated system was introduced towards the end of last year.

Now it asks about each account individually. Then also asks about any disregards, such as benefits back-payments etc. Unfortunately they missed the COL payments from that list and still haven't been added so far.

anisty

Thanks @OverlyAnxious - it does seem much easier now. How i wish i'd known what i know now back in December! I can only keep the faith that, eventually, my son's claim will be corrected, re-opened and all this mess can be put behind us!

Elky44

Elky44

Thanks @anisty your post is really helpful.

It certainly is intimidating when dealing with years, and what to do about it. I wonder if the system can somehow account for it, and if they will need to go back and get some capital points in time to help understand the potential overpayment. Because this overpayment then overinflates your capital, so future entitlements are reduced anyway. My maths isn't good enough to get my head around this.

I have to provide more statements and paperwork after the phone call. I've put everything aside to look at the system and understand it better.

I think it's essential that somehow the system picks up on people that are not reporting capital regularly considering how this underpins the payment and the serious situation you can find yourself in.

anisty

As far as i know, @Elky44, they call in all statements going back to when you last declared correctly.

In our case, i never declared correctly so they will need to go back to the claim start.

They have some software to do the calculation but i think they need to input the capital figure each month manually.

I calculated our over-payment and it's around £2600. But, if they agree my son's UC account should never have closed he won't owe anything as he is losing £680 every month the claim is closed.

He can easily afford the £2600 as he still has almost 16k saved. He never spends much. His ADP is plenty enough, he will never need to chip into that capital.

But it is frustrating that they haven't called and there's no journal. I just have to keep waiting. My son of course lacks capacity and is oblivious to all this!

Initially, when they closed the claim, i just got the UCD68 letter asking why i had reported capital late and telling me about the civic penalty.

I do wonder if i would have just got a £50 fine had i kept quiet but i replied to that letter saying i didn't think 16k had been exceeded with COL but i admitted there had been under reporting of capital for amounts between the declared 13k and highest 15 292 one month.

I also put in MR at the same time to say i did not agree the claim should have been closed.

anisty

Ps to work out what you owe, look at all your capital held on your AP (asssessment period) date each month.

For every £250 (or part of) over £6k, you owe £4.35.

So, if you had £6135 that would be £4.35

If you had £6251 = £8.70

£6999 = £17.40

OverlyAnxious

I have seen that UC do now send reminders to claimants to update their capital if they have not done so for a certain amount of time. So far I have not been able to determine whether this is completely random or not, as it doesn't seem to be everyone yet.

anisty

I definitely think this is a good move @OverlyAnxious - even a monthly automated text would be great.

I don't know if i got it so wrong in part because my son's claim was started by his support worker. I was not involved and was not at the JC during the set up part.

Then DWP advised my son would be better with me as appointee so i had to take it over. But by then it was March 2020 and we went into lockdown.

I never really went into the UC account and looked round all areas of it which obvs is my fault as i am now the appointee and should have got to grips with it.

But i hope, when dwp do get in touch, they will understand my explanation of how we got into this situation.

Elky44

Thank you for everyone's comments. They are appreciated.

Elky44

Hello everyone.
I just want to say that this has not been the mountain of a problem I thought it was and it has been dealt with. Anyone else in this position, please be reassured, as I have been told by various people I contacted for advice that this is a very common problem.

I want to thank the voluntary, charitable and other organisations such as the Citizens Advice, Scope and Mind for being here for people when needed. I certainly am inspired to volunteer myself after the warmth I received.

It is great we live in a society where we have a safety-net for those that are left in a situation where there's a need for some financial support.

But in my opinion, the system we are in generally - capitalism - is not working. There is too much wealth at one end of the scale. We need to come back to communities, home grown food, relishing and reminding ourselves of what is really important.

There are other ways of doing things, and interestingly, someone told me about Micheal Tellinger's One Small Town project. Sounds hopeful and authentic.

Thank you again lovely people.

anisty

So glad your situation has been resolved @Elky44 ! Needless to say I still haven't heard a single peep from DWP on my son's case.

That's over 3 months now. Not long in DWP world but seems like ages to me!

Hopefully not much longer . . . .