Hi, my name is vic149! I have £16000 but it comes from pip i have stopped claiming universal...

vic149

hi there

I have £16000 but it comes from pip i have stopped claiming universal credit and housing benefit can i claim again for uc now it is under £16000 and how many bank statements will i need

Thanks

Vicki

Mary_Scope

Hi @vic149 and a warm welcome to the community

Usually two months' worth of bank statements should be enough to provide evidence of your savings and income as they will show the decrease in your savings, which is relevant for your UC claim☺️

vic149

thankd for advice my capital built up with pip and i was given conflicting advice in my journal aboutclaing uc with pip in my account worried that they might want uc back when it was actually pip and universal credit in my account shall i just make a new claim now under £16000 and see what they ask for thanks i duffer from bi polar disorder and the worry is making md poorly didnt think i was doing anything wrong thanks kind regards vicki

OverlyAnxious

Hi,

When you say it built up, was this from normal monthly PIP payments, or from a large PIP backpayment?

PIP payments are only disregarded for the period in which they are paid. If you haven't spent all of the PIP by the next period, then anything left over does count as savings.

If it was a backpayment then you get 12 months disregard for that. (Or permanent disregard if it was more than £5000).

If you got cost of living payments, they are also still disregarded.

If your savings went over £16,000 and that stopped your UC, then you will need to make a complete new claim now. But if you owed them any money, they would already have written to you to claim that back. As long as you are below £16,000 now, then it is worth applying for UC again. They will probably ask for bank statements as said above, but that is ok as long as you haven't been giving away the money.

vic149

hi there

I have just gone under the £16000threshold for uc ihave dpent money for going to london and clothes for the journey and a couple of expensive meals do you think they will consider this deprivation of cspital insuffer from bi polar and the worry is making me poorly

The £16000 came from pip i didnt dpend dud to being poorly so during the last 4months i have been paying my rent with my pip just dont want to do snything wrong thanks fof any help kind regards vicki

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1012538#Comment_1012538

Hi,

That is correct then unfortunately, as it's just normal monthly payments mounting up, they will be counted as savings and end the claim at £16,000.

Those things could be considered as deprivation by DWP, but there's really no way of knowing until you try it. Even if they do consider any of it to be deprivation, nothing bad will happen, you would just have to wait another few weeks for your savings to drop further before applying again.

If you previously had LCWRA, that is likely to be lost now. You would need to go though the work capability process again. (Unless you also get New Style ESA as well as UC).

vic149

thankyou

yes i lost my lcwra do i have to spply again

If i spend more than my pip and uc each month is this considered deprivation of capital

My son has just movrd to dubsi to work and he wants me to ho snd see him wouldvthis be deprivation of cspital thankz kind regards vicki

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1012590#Comment_1012590

Yes, unfortunately you will need to go through the work capability assessment again because your claim ended due to savings. You won't have to make a separate claim for it, just need to declare your health conditions when applying for UC and provide a fit note within 10 days to start the WCA process again. You won't get any LCWRA payments for at least the first 3 months. You will also be treated as a job seeker in the meantime.

If the claim had ended due to earnings instead of savings, then you would have kept the LCWRA status when the claim ended so you would not have to go through the assessments again when you open a new claim. It is a shame that it is not the same when claims end due to savings and I am hoping they will make that fairer in future.

Deprivation of capital is very difficult to give an exact answer for. Really it's about whether they can prove that you've spent the money purposely to get your savings down. So you can spend your savings on almost anything you like, including going on holiday, as long as they don't think you're doing it on purpose to reduce the savings. Obviously it's easy for them to accuse of us of deprivation, and difficult for us to prove that it isn't, so you just have to make your own choices on what you spend money on, and accept that some of it might be classed as deprivation if you ever get reviewed etc.