Hi, my name is Jaysmum! my soon to be autistic 22 year old son has been in receipt of Uc plus...

Jaysmum

hi everyone my soon to be autistic 22 year old son has been in receipt of Uc plus disability for 7 months. This morning I received a message saying they want 4 months bank statements.. I’m worried because I know my son will not let anyone see his personal things..I can’t access his bank account ..is there something I can do.. or will this mean he will have to close his account. Jacob is very frightened of people seeing/knowing anything about him.
im sure I can’t be the only parent/carer in this predicament.

Thank you

Kimi87

I'm assuming you are you his appointee as you have access to his UC account?

You can add a Journal note explaining the situation although I'm not sure what they will say. You can only try.

Jaysmum

thank you so much for your reply Kimi87. Yes I am Jacobs appointee, he flatly refuses to talk to anyone outside of our immediate family members.. due to his anxiety and autism. so things are very difficult.

Jaysmum

should of said I have asked for a contact telephone number of the UC review team to discuss this.😊

Kimi87

As his appointee you would speak on his behalf for the review, but that doesn't solve the issue of access to his bank statements.

Jaysmum

I know I was wondering if anyone else had found themselves with this problem and how they managed it x

anisty

It's a difficult one if you are the appointee. Really you need to resign from appointee or apply to the courts for a financial protection order which would give you legal powers to access his bank account.

Because he either has capacity to make the decision to with hold this info (and he's not alone as many claimants see this as a gross intrusion of privacy)

If that's the case, then he has every right to exercise that decision as an adult but you cannot be expected to face the consequences of that. If you gave up appointee, you could (i think) still be next to him on phone calls and speak once he had verified identity and given permission. You could go to the job centre with him too. But it removes your liability to deal with overpayments or any legal action by DWP if the claim ever comes under a fraud investigation (this is a simple, routine review though and nothing to worry about)

Or - he lacks capacity to understand the consequences of his decisions and needs to be protected legally.

(If he has capacity and can give you Power of Attorney status, that's another option but not one he will be willing to give if he doesn't want you to see his statements!)

You are in a very sticky middle situation where you carry the responsibility for the claim but do not have full access to the information you need. That cannot really work.

I am appointee for my adult son and we have a joint account for his benefits. That works for us.

** you can be granted a protection order even if you son has limited capacity. He doesn't need to have no capacity at all! He could be very able in some areas but have incapacity in others.**

All this would take months though - in the immediate term you will need to pop a note in the journal and see what they say.