nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

Bank Review Question

MrBright

My friend has to submit her bank statements and is extremely worried because she has confessed to me her capital is over 16,000

Does anybody know what will happen after she submits it?

Will her claim get cancelled?

She's also receiving LCWRA and PIP if thats any help

Thanks.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Albus_Alumni

Hey @MrBright and welcome to the community.

Unfortunately, her UC and LCWRA claim will be closed and she will have to pay back any overpayments from after her account hit the £16k limit, as fraud will have been detected. She may also receive a fine (between £350 and £5,000) and in some extreme circumstances, a criminal charge. But that's very rare.

Her PIP should be unaffected as it's not a means tested benefit.

Kimi87

Did your friend previously receive any Cost of Living payments? These are disregarded from calculation of her UC capital indefinitely. So the claim might not close.

Stellar

Assuming she isn't eligible for any disregards, she'll most likely have her claim closed, and will be expected to live off the money month to month until she goes under 16k, then reclaims again.

depending on her disabilities and the amount of money she has, I'd be looking into getting passive income so she doesn't have to go back to them again.

MrBright

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful

She was under the impression that she would not get her claim cancelled because they would ask her to pay back what she owes through her monthly payments, is this not true?

And as far as disregarded payments she said it wouldn't take her under 16,000

anisty

Tell her NOT to update capital through the journal just now!!

She must wait for her review phone call. What will then happen is her claim will stay open but payments suspended but she will have her "to do" function open.

Her case will be sent for enhanced review and she will be asked to upload all statements going right back til she first hit 16k. This applies even if it's 5yr, 10yr, whatever.

She will then need to wait many, many months for them to work out the overpayment.

Pls don't worry about big fines - this is not on the cards at all unless she is called for an interview under caution. And that will only happen if there is obvious attempt to cover up capital. Really, they just want the money back.

This will be taken back by working out affordable payments if the lump sum is too big.

I was wrongly advised in the same sitch as your pal to update capital on the journal. This closed the claim and prevented the review team doing its work.

And, so far, i have been waiting for 3 months for them to request the statements they need to re calculate. No journal access, no upload facility. Nightmare!

MrBright

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1014872#Comment_1014872

This is very helpful thank you

So this will all happen once she first uploads her statements? (she hasn't done it yet)

And do you know if her payments will be suspended during the time they are figuring out the payments she needs to pay back?

And do you know if her claim will continue on after all this is worked out?

anisty

She should have been asked to upload 4 months statements just now plus a pic of herself holding up ID.

After she has done that, in a few days she will get a message on her journal to say she has a telephone appointment with "UCR agents" on a certain date and time.

As long as it says "UCR agents" this is just a basic review by the standard review team and she won't be under any fraud investigations at this stage.

She will be asked questions about her capital and certain transactions.

After that, it is very likely that her case will be passed to the enhanced review team. Again, this is not a fraud investigation team. It is just a more thorough review.

A message will likely pop up in her journal saying something like "we need to check your whole claim for the last (X many years) We understand you might need more time to get this info to us so we are giving you (X amount of days) I will create a series of to dos to upload statements. Pls let me know if you need more time.

I would think further payments will be suspended at this point as 16k has been breeched.

Your friend will then need to wait. She can expect more phone calls. Some might be quite searching.

It will take many months for them to recalculate the overpayment.

I guess (but i don't know for sure) that, once they havd all the information they need from her, the claim will close because the 16k has been exceeded so there is no entitlement. They will want to close it as soon as they can. Once that upload "to do" section is finished with, the claim will likely close.

Frustratingly, they will be able to communicate with her via the journal but she won't be able to reply once they close the claim.

Once her capital drops (and if she has a large lump sum to pay back, it will drop) then she can claim again.

It probably is a good idea for her to put a note in her journal to say she has exceeded 16k just so the team know they have work to do..

Just don't use the update capital function in the account. It was a member of the review team who advised me (wrongly) to do that.

anisty

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1014868#Comment_1014868

Sorry, i never noticed the bit about her not getting her claim cancelled. Who gave her that impression, I wonder?

The main aim of this review team is just to get excess capital out of claimants' accounts and back into the system.

If she only went over 16k by a small amount for a few days on one or two submitted statements but is now back under 16k then this could be possible maybe.

But, from what you seem to be saying, that isn't the case here so the claim has to close.

I am not at the "debt recovery" stage yet but, from what i have read, that team is very helpful and knowlegeable and they will put a payment plan together that is affordable.

At the end of the day, they just want the money back so they will make it as easy as they can to get the money back.