BANK ACCOUNT SIGNS WHICH WILL TRIGGER DWP CHECK

sben

Be very careful if you have PayPal.

DWP will take away your money, or do something to your benefits.

• cash
• money in your bank account
• current accounts and digital-only accounts such as PayPal
• savings accounts in a bank, building society, credit union, Help to Save, Post Office and National Savings and Investments (NS&I) accounts
• savings for children in your name
• money that belongs to someone else but is in your name
• savings for essential building work (unless from a grant or loan)
• savings for medical care
• Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs): cash, stocks and shares, Innovative Finance, Help to Buy, and Lifetime ISAs
• Premium Bonds, dividends, stocks and shares
• cryptoassets
• property you own but do not live in yourself (except in certain circumstances)
• property, land and savings abroad
• inheritance payments
• business accounts and assets for businesses that closed over 6 months ago
• money in trust funds, apart from in certain circumstances
• unspent benefits, such as Child Benefit, Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
• unspent income

Chris75_

I try to pay all bills with a credit card.

Kimi87

List copied from here

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/universal-credit-money-savings-and-investments

All those things count as capital.

If you have under £6k in capital nothing happens.

If you have £6-16k, a deduction of £4.35 for every £250 or part thereof over £6k is made to your UC award.

Passerby

PayPal account can only count capital if you've got money on it, which is not the case for most people, including me, as people link it in general to their debit card, and thus do not have any money on their PayPal account.

westpest

very worried

I have saving in a bank account and I am worried that this will go against me. Neither me or my husband can get life assurance, so we have saved to make sure we have money for funerals. Also if anything happens to my husband I workday need to buy a car. If I try to draw the money out I know I would probably be questioned as to what happened to it. The other thing that worries me is that if my husband needs to go into residential care that I would be forced to use the money for that. I am so worried about all the comments about what is going to happen to anyone on PIP. Also how difficult it will be to qualify. I try not to worry but when I read articles referring to this or see comments that people should be forced to work or not get a penny. I have 45 years full national insurance and have worked from the day I left school. Now though I have a number of disabilities and most of which cannot be seen. Like stenosis of the spine, enlarged facet joints, bone spurs on my hips. Along with osteoarthritis, a fibroma on my foot, a prolapsed disc in my neck and a bulging disc in my spine. I am I constant pain and have been prescribed strong medication to try to relieve the pain. I work constantly with the chronic pain clinic to try manage the pain. I wish I didn’t worry like this but all the online articles just make me worse. I cannot claim state pension for another 4 years and it feels like it’s going to be a constant uphill battle until then!

Passerby

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1080039#Comment_1080039

"all the online articles just make me worse."

Particularly, Birmingham Mail, which is obsessed with welfare and publishes a so-called article on benefits every other day, if not every single day, which I can't understand why, as Birmingham has a high number of benefit claimants, with a claimant unemployment rate of 14.0% in August 2025, which is well above the UK average.

jonf

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/1080039#Comment_1080039

buy a safe or keep it under the floor boards

Catherine21

I know its easy to say dont worry hopefully someone can give you advice on here so you have knowledge of how much savings you can have as anxiety will alwaya make it unclear and chaotic im your mind and take one day at a time