Universal credit informal investigation

kn111

hi I’m looking for some help/advice as I don’t know what to do anymore. This is a long one so buckle up lol..

Me and my partner claim UC, he works full time I work park time and we have 3 year old. In October 2024 my car got written off and I was given £5000 from the insurance company, this was put into a savings account, my partner & I already had £5000 in a savings account amounting this to £10,000. We then took out a £5000 loan and bought a car at £15,000. Granted, I never informed universal credit of this money and is my mistake. The money was then transferred from said savings into my partners account and we bought the car the same day. Universal credit contacted me in June 2025 asking for a paper trail of this money & bank statements all the way back to 2022. I have given them paper trails of everything including our loan agreeement and had all of our bank statements printed, this was June 2025. Since then they have been asking for bank statements every couple of months and asking why people have been transferring us stupid transactions of money, example, a girl in my work gave me £30 for a ticket for a show which you can clearly see I book the tickets straight after on the bank statement. This has been going on for a year now, nit picking at stupid transactions when I have stated that they can only be asking for anything more than £500? They have contacted me wanting access to bank accounts that have been closed since 2022, gave them access. Now asking for bank statements AGAIN going back to 2022 even though I have provided this 3 times now. I really don’t know what to do. I feel like this is going round in circles and they are trying to find something that isn’t there lol? Nothing is getting resolved && no one will tell me when this will end or what they are even looking for ? I am going to citizens advice to get some legal advice/help. But does anyone know what else I can do? I personally feel this is just getting silly now. We have nothing to hide and happy to do provide everything but it’s the principle. Over a year this has been going on, we have no savings now and live paycheck to pay check like most families. Please help (an exhausted mum to a 3 year old and 7 months pregnancy 😵‍💫) I don’t know how much more I can go on just sending the same documents time and time again with no answers????

Kimi87

I'd try making a formal complaint.

https://makeacomplaint.dwp.gov.uk/

Or contact your MP.

During the routine financial checks they do unfortunately nit pick and ask silly questions. That's quite normal even when a claimants capital is and always has been under £6k.

Mary_Scope

Hi @kn111 and a warm welcome ot the community from me!

Sorry to hear you're going through this, it sounds very stressful and tiring.

Like Kimi said above, it sounds like it may be worth making a formal complaint about this as it does sound like it's gone on for a while.