inheritance

ustwo
ustwo Community member Posts: 4 Listener
in Benefits and income
hi everyone I am new here .we are a cpl my wife is disabled and claims full pip .I get income support and carers allowance.sadly last year my wife's mum passed away in a care home and during her many yrs in there the home saved her money over the yrs and now that money is to be shared between her children and my wife is one of those.my wife will get around £12000 when its all sorted.i believe that the first £6000 is not counted but any more than that is deducted from my benefits. assuming  we have £60000 over the  amount allowed as savings .what I am asking is how much will be deducted from my benefits per week and for how long.thanks.

Comments

  • Alex_Alumni
    Alex_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,538 Championing
    Hello there @ustwo and thanks for reaching out with your query this morning :)

    Scope has some information which might help on inheritance and benefits, please do take a look and let us know if you're still unsure of anything.
  • ShirleyW
    ShirleyW Community member Posts: 353 Empowering
    ustwo said:
    hi everyone I am new here .we are a cpl my wife is disabled and claims full pip .I get income support and carers allowance.sadly last year my wife's mum passed away in a care home and during her many yrs in there the home saved her money over the yrs and now that money is to be shared between her children and my wife is one of those.my wife will get around £12000 when its all sorted.i believe that the first £6000 is not counted but any more than that is deducted from my benefits. assuming  we have £60000 over the  amount allowed as savings .what I am asking is how much will be deducted from my benefits per week and for how long.thanks.
    Is the inheritance going to be £12,000 or £120,000?

    Your post says £12,000 but then talks about £60,000 over the limit.
  • durhamjaide2001
    durhamjaide2001 Scope Member Posts: 11,209 Championing
    I'm sorry to hear that your wife has passed away 
  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Community member Posts: 59,056 Championing
    durhamjaide2001 said:
    I'm sorry to hear that your wife has passed away 

    It wasn't the wife, it was her mother.
    ustwo said:
    sadly last year my wife's mum passed away


  • durhamjaide2001
    durhamjaide2001 Scope Member Posts: 11,209 Championing
    poppy123456 said:
    durhamjaide2001 said:
    I'm sorry to hear that your wife has passed away 

    It wasn't the wife, it was her mother.
    ustwo said:
    sadly last year my wife's mum passed away


    Oh I'm sorry I have a visual impairment so I may not read things properly. 
  • ustwo
    ustwo Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    ShirleyW said:
    ustwo said:
    hi everyone I am new here .we are a cpl my wife is disabled and claims full pip .I get income support and carers allowance.sadly last year my wife's mum passed away in a care home and during her many yrs in there the home saved her money over the yrs and now that money is to be shared between her children and my wife is one of those.my wife will get around £12000 when its all sorted.i believe that the first £6000 is not counted but any more than that is deducted from my benefits. assuming  we have £60000 over the  amount allowed as savings .what I am asking is how much will be deducted from my benefits per week and for how long.thanks.
    Is the inheritance going to be £12,000 or £120,000?

    Your post says £12,000 but then talks about £60,000 over the limit.
    sorry its going to be around £12,000 so approx £6,000 over the savings limit .added a nought by mistake
  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Community member Posts: 59,056 Championing
    edited November 2022
    ustwo said:
    ShirleyW said:
    ustwo said:
    hi everyone I am new here .we are a cpl my wife is disabled and claims full pip .I get income support and carers allowance.sadly last year my wife's mum passed away in a care home and during her many yrs in there the home saved her money over the yrs and now that money is to be shared between her children and my wife is one of those.my wife will get around £12000 when its all sorted.i believe that the first £6000 is not counted but any more than that is deducted from my benefits. assuming  we have £60000 over the  amount allowed as savings .what I am asking is how much will be deducted from my benefits per week and for how long.thanks.
    Is the inheritance going to be £12,000 or £120,000?

    Your post says £12,000 but then talks about £60,000 over the limit.
    sorry its going to be around £12,000 so approx £6,000 over the savings limit .added a nought by mistake

    Once the money goes into your bank you will need to report the changes to Income Support and they will be a £1/week deduction for every £250 or part there of over £6,000. PIP and carers allowanxe isn't affected.
    If you're claiming housing benefit and council tax reduction you'll need to report the changes to your Local Authority. Some LA's have a maximum savings limit of £6,000 for council tax reduction and they all have there own rules. If the limit is £6,000 then your council tax reduction will stop.
    Once your total savings go below £6,000 you will need to report the changes again.
    If your total savings are more than £16,000 then all your means tested benefits will end.
  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Community member Posts: 59,056 Championing
    durhamjaide2001 said:
    poppy123456 said:
    durhamjaide2001 said:
    I'm sorry to hear that your wife has passed away 

    It wasn't the wife, it was her mother.
    ustwo said:
    sadly last year my wife's mum passed away


    Oh I'm sorry I have a visual impairment so I may not read things properly. 

    No worries. I hope you didn't think i was critising because i didn't mean it that way. I very often misread comments myself, it's very easily done.
  • ustwo
    ustwo Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    poppy123456 said:
    ustwo said:
    ShirleyW said:
    ustwo said:
    hi everyone I am new here .we are a cpl my wife is disabled and claims full pip .I get income support and carers allowance.sadly last year my wife's mum passed away in a care home and during her many yrs in there the home saved her money over the yrs and now that money is to be shared between her children and my wife is one of those.my wife will get around £12000 when its all sorted.i believe that the first £6000 is not counted but any more than that is deducted from my benefits. assuming  we have £60000 over the  amount allowed as savings .what I am asking is how much will be deducted from my benefits per week and for how long.thanks.
    Is the inheritance going to be £12,000 or £120,000?

    Your post says £12,000 but then talks about £60,000 over the limit.
    sorry its going to be around £12,000 so approx £6,000 over the savings limit .added a nought by mistake

    Once the money goes into your bank you will need to report the changes to Income Support and they will be a £1/week deduction for every £250 or part there of over £6,000. PIP and carers allowanxe isn't affected.
    If you're claiming housing benefit and council tax reduction you'll need to report the changes to your Local Authority. Some LA's have a maximum savings limit of £6,000 for council tax reduction and they all have there own rules. If the limit is £6,000 then your council tax reduction will stop.
    Once your total savings go below £6,000 you will need to report the changes again.
    If your total savings are more than £16,000 then all your means tested benefits will end.
    ok thanks for that. I will  inform the dwp ,council and council tax.are we allowed to spend some of the extra money over the savings threshold to buy things for our house as we really could do with updating a lot of things we have in the house like washing machine, fridge freezer etc or would they look open that as wasting the money.we don't want to spend the money on things we need only to find we are penalised and sanctioned for longer

  • calcotti
    calcotti Community member Posts: 10,005 Championing
    edited November 2022
    ustwo said:
    …are we allowed to spend some of the extra money over the savings threshold to buy things for our house as we really could do with updating a lot of things we have in the house like washing machine, fridge freezer etc or would they look open that as wasting the money.we don't want to spend the money on things we need only to find we are penalised and sanctioned for longer
    Absolutely. Expenditure has to be reasonable in the circumstances but to be counted as deprivation of capital DWP have to argue that a motivation in spending the money includes increasing benefit entitlement.

    You should keep the benefit authorities informed of changes in your capital. You may be asked to explain how the money has been used so it is prudent to keep a record of purchases made including invoices and if replacing household items may be helpful to have a record of the items being replaced (age and whether they are faulty). It might be argued that if something is still working then it isn’t reasonable to replace it just because it’s old - although it might be energy inefficient Which in these times might be an incentive to replace. 

    (However older items are often better made in my experience - my first fridge freezer lasted 30 years without ever needing repair, the replacement needed repair after 3 years - but that’s a different discussion!)
  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Community member Posts: 59,056 Championing
    Yes you can spend the money on things for the house but just make sure you don't buy the most expensive things to reduce your savings. There's not really any definition of deprevation of capital as such but just keeps the receipts for the furniture/white goods you buy just incase they ask for proof.
  • ustwo
    ustwo Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    ty poppy and calcotti that helps a lot.we will keep all the receipts and we won't be buying the mega money items just the practical ones at reasonable prices
  • L_Volunteer
    L_Volunteer Community Volunteer Adviser, Scope Member Posts: 7,925 Championing
    You are welcome @ustwo. It is the very least you deserve.

    Please don't hesitate to let us know if we can do anything else to support you. We are all here for you and listening to you  :)

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