Universal credit - Gifted 30k to buy a caravan

Otherwise the month you received the donation (over that's month's assessment period I should say) you'd receive no UC. You're UC would be paused and assuming you straightaway bought the caravan, informed the UC of that fact you're UC should be resumed in next assessment period.

2022 my dad what's going to buy me a flat (75% of the equity in it, the housing associate would have owned the other 25%). I asked the question to the housing association if my dad could pay for it directly from his own bank account thus circumventing the UC issue. They said no, it must be paid from my bank account, so obviously necessitating my dad to make a transfer to my account and then for me to buy the property. I inquired what would happen to my UC even if the capital was only in my account for one day and was informed that because I had excess money in an assessment period I would lose UC for that period and would be able to reinstate the next assessment period.

One caveat is that the purchase wasn't made because my dad passed away so what I've said above wasn't tested in the real world, so do your own checks.

I don't think you were given great advice to be honest. If it was money for a deposit that normally can be held in trust by the solicitor and paid to whoever is selling the property upon completion. At no point would such funds need to hit the account.

You don't need somebody to give you lived experience behind that advice. What you've read online is correct. UC exists to trap people in poverty, not help them.

Your best option is to get the person offering to gift you the money to buy the caravan on your behalf, before they transfer ownership to you.

Apologies for misdirecting that part of my advice at you.

If there's any way for you to spend some of your money now, that may be viable. The DWP won't require you to justify receipts in the same way they would for climants over 16k. You have more scope to treat yourself.

If you're below state pension age and not working If you haven't already, you could put max £2,880 per tax year into a private pension (grossed up by the government to £3,600) all perfectly without penalty and above board. Of course when you finally take your pension it can affect other benefits. Into a prepaid funeral scheme c.£1,500 to £5k say, it's gonna happen sometime, again all allowable...

Yes, absolutely I would (and did) inform the DWP of the intention for my dad to pay, and as I said earlier in the end it never happened.

I would always inform the DWP via the online journal so once given the go ahead you can evidence this easily. I think phone conversation recordings can be more easily lost (or at least less easily found).

Apologies to the original post as we've diverted somewhat from that.

I understand, at least partly. My view on my pension was sort of the same about not wanting to reach it due to pain, but I thought at least I can pass it down to my chosen beneficiaries and maybe if I do reach pension age by then may be better which is probably unrealistic hope, but hope all the same.

On the particular property you wish to move into and after looking for 5 years, it's never going to be perfect, but maybe there is something better than where you are now. The shorter stress and strain of moving versus the long-term stress and strain of staying where you are. Only you can answer that. On moving as you have the finance, and as I don't know what your capability are, maybe make it easier on yourself - I looked into how much it would cost for a removals company to move the contents of my flat without me having to do anything and set it all up again in somewhere new (to push the point, I said to them that I won't be boxing anything and all I'm going to take are my socks and undies!). The quote I was given several years ago was £1,500, maybe double that now.