Attend your further evidence appointment in a jobcentre

The Job Centre can't see your bank statements through a telephone so this type of appointment is never done by phone.

As we've seen from the random reviews, they do have the ability to request statements via PDF through the online journal. But for some reason they don't use that feature for this type of appointment.

For future reference, there was no need to report going over £6k for one day to UC, unless that happened to be the final day of your assessment period.

As for what happens to someone who can't get to a JC, this is something I'm very interested to know the answer to. I've had to update my savings in the journal every month for the past year or so due to constantly variable savings. So far I've never been asked for any bank statements. But there's no way I could get to a JC or use a telephone if and when I do get asked for statements either triggered like this or for a random review. Will just have to see what happens when it comes…

UC don't accept statements through the post as far as I'm aware. But you'll also need to confirm your ID at the face to face appointment using a driving licence or passport or whatever photographic ID you've got.

ESA was telephone based. When they needed to see statements, those did have to be sent through the post. There was no digital option.

UC was designed to be much more modern for the digital age, and in theory all done over the internet. Unfortunately quite a few people took advantage of this system, particularly during covid, which meant UC had to start seeing people in person again as well as checking bank statements etc more carefully. As is often the case, a minority of fraudsters make it more difficult for the genuine claimants.

In order to get UC payments we all had to confirm commitments, even when migrating. This can be done at a Job Centre, over the phone, or online through the journal, so you might have done it inadvertently, or perhaps there was an error on their part and you just got missed for some reason.

It's not actually true that you have to report all changes. Technically you only need to report changes that would mean a change to your payments. For UC, the savings amount only matters on the final day of your assessment period, it doesn't matter if it goes up and down during the AP. This is different to ESA where savings had to be declared every time they changed overnight on any date. (However, NS ESA is non-means tested anyway, so it doesn't matter how much savings you've got for that).

The rules for savings and income are the same on old style ESA and UC. Basically they're looking to make sure you haven't spent money for the sole purpose of getting back below £6k again. (This is called Deprivation Of Capital). This also includes giving money away to friends or relatives, and drawing out cash that you can't justify where it was spent. The other thing they look for on bank statements is undeclared income such as earnings from a cash in a hand job or a private pension or similar.

Unfortunately there are no set rules for DOC regarding what you can spend money on. And UC will never confirm that you're allowed to buy something before you do it. The only option is to spend the money, and then see if they deem it to be deprivation after the fact. You can appeal their decision if you disagree.

Sorry that's quite a lot of information but basically as long as you're not giving money away or spending it purposely to keep under £6k, and as long as you don't have any undeclared earnings, then you should be totally fine.

You're welcome.

UC is paid monthly, each month is one Assessment Period. If you look at any UC statement, that will tell you which dates your AP's are - for example 20th to 19th of each month. You then get paid one week after the end of each AP. So payment date would be 26th in this example. That payment is based on your circumstances on the final day of the each Assessment Period, so that is always the day to declare savings or earnings.

Yes, you're right, only the UC is means tested here. NS ESA is always Contributions Based, so not means tested. And as you say, PIP is not means tested either. All UC is means tested, including Housing Element and TP. If you go over £16k in savings, you would lose all UC. But you would keep getting the ~£600 a month of NS ESA. Also worth noting that unspent benefit always counts as savings, even when it has come from non-means tested benefits. That catches some people out.

Yes, DOC is definitely a grey area and something a lot of people worry about on here. Because there are no set rules it often depends on the Decision Makers discretion, so what one DM considers DOC, another might not. If the claimant is deemed to have caused themselves DOC, they are considered as still having that money (known as Notional Capital) and they will get the same amount deducted from future payments as if that amount was actually in their account. There is also a fixed penalty fine of £50 that can be applied. The deduction is £4.35 per month for every £250 (or part thereof) above £6000. The major issue occurs if the Notional Capital takes the claimant above £16,000, because that closes the UC claim altogether. For those without NS ESA or PIP, that can leave them with nothing coming in at all. Notional Capital is deemed to reduce at a certain rate, so they would be able to make a new claim eventually, but could be left in a very difficult situation in the meantime.

Yes, that sounds correct to me.