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omegamv6
omegamv6 Community Member Posts: 13 Listener

This is a follow on from last post, where there are 2 claimants on joint claim seperate journals and to do lists etc, if one of the claimants has been told of a discrepency and been invited for review interview and told to submit 12 months bank statements, does that mean that info found on that person or lm l thinking outside of the box?๐Ÿ™„

Answers

  • WhatThe
    WhatThe Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 6,313 Championing

    Hello @omegamv6 and welcome to Scope.

    I read your other posts and you are clearly very worried so I want to help. A joint claim is a joint responsibility so your wife may need a review after yours and you'll need to tackle this together.

    I've had several UCR's including one this week and knowing what to expect by now has made all the difference! The agent has a set of questions to ask and most of them are yes or no answers so the quickest way to get through the review is to have all your documents ready and answer clearly. There are no trick questions; they only want facts.

    I was asked to confirm my name, address, National Insurance number, login password and security answer given when I set up the UC account. Then a stack of questions about my bank balance, how many bank accounts I had, whether I held any property, shares, investments, Premium Bonds, pensions, bitcoin; anything and everything to do with capital.

    You may ask questions at the end of the call then a journal message will be left for you saying the review is complete. Please be assured by what @Kimi87 has already told you and try to stay strong.

  • omegamv6
    omegamv6 Community Member Posts: 13 Listener

    Any suggestions anyone, I am not helping my situation as Im googling and visting other sites just to calm my nerves and anxiety attacks๐Ÿ˜Ÿ

  • WhatThe
    WhatThe Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 6,313 Championing

    Our posts crossed ๐Ÿ˜

  • omegamv6
    omegamv6 Community Member Posts: 13 Listener

    Thanks, ok so the fact they wanted a specific statements and if possible by the telephone inteview ( which l sent as soon as journal message came ) mean they would like to ask based on what we sent in relation to the " information suggesting capital " aswell as the other standard queries.

  • WhatThe
    WhatThe Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 6,313 Championing
    edited September 6

    They want to know everything that you know about your finances.

  • Carl_Scope
    Carl_Scope Posts: 240 Online Community Team

    Hello @omegamv6, I'm afraid I don't think you can read into who received the request. I'm on a joint claim too and some to-dos (such as verifying bank details and claim reviews) usually get assigned just to one of us.

    For our claim review we had to provide bank information belonging to both of us and mine worked the same as @WhatThe has explained.

    I think you know already that googling and visiting lots of sites about it could add to your worry and anxiety, and it's important to remember that you'll find a lot of 'worst case' situations posted, as most people only post when they need help. In 2024-2025 they carried out nearly 1,000,000 targeted reviews. The large majority of these ends without issue.

    Also remember a genuine misunderstanding about capital is very different to deliberately hiding money.

    There may be an overpayment if your capital was above the relevant limit, but that doesn't mean you're going to be accused of fraud or that the worst-case scenario will happen.

  • omegamv6
    omegamv6 Community Member Posts: 13 Listener

    Yes you are right, looking and googling certainly will not help, just have to wait for the call and see what they ask and what they need, says on the email about undeclared capital so this would be the questions l suppose

  • WhatThe
    WhatThe Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 6,313 Championing
    edited September 6

    The questions will be about your entire UC claim, as I've outlined.

    Edit: the UCR agent will also record any changes of circumstances in your journal so you can check everything after the call.

  • Ross1975
    Ross1975 Community Member Posts: 1,617 Championing

    I wouldn't be relying on the UCR agent to record a change and then proclaim that said change has officially been reported. The claimant is responsible for reporting changes in their circumstances through their UC account, and GOV.UK states that these changes should be reported as soon as they occur. Mad props to the journal, but it does not absolve one of their reporting responsibilities, I tell thee.

  • WhatThe
    WhatThe Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 6,313 Championing

    You clearly haven't read the thread ๐Ÿ™„

    To repeat for the OP: the UCR agent will also record any changes of circumstances in your journal so you can check everything after the call.

  • Ross1975
    Ross1975 Community Member Posts: 1,617 Championing
    edited September 7

    I understand that you're saying the agent will record changes discussed during the review. ๐Ÿ™„

    My point was that the claimant's responsibility to report changes still exists independently of what the agent records in the journal.

  • WhatThe
    WhatThe Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 6,313 Championing

    We know.

  • Ross1975
    Ross1975 Community Member Posts: 1,617 Championing

    Good, then I think we're all on the same page.

  • WhatThe
    WhatThe Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 6,313 Championing
  • Ross1975
    Ross1975 Community Member Posts: 1,617 Championing

    I think something went wrong with your post.

  • Ross1975
    Ross1975 Community Member Posts: 1,617 Championing
    edited September 6

    Hi omegamv6, I don't think you can tell from the review invitation alone what the discrepancy relates to. Being asked to provide 12 months of bank statements doesn't necessarily tell you what they've found or why the review was triggered, the purpose of the review is to check the information on the claim against the documents and clarify anything that needs explaining.

    As it's a joint claim they can look at the circumstances and finances relevant to the claim, but the fact that one claimant has been contacted first doesn't necessarily mean that they've found something about the other claimant either. I'd try not to read too much into who has been given the appointment or what the discrepancy might mean until the review agent explains what they need to clarify.

    Having the requested statements and any other relevant information ready should hopefully make the process easier.