Partner got reported for fraud. Can DWP raid my house if I do not claim any benefits? — Scope | Disability forum
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Partner got reported for fraud. Can DWP raid my house if I do not claim any benefits?

Steve1991
Steve1991 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
So I have been with my partner for 9 months. She has CFS and gets ESA and PIP and lives the next town over with her sisters.

Anyway she went to a compliance review on Tuesday and halfway through the officer said he has to be honest it's not a compliance review and some scumbag has lied and reported her as living with me, which is absolute nonsense.

She of course has come to my house to watch a movie as she has a life, and because of her condition we sometimes have both fallen asleep (as I work hard 5 days a week and pay my damn taxes and NI contributions) and both woken up randomly at 3am, so I've dropped her back home after buying us a McDonald's or something. We just do things people who first start dating do. We have not even been together a year!

So now some spiteful nasty liar has stressed her out and whistleblown this horrible lie. She has 14 days to have her sisters write to confirm she lives with them and they want bank statements for Feb and March.

The problem is, I just bought a house cash as I have saved all my life but it is in need of repair. I asked her if she could send £600 to my plumber to help cover the cost until I give it her back, and she paid £130 of my final gas and electric bill from my old house I rented... is this going to look bad???  They were legitimate borrows and I will pay her back next month?

But now I am on edge as she gave them my address at the compliance review which is fine but I am having workers come in to help put my house right and cannot be having the embarrassment of police raiding my house or something. I took her hoodie home earlier in case they come around and see a woman's pink hoodie there. Am I being too paranoid???

Comments

  • twonker
    twonker Posts: 617 Pioneering
    It will probably never happen.
    And yes it is the police that will have the search warrant with the DWP in tow.
    Once this has happened to me with a 6am knock and search team + put into the back of the police van. I was working part time and claiming what was then unemployment benefit & supplementary Benefit for 12 months till I got on my feet. Ironically I had stopped the claim over a year before they came a knocking.

    Nowadays that sort of carry on is unlikely to happen due to costs and lack of manpower.
  • Steve1991
    Steve1991 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    Are you saying you were falsely claiming?

    But you were claiming some form of benefits right?  This is what I mean, I am not nor have I ever (nothing against those who do, obvs) so what gives the police the right to come to my house that is not in anyone's name but mine, and a name that does not have any involvement with DWP or benefits?
  • wilko
    wilko Community member Posts: 2,458 Disability Gamechanger
    edited April 2019

    @Steve1991, Hello and welcome, as twonker said in his post I don’t think you will be called up on or investigated by the DWP or the police. As long as your girl friends sisters can confirm, prove that their sister / your girl friend resides with them full time and occasionally returns home late escorted by you for obvious reasons and has never spent a night away from there. Good luck and hope you have a long and lasting relationship.
  • Geoark
    Geoark Community member Posts: 1,463 Disability Gamechanger
    Hello @Steve1991 and welcome to the community.

    You have always been able to work and claim benefits, it becomes fraud when you do not declare such work.

    There is nothing wrong with your partner spending the odd night with you, however the accusation is fraud and this is linked with her supposedly living at your home, so at some point it may be possible that they will want to satisfy themselves that she does not live with you. Potentially yes the money you borrowed could be an issue as it could be seen as financially contributing to the household. I do not suppose it occurred to either of you to draw up a loan agreement including how and when it would be returned?

    The fact that it would be a fraud investigation and the address is central to the accussation would give them the right, along with a court order to enter your home. Hopefully they will be able to satisfy themselves that the accusation is false without taking such steps.

    As an individual I stood alone.
    As a member of a group I did things.
    As part of a community I helped to create change!

  • twonker
    twonker Posts: 617 Pioneering
    edited April 2019
    Steve1991 said:
    Are you saying you were falsely claiming?

    But you were claiming some form of benefits right?  This is what I mean, I am not nor have I ever (nothing against those who do, obvs) so what gives the police the right to come to my house that is not in anyone's name but mine, and a name that does not have any involvement with DWP or benefits?
    If the police believe that evidence to support an investigation is in a property they can obtain a search warrant. It doesn't matter who owns the house or who lives there.

    Otherwise you would be having criminals hiding their ill gotten gains in a property that does not belong to them and getting away with it.

    Yes I was claiming illegally but only to the extent that I was trying to start a business up from nothing. After 12 months I stopped the claims and earned my own money.
    It was over a year later after the claims were closed that the DWP (when it was the DHSS) found out what I had done two years previously. I had the DWP fraud people knocking on my door demanding that they interview me and then I found out that the investigator was calling on my neighbours, friends and people that knew me to find out if they knew anything. The investigator drew a blank as I don't go round talking to others about my life.

    Because the investigator could get nowhere, he brought the police in which ended up with my home being searched top to bottom looking for anything that would indicate that I worked in the year that I was claiming.

    When interviewed by the police after being in the cells for half the day, I admitted exactly what I had done explaining that I needed some help financially so that I would be able to earn my own money after a year. The amount involved when you add the unemployment benefit, supplementary benefit and rates relief (council tax benefit) it all added up to just under £11,000.

    At Manchester Crown Court I was sentenced to serve 1 month of a 6 month sentence with the rest (5 months) suspended for 2 years and having to report to the Probation Service weekly for those 2 years.

    I should have been out after 2 weeks, but because I protested that the sentence was too harsh as I was of good character with no prior convictions they made me serve the full month in Strangeways Prison, Manchester on C wing only weeks before the riots started which part demolished the prison.

  • Steve1991
    Steve1991 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    Thank you wilko. So the letters from her sisters should clear everything up?

    @Geoark thank you for the reply. So if she ever wants to she can stay the odd night?

    We did not write a borrow agreement no. She’s my partner and we just assumed that it’s her money and she can lend it to me if she wants. Should we write one and backdate it?

    @twonker good story. How long ago was that?
  • twonker
    twonker Posts: 617 Pioneering
    Steve1991 said:
    @twonker good story. How long ago was that?
    Mid 80's. Thankfully things have now changed for the better especially with UC.
    In those days it was if you worked and even don't make any money you could not claim to be unemployed and no benefits were payable. Additionally the treatment of income for new start ups has changed. Now the DWP look at the bottom line, net income, in those days the gross amount of income was taken into account even though you would have business expenses to pay out. The DWP (DHSS) viewed such expenses as a choice as to whether you paid them or not.

  • Steve1991
    Steve1991 Community member Posts: 4 Listener
    Wow that was a while back then. I wasn’t even born then!

    Still waiting to hear from the others.

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