UC Claim review - HELP

maddanj said:

@poppy123456  Thank you. That's helpful - I think. My usual Case Manager told me the back payment would not be classed as income or capital but of course, the letter doesn't show this. 
The backdated payment was way over £5k as it was 3 years worth of LCWRA due to the WCA taking 5 years.

I will check the letter from the DWP complaints officer in response to my MP who determined that when UC tried to reclaim part of my back payment (said couldn't find 9 months worth of fit notes that they and ESA recieved) and see if this holds any relevant info about the disregard period.

mangofrog said:

I’ve recently received this message too. Just read through this thread and I had no idea that capital over £6000 affected UC benefits (I thought it was a higher number). That’s not something that’s ever been communicated tk me. I’ve had over £6000 for a while as a result of my UC benefits. I have no other income. Do UC benefits themselves count as capital?

Jimm_Scope said:

Hi @mangofrog, it's often best to just be upfront. It's okay to make mistakes, it's an issue when it's purposeful. You will have to payback any overpayments, but unless you've saved over £16,000 you will still get Universal Credit.

Also, while it is gone over upon applying I'm not surprised people can forget about a single detail about an application they possibly did years ago. There's many other thresholds in our system to get confused about it over too.

poppy123456 said:

mangofrog said:

- is it correct that we need to declare the total amount of capital at the end of the assessment period? (As opposed to another time)
- how do well when the end of our assessment period is?
- wrt Cost of Living payments, do we deduct the total amount of COL payments from our overall money? Ie. I’ve received £1251 in COL payments (first one was in July ‘22) - do I deduct £1251 from the overall amount in my bank account each month? Or is there a different way of doing it?

Thank you

Yes, your UC entitlement is determined on the last day of each assessment period. For this reason, this when you would need to tell them if there's any changes to your capital, if it's more than £6,000. For every £250 or part thereof over that amount there's a £4.35/month deduction.

To know the dates of your assessment periods, log in to your journal and then click "home" from there look at the list and then click "payments." At the top of that page it will say something like this... on 25th December you will be paid any money you're entitled to... the amount you get is based on your circumstances from 19th November to 18th December. Therefore your last day of your assesment period in this example will be 18th December. 

All the cost of living payments are disregarded from capital indefinitely.

Hey all - I have a claim review phone interview on Monday. Is there anything in particular I should prepare for?

I’ve printed out all the bank statements I sent them and highlighted any transactions I suspect they may ask about, and noted down what the transaction was. For context, I only found out recently about the £6000 cut off and had gone over it, and I’ve communicated with them about that in depth via the journal.

Are there any other notes I should prepare? What kind of questions should I expect?

Thank you

I was over the the limit of £16,000 so I am not sure what will happen, but most of it was in my business account that i was told they take no notice of but they do.

But im not sure they can ask about any transactions because it's your money to spend on what ever you want.

I simply believe that doing this is completely wrong.