Paying

Yes, this is allowed. Enjoy!

Yes, of course. The payments are to support you towards having as good a quality of life as you can despite your illness. If there's any activity you can do that will relieve your suffering or that can be therapeutic then why would anyone object to that?

Please don't be scared. I can tell you exactly what the checks are looking for:

1. They are looking for people who claim UC and spend too much time out of the UK to remain eligible.
2. They are looking for hidden capital .

Hidden capital - if you have secret bank accounts you have not declared and you have been sending some of your UC to the undeclared accounts to hide it. (Or even save it for a rainy day - not allowed)

If you have been gifting money to friends and relatives to keep under capital limits. It is perfectly ok to buy gifts for people but it is not ok to suddenly give £200 away because you have £5800 in your account. (when you have never given that person £200 before) It is not ok either to give an amount to someone else to save for you in their account.

It is not ok to buy very expensive items (jewellrey, cars, go on an expensive holiday) just for the purpose of getting your capital down. You can buy things for yourself but not if it is with the sole intention of keeping your capital below 6k or 16k.

The review team will look for patterns of spending - if you always go on holiday once a year and it's normal for you to do a few mini breaks - perfectly fine.

If you usually holiday every year in Scarborough and then the team notice the one time you had 8k in your account, you took off abroad and spent the whole lot - that looks very dodgy!

Even more dodgy if you had 15k in your accounts and then suddenly go on a 10k holiday when you have never spent anywhere near that on holiday ever before.

Do you see what i mean? It is ok to spend your money how you want to and you don't need to always get the cheapest. The review team is looking for fraud.

So they will question one-off large spends (it might be totally ok to have a one-off large spend; that's fine and if you can explain it as long as you have not had that large spend purely to get your money down, fine)

And they will question regular spends going to another account or a friend/relative's account.

Basically, as long as you are not doing anything fraudulent, you're fine to go for it!

Cheers @FeistyPigeon 👍

I should have maybe said - it IS ok to put some unspent UC away for a rainy day IF you declare it. So - if you have money left over, by all means keep it. Under 6k fine. You don't need to say anything.

Over 6k - also fine as long as you let them know via the section in your journal. Pay the relevant deduction and that's perfectly ok.

It really is the hidden stuff they are looking for and off-loading your money for friends to keep hidden for you.

Don't do anything sneaky😈