Universal credit advice?

[23andbroke]

I claimed universal credit for a couple of months then started a job earning £30k in April.

I shouldn’t be entitled to universal credit as my income is over the threshold BUT universal credit did not close my claim; although I’m not being paid by them as my income is registered properly, my account is still “active”.

This month, due to all the bank holidays, I won’t get paid my salary during my 4 week universal credit assessment period. I get paid a few days after it ends. Does this mean that I will get paid Universal Credit this month as technically I earned £0 during my assessment period? Seems odd if so - will I have to pay it back?

Any clarification would be appreciated as I could do without the hassle of chasing them up

Yes I think you will, I had a similar scenario where by my childcare bill payments rolled over to the following month and I didn’t get any of it reimbursed the previous month - I queried it but was informed that unfortunately both would be considered in the month I paid them. They are leaving claims open longer now I think so people don’t have the hassle of reopening them due to Covid it’s not easy.

It’s so confusing as I get paid over £2k a month - I don’t need Universal credit anymore but they wouldn’t let me close it at the time. Now I’ll probably get paid and have to waste several hours trying to give them their £300 back !

UC receive your earnings data from HMRC. If you received £0 earnings in the AP then your should receive a UC payment. However, as you have no earnings on the AP the job centre may well start booking you in for appointments as the will think you are not working (as you have had no earnings in the AP).

Send them a journal message telling them that you want to close your claim and they should close it

You can ask them to close it.

Send them a journal message and they will close it for you.

Thank you all.

I sent a journal message in April when I started my job to close the claim, but the agent said the system would close it automatically and that I just needed to report the change (which I of course did)

HMRC probably does report my earnings to them, but there’s 5 weeks between my May and June paydays so there wouldn’t be a payment registered during this assessment period. It feels like I’m gaming the system, but I’m not. I don’t need or want the money and definitely don’t want to be booked in for work search appointments !