Universal Credit - savings AND debt.

[whatat]

I know the savings limit for claiming universal credit is £16,000 and universal credit is reduced in anything between £6,000 and £16,000 but how do you calculate savings?

For example, if I had £10,000 in a savings account and £9,000 credit card debt, would the figure I declare for savings be £10,000 or £1,000?

I know it's generally daft to have savings when you have debt, but I'm thinking of a situation where my credit card is on a 24 months 0% interest deal and my by bank is offering 6% interest in savings. Easy money to be made (which of course would be declared as income!)

Debt won't be taken into account. They will treat you as having 10k in savings.

As above, debts are not considered. If you don't want the savings to be counted then use them to pay off the debt, then you would have around £65 a month more UC per month if you only had 1k of savings.

Thanks @bluenails2002 and @Babyroobs

May I ask - what about money I'm owed? Should I include that?

I've obviously been doing it wrong as this is what I've been doing..

Take total from bank accounts of approx £8,000 deduct balance on credit card of approx £1,000 (I pay in full each month so in my mind it's just a timing difference) and add on money my mum owes me of £1,500.

The money mum owes me is me doing all her shopping on my bank card - she's disabled and I have POA so I pay for everything and then just transfer it from her account to my account once a month.

Sometimes I don't do the transfer for several weeks but I include it in my "savings" figure because it's still my money even though it's not in my account. The only thing stopping it being in my account is me not getting around to doing the transfer.

I suppose in the same way the only reason I have a credit card balance is because I report my savings before I've paid the credit card.

You only need to report your overall savings if the amount changes. If the amount is the same every month then no need to report a change.

Hello wondering if anyone can help.

I have £13,000 in debit (car & loan) I’m due a divorce setttlement of £25-30k which takes me over the threshold of savings with my universal credit so they will be stopped. With the money I intend to clear debt and buy a house straight away. How do I get around this so my payments don’t stop?

get my solicitor to say £13k is going to a family member as they will clear the debt so I can get a mortgage in principle and then use my mortgage in principle with UC as they say if you’re using it for a house sale it can’t be touched?