Universal credit want to see the last 6 months worth of statements for my savings account but...

[BoobsOnTheMoon]

There are no statements 😬

I've been on live chat with the building society who say that because there was no account activity in any of the last 6 months, statements cannot be produced. There was no account activity because it's my emergency car repair fund that I do not touch unless the car breaks or needs replacing!

How do I explain this in a way UC will understand? There is just nothing I can print out to send them. I can't even screenshot because of the website security settings!

(Before anyone comes at me for claiming benefits whilst having savings, it's £2k as an emergency car repairs/replacement fund. I've got a disabled child, I work, and we live rurally, so having no car is Not An Option. Us having no car would cost the taxpayer more than £2k in a matter of months because I'd lose my job and have to claim more benefits!)

Nationwide does not produce a statement when you have made no transactions. OP I can confirm you are not going mad. Not for UC, but we had to provide monthly evidence for something, we couldn't, so we just downloaded the initial transaction and today's balance, and it was accepted. It's a PITA frankly.

Why wouldn't you just go into a branch and get an actual human person to help you with this @BoobsOnTheMoon ?

Why wouldn't you read the thread fully before asking that?

As I said already, it's a 20 odd mile round trip and would mean either taking time off work or taking an autistic child with me. I also didn't realise when I first posted that they could print different statements in branch that didn't exist in my own account, I assumed if it was possible then I'd be able to do it myself!

Obviously I'll do it if I have to.

Pay in £5 then request a statement.

Easy fix for this month, yes. Unfortunately without a time machine, I can't go back and do this for all the other months I need statements for!

Which will get me a statement for the month I paid the £5 in. It won't get me any statements for all the missing months when I didn't know I needed to make a transaction to get a statement!

@TeaKitten ,sorry but I can understand why OP was offended by your comment.
It certainly can be interpreted as rude and questioning her integrity.
Consider yourself lucky that you are not in the same financial situation as OP!
Think the screenshots suggestion is your best bet OP ,hope you get sorted.X

Nationwide user here too... definately switch your savings to a higher interest rate. Nationwide do have some good ones.

Going forward, change your statement date to 6 monthly, then set up a standing order from your usual account to the savings account for £0.01 every 1st Jan and 1st July, that will keep the statements generating for the next time UC or anyone else needs them.

That is a really good idea, thanks. I could even do 1p every month so I get the Holy Grail of monthly statements 😂

I am in the same financial situation actually, although I don’t have £2000 in savings so potentially a worse situation. But thanks for your assumptions. My nationwide current account doesn’t pay interest at all and my savings account pays it monthly, unfortunately I couldn’t actually predict what everyone else’s accounts on this thread do so could only comment based on my own knowledge which is how mumsnet works. But the advice of going into branch was good advice as they can product anything (although I can see OP can’t do that and doesn’t need to now).

I had a similar issue with proof of funds towards a mortgage.

The account the funds were in only added interest annually and recent statements were required to prove that there was no money laundering.

I appreciate this was a different scenario, but the building society were able to post a copy of the annual accounts with a dated letter and that was deemed acceptable. It simply shows that there has been no activity over the 6 month time period that UC are asking for.

Why don’t you have the money in an account earning decent interest? I have a £2k emergency fund for my horse, that earned £45 in interest last year. It’s still instant access.
It’s bloody daft to not maximise your return when you are low income.

You could ask for what the building society said in writing, with them also stating the balance they have.
I had a similar situation and they accepted a letter after I said I don’t think I can prove otherwise.

It is not that unusual for interest to only be applied once a year - I have a few different accounts with different financial institutions like that. I don't think I have any accounts where interest is applied on a monthly basis.

I just haven't ever really given it much thought. Until quite recently I've never had any savings, this account was just unused for years (I opened it as a teenager because they were offering an Our Price voucher, showing my age there!!). What with the extra life admin that accompanies a kid with disabilities I just don't ever seem to have the headspace for more, but I'm definitely going to have a look at a better account today after reading the comments here!

@BoobsOnTheMoon you could set up a new account online today in less than 10 mins. Interest rates are high, make the most of it while you can.

I’m praying they come down soon for the mortgage, but whilst they are up I am squeezing every drop out of my meagre savings!

Can you not have another conversation online with the bank and screenshot the bit where it says they can't produce a statement as there hasn't been any activity?

Edit: not screenshot, take a photo of it.

There are some good interest rates even on current accounts at the moment - try KROO

But yet no activity its getting more common for no monthly statement to be issued or accessible. Get the bank to put in writing by email provide that and the two Jan stmts. Pay £1 in to trigger a stmt for this month and send that. Has to be today as its 30th and tomoz new month. They are used to people lying so v suspicious of everything

So about 10 miles each way? Not a long trip at all to get something important sorted and it’s normal to have to take time off work for life admin 🤷🏼‍♀️

👍

I had this issue with Barclays. It's common with savings accounts.

I took a photo of my laptop screen showing the transactions. It was accepted.

But yeah, it's not helpful that you can't generate statements even if there are no transactions

With all due respect, isn't it up to the OP to decide whether that's a long trip or not, relative to her individual circs? She's trying to find a way around it without having to make the trip - perfectly normal and reasonable.

I have a Barclays account. I just used Google Assistant to take a screenshot. It turns out the app blocks the button combination to take screenshots, but Google Assistant bypasses that by using a voice command. Might be worth a try.

My bank is the same - can’t get or download statements in the app. Easily remedied by going on to the laptop and into the actual website - not the app.