Possibly messed up with UC, advice please?

[Namechanging110]

I'm not sure how much I should be panicking over this but the whole thing is quite new to me and I'm so scared of getting it wrong because financially things are tight as they are.

I split from my ex husband a while ago (bad situation and me and child ended up homeless for quite some time) and then I began claiming uc for childcare costs as a lone parent wft as my now ex husband was no longer involved outside of paying some maintenance.

I've since been able to get 'divorced' but he's completely refused to engage with solicitors so I've not yet been able to get a financial agreement in place meaning I can't take money from our joint account because I don't know what will be his and what will be mine. We also had a house which was in his name and was owned by him before we met. I was never added to the deeds etc. I paid my portion of the mortgage to him and didn't cover any bills relating to the ownership of the house directly and am not named on those. It will eventually sell but its not 'my' house if you see what I mean.

When I set up uc I declared all of my personal (individual) bank accounts but they're now saying I should also have declared my sons bank account (its in his name, completely separate and I can only pay into it - I can't withdraw from it he will need to do that at 18) and now I'm thinking I should have declared the joint accounts as well even though they have been untouched since our split and I've been told by my solicitor not to touch it if I'm able to use my personal account anyway.

I'm going to declare everything now but I'm absolutely shitting myself and worried ill need to pay money back if they include what's in the joint account (most of which is joint savings for our son that I've been told I can't close and move into the other savings account in his name or access until financial arrangements are signed off - not that i would anyway as i see it as his money) which would put me over the threshold for uc. I'd probably still have been entitled but at a much more reduced rate from the beginning.

Are they going to look at this as 'my' money? 90% of it will eventually go to my son's own account and is currently in a separate 'pot' under his name attached to the joint account that I've paid all my child benefit into prior to the split (i then set up the other account for him) but the rest that's in the joint account if we agreed to split it equally would only work out at a couple of hundred each, it's not a lot of money and wouldn't put me over threshold if that makes sense?

I'm just so unclear on how this all works and when I spoke to uc on the phone before setting up a claim, I was told verbally this wasn't "my" money and I didn't need to declare it but now I'm thinking that was wrong info or that I've misunderstood- at the time I was completely floored with a shock breakup in a traumatic way so I probably wasn't in the best space to be making decisions on anything or processing information I was just surviving.

Can anyone please give me advice (and talk me down).

Access to your son’s savings is irrelevant. It depends who the beneficial owner of the money is. If it’s child maintenance saved then you are the beneficial owner. If it’s money given to your son at Xmas birthdays etc then he is

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/693ace15c72b0f8ccf33d609/adm-ch-H1.pdf

page 7 H1077

and yes the UC regulations apply to NI

I totally get that, I'm just saying there's a difference between making a mistake and genuinely setting out to try and be misleading.

Many of us have been in your shoes @Namechanging110 , and it's very difficult to find yourself a lone parent and going through a very stressful time for all sorts of reasons on top of that, but when you fill out a form to claim for benefits, neither yours or anyone else's personal issues excuse you from not declaring your bank accounts.
It takes practically as much effort to give the account details of one bank account you own as it does two or three. You made a conscious decision to not divulge everything you had.

Excuses don't wash as the DWP have likely heard every reason under the sun for not declaring assets.

So child maintenance is not counted as an income for uc but is counted if you essentially don't spend it entirely that month even if it's saved elsewhere under someone else's name? This is where I get really confused.

Child maintenance is used to maintain your child surely? I.e. to buy day to day stuff to bring up the child? Not to be saved?

@Namechanging110 Yes that’s correct.

It wasn't so much a conscious decision as obviously I've made a mistake with the difference between what I have access to and what I actually am able to use or spend. Obviously at some point I'll receive money related to the divorce when I get things pushed through court at which point I would have immediately declared everything that I received but obviously that was wrong and I didn't understand that properly when I was setting this up.

@Namechanging110 how much money is in this undeclared joint account?

But the way my ex pays isn't always regular so I might have got nothing and then got an overpayment. I obviously wouldn't then need to spend all that because I work full time so if my child needed something I'd budget my wage and get it for him. I don't technically NEED maintenance because I'm earning. So if I have budgeted properly with what I earn and what I'm entitled to and been able to leave a bit of money aside then why shouldn't that be allowed to be saved for him? Surely that's the same for anyone who is on benefits who is able to earn and be frugal enough to save a bit each month for their child as long as its not money they have any access to so they're not able to use that money at any point in the future?

We had a couple of thousand saved for our son in the pot with his name on it attached to that account (the only semi agreement that was in place verbally when we initially seperated and before he stopped engaging with anything was that this would not be claimed in the seperation by either of us as it was our sons money. And then about £1000 in the joint account as we only used it for bills and I changed all the bills over to my personal account initially because i was in the house alone for a period before I was able to get away. But no agreement in place in writing and no agreement at all over the £1000. So if they include my sons savings then that's a lot more, but if its 50% of the other money then its not really a lot.

@Namechanging110 The money for your son is that saved child maintenance?

Well you have created an absolute mess here unfortunately. Who advised you to finalise a divorce without a financial agreement? Madness.

UC aren’t going to buy your version of events. It just looks like you thought you were being clever.

Some is saved child maintenance but it's also every Christmas or birthday present he's ever got. The money in the pot for him attached to the joint account is money saved between myself and my ex before I claimed uc.

@greencheetah I have the decree nisi but no financial part so I'm not sure if that means it's finalised. I don't have the decree absolute yet.

So what will happen next? Obviously if I owe anything I'll repay it as quickly as I can.

Correct, if any money you receive builds up and affects the capital amounts for UC eventually, its original source no longer matters. There are specific disregards for sums such as backdated benefits and personal injury compensation (most are time limited for a specified period) but the disregard rules are very specific. What account you put it into is also irrelevant at that point, if you were the beneficial owner of the funds.

Once a decision maker has looked at it, any overpayment that they decide on will be explained to you by letter (often a digital letter on your UC journal) and you will then be contacted by DWP Debt Management regarding repayment. This is usually a deduction from your UC. Only if they decide there has been deliberate misrepresentation will they also apply a civil penalty.

But you've hit a nail on the head here really yourself. If you have access to other funds, that is why the tariff deduction rules exist. Remembering that only £4.35 per £250 you have over £6k will be deducted from your UC payment, it isn't actually that severe a system.

If I had known that I would have asked my ex to pay me the minimum that he had to and pay the rest he wanted to pay to my sons account directly but I did not know that would be looked at in that way so I've just been trying to be sensible with it rather than wasting it spending it on things we didn't need. I actually feel sick.

This is my main worry now, I just hope they understand that this was genuine error and confusion rather than anything deliberate. I just want to repay anything that I owe as fast as I possibly can to fix this. I can't believe I've made such an absolute mess of this.

I think this is the key to the whole thing really. You had access to money that you CHOSE not to access on the advice of your solicitor, so you used public funds instead to afford your life. Unfortunately that will be considered an overpayment.

it’s similar to having between 6 and 16k in savings. They expect you to deplete your savings before you claim but disregard any savings under 6k.

I've been a benefits specialist for 14 years. Genuine error I'm afraid is unlikely to be the conclusion. That is why they reiterate claimant obligation throughout the claim from the start (ie when you agree to the UC commitments you are made aware of the rules relating to any money you hold/receive, etc.) However all you can do is await a DM decision and subsequent information about repayment, etc.

The more of these Uc posts I read on MN the crosser I get ! I just don't get how people are able to squirrel away large amounts into private pensions or kids savings accounts and then claim benefits. It's all wrong. I though benefits were meant to be a safety net/ There was a thread the other day where someone's husband was earning 67 k and they were getting large amounts of UC. The whole system is so wrong.

No, he should pay what is due and this should be used alongside what you earn to be able to afford a property, not to build up a savings pot for your child.

I advise not saying things like this (i.e. how you're sorry that you didn't realize that there were better ways of getting more benefits despite having money) if you want them to believe that you didn't mean to hide money.

You’ll be asked to pay back what you owe and in the meantime most likely your benefits will be cut. My friends currently going through similar .