Maintenance payments from exes don't count towards UC?

[riverofgods]

A family member has a very wealthy ex-DH who through an informal arrangement pays a few thousand a month and gave her a property in their split. She has deliberately made sure that she has no cash assets and spends what he gives her each month so she can then also qualify for UC which she receives in full due to not working. Apparently this is completely above board but i think its awful that it is.

I remember the bad old days when maintenance was counted as income offset against benefits
you could be penalised for not telling DWP who the absent parent was and if you didn’t tell them they assumed you were getting the money anyway and gave you less benefit
anyone who doesn’t believe me should research benefit law in the mid to late 1990s
i should imagine your example is quite rare and assume you are just trying to start a bun fight

He pays it voluntarily thank you for judging. I didn't say we were struggling. I said it is unfair when you think she doesn't have to claim it as income, but it doesn't count as a reduction in earnings for us. The system is flawed.

I think it fell apart when you said he gave her a property, but that changed into a 2nd property sitting empty, as well as she wouldnt have to spend it all each month, UC only gets affected when there is over £6k in capital held.

A property in addition to the property she lives in

How is it unfair when it’s your partners choice to pay that much? If you can’t afford for him to be paying that much then you need speak to him about it instead of adding extra fuel to benefit bashing threads.

Then if that is the case, and it has not been declared, she is claiming fraudulently, assuming any of this is true of course.

God who need a family member like you. Get off your high horse its a Friday night. Surely you got better things to do

There was no judgement.

Just making the point that no-one has to pay that.

Its definitely a wise system that doesn’t take into account income that could stop tomorrow on a whim if your partner chooses.

Then she doesn’t get UC.

Its not possible.

just like sitting on UC forever and not bothering to get a job isn’t.

only people like carers don’t have to job hunt because society, generally, recognises their worth in that respect.
Imagine how furious you’d be of society properly recognised carers and paid her a decent amount of carers allowance…

100% this.

I agree I remember my mum be in sat tears in the benefits office trying to explain to them that this was his name, this was his address, this was where he worked. Could they go and get the money from him because she couldn’t but they were gonna deduct it from her anyway.

Naturally nobody helped her to collect the money

@JaceLancs
this.
I worked for what was DHSS then.
minimal payment made less by the assumption some dead beat Dad would pay what he said he would. Grim times.

Just waiting for the "she does nails on the side"

Daily fail fodder

What a load of rubbish. UC is not being handed out to people who own 2 or more properties. Made up nonsense.

Was awful times.

Can remember the despair of my grandparents (who’d been landed with 4 kids who’d have cost a fortune to the state if we’d gone into care) with them being told by the housing benefit people that it counted as income even if it wasn’t collected and the CSA being utterly fucking useless.

Even when the system changed to RP’s on benefits only being allowed to keep £20 (because you couldn’t have scroungers on benefits having the luxury of the billions of maintenance…) and the rest being owed to the Sec of State things didn’t change.
The debts owed to the government got so high they decided “something” must be done. Instead of actually making the CSA do something (because they, and CMS now, actually have a good amount of powers just no will to use them) they said “Oh RPs can just keep it”. Not a single government has ever given a shit about an effective maintenance system.

Sure it is, they're called landlords

Once again. I'm not bashing. I'm saying the system is inherently unfair. Read before you jump to conclusions.

Why is it unfair?

The system expects people to pay a fair proportion of their salary toward their children.

How on Earth do you expect a system to compensate you for the fact he chooses to pay more?

Its not a remotely unfair system because of one or two rare cases of anecdata.

This thread is going beautifully 🤭.

If however your husband has died and you get bereavement support payments this is included in your income for universal credit how is this fair? This is a payment for child support derived from your husbands national insurance contributions.

Meh. I can't get wound up by this because when her children become adults then the mum will stop getting UC, child benefit and child maintenance for them and then she will have very little income unless she is in employment by then. In the long run she will be worse off.

On UC you are better off the more hours you work btw so the whole "affect UC entitlement" is a red herring.

He pays it voluntarily thank you for judging. I didn't say we were struggling. I said it is unfair when you think she doesn't have to claim it as income, but it doesn't count as a reduction in earnings for us. The system is flawed.

Your husband choosing to pay more doesn't mean the system is flawed. That's HIS choice. If you need more disposable income then have a proper conversation with him about reducing the amount.

Somebody with a second property that they are not living in cannot claim UC.

I smell BS here. You can’t get UC if you have an additional property but your op didn’t say that. Your friend gets a few thousand a month maintenance plus UC (allegedly). That’s about 3k a month. A decent income but not enough for the lavish lifestyle you describe with private schools and multiple trips abroad.