Universal Credit Review

[Abs1996]

Please don't judge:
My partner and I have a joint claim, I work part time but he is unemployed, but does a few jobs for family and friends to keep him busy due to his mental health and to help him get out for a while. They do pay him a little something for his time by bank transfer which he hasn't declared. He's been asked sent a message in our journal say:
We are reviewing your Universal Credit claim to make sure your payments are correct.
As part of the review, you will need to send us information to confirm your details.
We will call you on 2/05/2025, between 10:30 and 10:50, to discuss the review and what happens next.
If you want to rearrange this call, send us a journal message. Kind Regards Mairead UCR Team
The money we get paid goes into my account and I pay all the bill from there so his account doesn't actual see any of the uc money. Will they ask for his account evidence or mine?

Get your friends and family to pay him in cash in future!

I mean that is possible. My disability means I have sailed very close to losing jobs because of sickness
being able to commit to regular working hours is totally different to picking up here and then when you can
also you can rearrange casual work but you can’t just say I’m not coming in today to a job
Well you can’t, but then you tend to get sacked for sickness

Everyone wants people with disabilities be that physical or mental health to work but how flexible are jobs going to be with sickness? Not very…

So he’s dodging tax and taking from tax payers when he could just declare it and if it’s only small payments he’d likely still get monetary support?

You realise not declaring it is a crime? It’s not worth getting in trouble for the sake of a few extra quid.

That is the very definition of regular! It's over 2k per year. He also needs to complete a self assessment for HMRC.
Yes you're going to be in trouble and likely to have to pay back everything you've been overpaid.

If he is working on the side (as they used to call it) i’d hope he would be sensible enough to be paid in cash. Fair enough if he wants to do a few jobs for family & friends, but it’s not fair enough to be getting that on top of UC. It’s benefit fraud.

Small amounts from family are fine.

why have you not just told them of your change in circumstances, you probably would have been given more money and no need for this.

You know full well both of you have been committing benefit fraud so I'm not sure why you think people won't judge you. £200 a month is not "small amount from family".

If it’s a joint claim then they will ask for information about you both and that’s the time you need to be honest.
I doubt such a small amount will affect his claim but what you might find is that they will start to apply a lot of pressure on him to begin finding work unless he has a letter from a doctor to state he is unfit.

I think it's highly unlikely that anyone will be "in trouble", but they may well start making deductions to claw back the amount overpaid. It will be regarded as self-employed earnings.

Any costs your partner has incurred in connection with the work he has done can be offset against his earnings, OP, which will reduce the total "profit". Start compiling a simple set of accounts and submit them.

The amount overpaid will be 55% of the total "profit" he has made, assuming your part-time earnings are more than the £411 (£404 last year) work allowance.

And he needs to report this as earnings from here on, your work coach will advise how to do this.

Of course people are going to judge!

Are you both claiming PIP?

You're wildly missing the point. I fully appreciate that working flexibly is the only way for people with certain disabilities. But whether he is working full time or on an ad hoc basis, he still needs to declare it. He is defrauding the tax payers and, in doing so is taking money from the public purse which means people who really do need it get less.

So the first call is just to tell you they'll ask for some documents. Then the next call will go through the documents. It has to be every bank account for all claimants for the last 3 months.
They query every small thing in the income section. Why did British Gas give you x in Sept 24? (Refund)

Sorry? Who's mental health are we speaking about? My partner works full time. If you're going to comment make sure you read everything properly 😊

They will check both accounts. I think if he's consistently having £200 a month coning in they will query it. The certainly will go through and ask. I was asked why my mum sends me several transactions a week and I explained it matched up with outgoing to Amazon or Tesco because I do all of mums online shopping. She's scared of the Internet. Have you considered both working part time with current health issues or H becoming self employed so he can declare the £200. It'd not good for the anxiety to be looking over you shoulder worrying if someone's watching you mow the lawn.

My partners account is fine, he works full time. I've sent them absolutely everything, I have nothing to hide, I will be explaining everything to UC and each time I'm sent the £60 I spend almost that on petrol (transactions show that too) so I do think - along with the letter from my family friend, it should be okay. And if not then I'll just pay it back and declare it as income for all future payments. I completely agree with you, although it is only this that is gonna cause an issue and it can be rectified. I'm glad you managed to prove to them about your mum's shopping. I know so so many people that do that aswell! X

£200 is a good top up. It’s fraud imo and should be declared.
if I had a £200 top up from my wages I’d be paying tax and national insurance from it.

Hi OP,

I'm so sorry for all of the stress this must be causing you when you're already struggling with seizures and a mentally unwell partner. The hatred for benefit recipients being given £50 per week from family is ridiculous. Meanwhile multimillionaires cheat the system of huge amounts through tax avoidance and receive no hate for that.

Unfortunately UC might have a problem with it too, unless he can just say that they are gifts from family to keep your family fed/pay for heating etc. @Abs1996

Have you heard from them yet op?

Name change fail?

it must be horrible living with depression and anxiety, has he tried to access therapy through his GP? I’m not an expert but being unemployed with a daily purpose is probably worse for depression?

There's a lot of people being quite prissy about this.

What is he doing for this money, is it proper work or odd jobs that the family pay him out of pity/keep him out of your hair and if he didn't do them they just wouldn't get done?

The world revolves on this sort of low level stuff.

I have a UC review coming up and I'm worried sick that my payments are going to stop I have nothing to hide, but it's my kids I worry about and paying my rent, I offen borrow from family but it's only small amounts which I pay back is this a problem when it comes to a review etc