Have I committed fraud?

[Boxedin2431]

I am a single mum to three.

I have a UC review and bank statements are due.
I have three bank accounts and two I have not declared.
The two bank accounts I have not declared get child maintenance paid in from my children’s dads, respectively.
I have not had any other income apart from the maintenance and some help from my dad sometimes.
i transfer money between all three.
Two bank accounts are in my birth name, the third is in my middle name.

Am I in trouble when I declare them?

I only have UC, child benefit into the one I have declared.
i have child maintenance into one bank account and another child maintenance into the other bank account.

Shall I include 6 month statement for all three?

All cash gifts that take your savings over £6k, there is no indication that any of these gifts have been that high.

Or not, as already evidenced. You don't have to declare cash gifts. You have to declare if your savings go over 6k and then 16k. So if the cash gift takes you over that, you need to inform UC.

If the child maintenance is disregarded it shouldn't effect your claim or get you into trouble, but you need to declare everything.

It's to protect the child from fathers who only pay when they feel like it. It was changed for good reason.

You do not need to declare income that you receive from a family member as long as it doesn't take you over the 6k savings. Cash gifts are allowed - there have been times in the past that I was struggling very badly when I was running a home on 317 pounds a month and the dwp had zero issues when my mum gave me some money to help out

You have not committed fraud, disregard the people telling you this. If you had thousands of pounds in the accounts then yes but this isn’t the case. Child maintenance isn’t taken into consideration with UC. Just take all your statements and it will be fine.

I had to go in to show accounts recently as a large payment was put into my account to pay off my mortgage. They were so friendly and helpful.

A word of advice Google is much friendlier and informative than the woman on mumsnet.

No "they're" not, don't be silly. It's really common for people to have accounts they've forgotten to mention or didn't know they had to. When UC started asking for PayPal statements we had a big headache at work figuring out how to print them because nobody ever saw them as bank accounts to declare and there wasn't a natural way to do it!
Honestly, people must be bored making up all this cloak and dagger business. A DWP investigator is not hiding under anyone's bed!

Or don't bother wasting their time because unless it's a very quiet day, they're not going to care.

Following UC rules is no more a crime than having a few bank accounts. Many, if not most people I help with claims have at least two.

The DWP know what bank accounts you’ve got. They are able to check using agencies like Experian so they already know you have accounts you haven’t declared. I don’t think you’ll get sanctioned as if you are saying it’s just the child maintenance that goes into these accounts- then that money is disregarded in terms of UC entitlement. So it won’t effects how much you would have been entitled to unless at any point you had over £6k in savings- yes £6k now- and it starts reducing. So, take a breath. Prove where the money is coming from and that it’s child maintenance and all will come good.

Because if it was unspent it could count as capital and affect the UC award if the saving were ovwr £6,000

This really surprises me.
So if a claimant is receiving thousands in cms, that doesn't affect amount of uc?
In this case, uc claimants are getting a very good deal.

There are some people on UC who live chaotic lifestyles and have mental health issues and who haven't declared every bank account they have. The dwp aren't trying to catch people out - they are only wanting to know that someone's claim isn't fraudulent

I didn't declare an ISA around a decade ago. I didn't realise I needed to and there was hardly any money in it. I declared it and there were no problems at all

Or maybe they are just getting money they are entitled to. Money for their child. Uc is hardly a fortune - and plenty of women don't get thousands in child mainly

Does one of the accounts include the OP’s salary?

Is that your way of asking if OP has a job?

I don’t think you’ll get into trouble. But they might be a little cross that you didn’t declare it

youre not looking at jail time or whatever that poster put on you.

You do know that millions of people in work claim Uc and that in most cases earnings are reported automatically to the dwp? This is beginning to sound a bit benefit bashy tbh

I don't think they'll care much. Plenty of people make mistakes.

I don’t know if it is or not. But if you didn’t tell them about it then it is fraud.

In OP's first post: "The two bank accounts I have not declared get child maintenance paid in from my children’s dads, respectively.
I have not had any other income apart from the maintenance and some help from my dad sometimes." Didn't you read it?

This is exhausting
it is not fraud

There’s no need for anyone to come after me. I did read the entire original post. I’m not aware that it’s possible to raise three children without some kind of employment. That’s simply me being unfamiliar with the benefits system, and I was entirely reasonable to ask my question.

No, I did this, I had a mondo account I never use and two savings accounts that were offshoots of my main bank account. I went back to them with the new details and they were fine. I was also worried about child maintenance but they disregarded that.

Oh dear God, not another one! 🙄Child maintenance payments are disregarded as income when calculating UC entitlement, as are small, infrequent gifts from family, and OP has not committed fraud! She has received the UC she's entitled to.

No. It is not fraud not to tell the dwp about other bank accounts. As I said previously there are many people who live chaotic lifestyles and have mental health issues who haven't declared all their bank accounts. It is only fraud if you have a significant amount of savings that the dwp don't know about

If someone has less than 6k savings they are completely fine