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?

God so many people are talking shit on this thread, if you have no idea what your talking about then don’t. Your just spreading misinformation.

No it won’t. People on benefits are allowed to receive gifts. As it happens, during my review period we received £10,000 from my mother in law which we used to pay off a loan. My reviewer was completely happy about that and didn’t ask any further questions.

"I have not had any other income apart from the maintenance and some help from my dad sometimes."

It's in the OP.

Because she hasnt got savings - so is explaining that she is under the savings threshold and therefore entitled to the UC benefits

I managed to completely miss that! 😂

Thanks.

This thread 🙄

Don't worry OP. Just declare and provide what they've asked for.

People will open/close bank accounts while on UC and not declare.

@Boxedin2431

Just send in as many months' statements as they have requested, for each of the 3 accounts and put a note in your journal saying that your child maintenance is paid into the 2 accounts and then transferred into your main account for daily living expenses.

Child maintenance is completely disregarded so that's not a problem. Did you tell them about it when you made your claim?

You should have declared them. Maintenance payments don't count for calculation of UC. However, if those payments accumulate in a bank account and that takes you over the savings limit allowed then your UC will be affected. I'd say yes you have committed fraud by keeping those accounts a secret.

Yep.

Sometimes bigger amounts will be disregarded.

I claim DLA for my son and also the carers element and disabled child element of UC but this takes ages to come through and we received a back payment of about the same amount and it was disregarded because it was owed back pay.

WTF. I despair.

Receiving £10k didn’t affect the benefits you were claiming?
What a world we live in 🙄

Why?

god so there is so much shit on here it’s unreal

OP

You will be fine
when you go on UC initially they only ask about the initial bank account that you have the benefits paid into

now on your review they ask about all of them ( that’s why they do them )

so just uploads the stamtements to all the accounts for the last 4 months
they will see the transfers anyway

maintanance ftom your ex is fine
and gifts of money family / friends is also fine as long as you don’t go over 6k in a month it’s not a problem

if you are really worried go over to Reddit on the benefit sub
they are really helpful and they are actually dwp / UC staff that moderate the sub so will give you the correct info which is what I have given you

but honestly it’s really not a problem
relax and enjoy Christmas

It will only make a difference if there is undeclared income on any of them. So long as you can prove it’s only child maintenance going in and not any other regular undeclared payments or savings then you’ll be fine.

HNRTT but before you send any statements in or write any statements, it might be helpful to try to speak urgently with a Local Authority or local law centre benefits advisor so you can receive some independent advice and take stock of your situation. Be upfront with them. BTW, I'm not sure it's compelling that you spend any undeclared income every month so I wouldn't lead with this though presumably saving beyond any savings limits might be worse.

Good luck.

Doesn't sound as if there's anything that she needs to repay.

Yeah child maintenance is disregarded. Just be honest about the fact you didn't realise you had to declare that account as it was child maintenance but as you have no savings you should be fine as long as you show them everything from now on. :)

It would if one/both of them were premiership footballers paying £10k a month in……….

It’s still better to be fully transparent when making financial declarations (at least to government entities).

you declare it, they disregard it and you wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

Yes, I’m aware what this won’t help you now. But it is something to keep in mind (for future endeavours).

good luck!

Why didn’t you declare all your accounts when you started claiming? Why is one of them in your Middle name ?

If it makes you feel any better the amount you can have in savings, has never gone up with inflation from when it was set at 6k, so I'm sure it all balances itself out somehow and you have nothing to worry about :)

Best petition for the child maintenance system to be reformed then, so that women can be sure that they will actually get the money they are entitled to from their children's fathers.

And do a bit of research on what led to child maintenance being discounted from benefits calculations.

Because I cannot see how it is fair that someone who has either several children and/or several fathers of children, or an ex who earns loads and therefore is in receipt of significant maintenance should also then receive help from the state, versus someone where perhaps there are two parents not earning loads but just on the threshold where they are not able to claim from the state, and who also cannot afford to have more children as a result.
Seems incredibly unfair to me. Income is income.

Child maintance is disregarded ao you havent commited fraud. I dont understand why you failed to disclose the accounta though. It looks really weird. You now have the hassle of explaining it all to them.
It will probably turn out alright but you have certainly madw things more complicated for yourself

Exactly.

CM is discounted because far too many fathers are unreliable and don't consistently pay for their children.