When claiming benefits (wtc etc) after redundancy do they query what happened to redundancy money?

[nymphadora]

As in if you use some to take a chunk off the morgage ?

Not in this position (yet) and hopefully won't be but it came up in conversation

yes I believe so - if they deem that you've deprived yourself of capital they can limit your benefits.

Well of course!!

They will expect you to duiker yourselves with it whilst job hunting. You might not need benefits if you get a job quickly

Paying off your mortgage or part of it knowing you ate on this position could be fraud!!

They didn't ask me at all. However by the time a actually needed to claim it was several months post redundancy.

You can't make a claim for Job Seelers anyway if you have over a certain amount in savings (can't remember what the figure is TBH).

Fingers crossed you won't have to worry though!

Is TC savings limit still 16k? I would expect to live quite a while on that much.

Neither of us are entitled to job seekers whilst the other works anyway.

oh i wondered this also, redundancy isnt taxable though is it so when you do your year end annual review thing you wouldnt put on your £5000 redundancy. I was hoping to take us to florida with my 5k but until get clarification best not!

the limit for savings is 16k, but anything after 5 or 6 thousand becomes means tested. After the upper limit you are not entitled to anything

seriously i would pay my car off to lessenmy outgongs before i get slated for plannign my florida trip

That's what I was thinking, chunk off morgage would reduce monthly payments.

I didn't realise they means tested TC for people with savings. Seems fairer. I never had savings when I was claiming.

Contributions based job seekers allowance, which you can claim for the 1st 6 months' unemployment is not dependent on any savings.

The amount of savings you have only becomes an issue once you go beyond 6 months and go onto Income based job seeker's allowance and also if you want to claim housing benefit.

Yes they will. When I needed to claim HB 3 years after selling my house I had to prove where the money had gone!

Luckily,my Mum and Dad had kept a record of what they had lent me for repairs etc when I was in the old house so I could prove I'd had to pay them back. I also had copies of bills that I'd paid off, and they were okay that some of it had paid loans on my car and a credit card bill. I'm not sure how they would view paying off a chunk of the mortgage.

TBH it took so long and was so much hassle that if I'd had any alternative then I wouldnt have continued the claim.

Having said that, tax credits have never queried any of this though. I have ticked that I have no savings and they have never asked for proof of where the proceeds of my house went.

I have a small self employed income £4k per annum in a good year say so i wouldnt be able to get job seekers anyway even though i would be seeking a job would i?

Actually found this which suggests that only the statutory redundancy pay counts as capital: anything above that does not (I'd have thought it was the other way around ).

So if your employer were to offer monre than the statutory minimum, you could, in theory, use the excess to pay of some of your mortgage/take that holiday to Florida*

*Delete as appropriate.

For the purposes of JSA and most other taxable benefits Redindancy is not taken into consideration, it's called 'dis-regarded capital'

Hmmm this has made interesting reading thanks nymohadora for starting this. Hopefully i wont come to this either but 18 yrs in Local Govt dodging endless reviews im feeling this time i might not make it...

I have no savings so thats not a worry !

No consistency at all, I wasn't even asked when we applied for HB (mind you they do address everything just to DP, so I think I don't exist as far as they are concerned, so old fashioned! just as well because though I don't keep any old paperwork!)

The OP taks about WTC,you have to be working to get this but my understanding is capital is disregarded for this

hi,not sure if this is totally relevant to you op as circumstances slightly different anyway

i was on Income Support,ctc, etc as a single parent with 3 DC's,anyway i was paying towards my home morgage and endownment,anyway my ex partner died and that resulted in the endowment paying out £40,000 to me which then took me over the income support threshold hugeley

anyway i spoke to them DWP and cut along story short they let me clear morgage which was £29,000 which left me with 11,000 cash,so they also let me pay of credit card debt £3,000 a few other debts which then bought it down,they stopped my claim as soon as the cheque was cashed but once they had all receipts my benefit was re-enstated

I cant praise the DWP high enough and were very helpful and generous as to what i could pay of and still keep my entitlememt

some people say if you pay debts of they will treat it as you have deprieved yourself,but i found as long as they were reasonable and hadnt been created just to gain benefit they were very helpful

hope this helps

Income support, jsa and HB will have a capital limit. You are allowed to pay off your mortgage, it's not fraud. WTC and CTC does not have a capital limit, you need to declare interest over £300 as income.

AFAIK redundancy payments are not earned income, not taxable and wouldn't be taken into account as capital. You need to check all this as I might be remembering incorrectly.

theywillgrowup v interesting thanks, logic from the DWP who would believe it!

yeah they suprised me to,good luck with everything