Financial gift from family-will it affect my benefits?

[CrabbitArse]

My grandparents announced they want to give me and my cousins a gift of £5000 each. I'm a single parent in receipt of several benefits - income support, housing benefit, council tax benefit, child tax credits & child benefit. If I accept their incredibly kind offer will my benefits be affected? I'd love to put it in the bank for my baby but am wary of the consequences.

Please help

I think you need to have savings of £16k before it is taken into account, but if you're concerned why not get them to put it into an account in DD's name that she can access when she's 18?

Ideally that's what I'd like to do, but I had a benefit review last month and was asked if the baby had a bank account & how much money was in it. This led me to believe they would take that into consideration with regards to my benefits.

I think it depends if the money is accessible to you - if it's in an account that can't be accessed until your child is 18, then it won't be taken into account. If it's a standard children's savings account, then it will. £5,000 shouldn't affect your benefits though, unless you've already got some savings which would take it over the threshold.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/307505/a1_print.pdf

Under £6k you're ok.