benefits

[onemumchris]

I am a 67 year old pensioner, I am in receipt of SPand guarenteed PC, I own my home, mortgage free. Due to my disabilities I have sold my house Subject to contract, and have bought a shared ownership bungalow, the share is 10% the price for this is £66.500.00, I will need to get the property modernised, bathroom into wetroom, kitchen completely gutted new boiler radiators,new electrics through out and the garden made disability access. I do not know what the cost of all this work be, but it is needed. My house has sold for £175.000.00, I owe £37.000.00 on equity release which my late partner and I had to take out as he was very ill with cancer and was unable to work, we needed to pay off debts and the remaining mortgage on the home. There will be the legal fees for the sale and the purchase as yet I have not had the bill for this. I do not know what will be left after all bills have been paid in my bank. In my will my children would be the benefit from the sale of the house but due to me using the money to buy the bungalow, I thought I would put £10.000.00 in trust for them (2) £20.000.00 in total, I feel guilty as they would have had an awful lot more. My question is what is the amount of money I can have in the bank before I will lose my benefits.

I don't think it's just a case of knowing how much you can hold without affecting benefits.

In any case, I think that £6K+ affects them on a sliding scale up to £16K where you lose them. But I don't know if that applies to pension age benefits.

I think you need to consider "deprivation of assets". You can definitely give money to your kids. But I think there are rules about giving away money / assets where it looks like you're doing it just to be able to carry on claiming benefits.

I understand why people do it, and of course I'd work the system within the law myself. But it isn't right to give your money to your kids and then expect the state to pick up your costs. Which is why there are rules about it.

Can you get an appointment at CAB for a start, to go over a benefits check?

For pensioners £10000 is the limit under which no deductions are made for Pension Credit. If you give £20 000 to your children, they will see that as deprivation of capital and add the 20000 back on to your capital to calculate your Guaranteed Credit, so you may end up losing all benefits

If you are in an assessed income period (pension credit award lasts 5 years or more) you don't need to report changes in your savings or income and your benefits won't be affected, and the usual capital/deprivation rules won't apply. Your PC award letter will tell you if you are in an assessed income period. Get advice from Age UK first before giving any money away though, they can often make home visits.

I think the usual rule is as somebody else has said £6K up to £16K where Pension Credit stops. But if you're in the five year fixed period then it shouldn't change. I know somebody's mother this happened to. She'd got more income but they weren't interested as the PC had been fixed for five years. You certainly can't give away money to any relative. That will be seen as deprivation of assets.