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Universal Credit account closed?

1 reply

Lilypad15 · 12/02/2019 14:24

We’ve been receiving UC since this time last year. My wages from my two jobs never change but my partner’s do. Most months he works his regular 40 hours but now and again he gets the chance to do overtime and when he does, we tend not to get very much in terms of UC which is fine because obviously that’s the whole point of UC. Anyway, I went to go and check our account today and I can’t access it. It says that between the last pay period, we earned too much to receive any UC this month so they’ve closed our claim. There’s an option to reapply.

I’m just a bit confused why this is the solution to earning more one month? My partner just happened to be able to get a bit of extra overtime last month so I didn’t expect much in the way of UC payments this month anyway but why close the entire claim based on one month? Most other months we are eligible. Do they expect you to reapply every time? I wouldn’t bother reapplying if I didn’t know that on the months where my partner can’t get overtime, we need the help.

Has anyone else had this happen? We’ve had no letters, no warning, nothing at all. I wouldn’t even know had I not gone onto our account. I just found it weird that they completely closed the claim down just because one month out of all the other months we’ve been on UC, we earned “too much” :/

OP posts:
beefive · 12/02/2019 14:42

Yep has happened to me! On my dh and my basic salary (I work 8 hours a week) we qualify for a bit of UC to help us through.
Over Christmas I did a couple of days over time so maybe 16 hours a week on average and the account got closed!
I wasn't expecting payment, but thought as money fluctuates when it gets down to basic hours again I will have to apply again.

Very very annoying, and I am sure it's another way of cutting down benefits to people as they probably think the ones who don't really need it won't bother to apply again.

I feel sorry for the poor people who have trouble accessing the internet or vulnerable elderly people maybe who will just take it at face value and not re apply.

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