UC with savings

[Icmdiba]

I’ve realised I might be entitled to universal credit. We do have savings above £6k but below 16k.

Do the govt check your monthly savings balance in the same way they check your income? We have some big expenses coming up so I don’t know whether to wait until they’ve gone out of our account before applying.

thanks

You are expected to report changes in savings and then the amount that is deducted for savings over 6k depends on the amount reported at the end of your monthly assessment period. You can spend savings on essential items or reasonably replacing items. However if they think you have spent them on unnecessary stuff or given them away in order to claim more benefits they can treat you as if you still have those savings under the deprivation of capital rules. Sometimes they will send a journal message on your to do list asking you to report savings every few months, but if they are changing on a monthly basis then it's best to report the changes. Hope that makes sense. I guess in theory even if you wait to claim until your savings has dropped below 6k they can query where money has gone but not sure how they would know. It really depends what the savings have been spent on.

Thanks. Most of our savings are just in our current accounts so they go up a bit if we earn more or down a bit if we don’t. I know this isn’t very savvy!!

Maybe we’d do better to put a chunk into a savings account and leave a small amount in our current account?