UC and house equity

[SeemsPointless]

Hi all,

We're about to sell our house (hopefully) and we'll have some equity once the mortgage is paid, around £50k.

I've posted in here before, we're moving to a property which has been split to provide an annexe for DM and stepdad.

Because the house has been split, we won't have a kitchen or an accessible bathroom for DC (who are disabled and still in nappies at age 13) so we'll need to spend all of the equity on making it properly habitable. There is no flooring, just concrete, and bare plaster on the walls, no electrics, and no lighting.

I asked UC via my journal what happens as I'd heard they could disregard capital from a house sale for 6 months. They've replied to say that it's not automatic and they will have to send me a form, book an appointment to review the evidence, and then send everything off to the "decision makers". It sounds very time-consuming - and during this time presumably I won't be getting paid?

I've had to already ask for something to be reviewed by the decision makers, and I'm still waiting for a reply two months later.

My issue is that I need to budget very carefully on the work to get as much done as possible. If I had moved into a "finished" house the £50k would have been spent on the purchase price so I'm not gaining any financial advantage. We've done this so I can more easily provide care to my DM (who has cerebral palsy). Stepdad has - in the last 2 wks - been diagnosed with bladder cancer, so I'm now supporting him too. He's having a really bad time of things so they're both in desperate need of me being there.

If UC refuse to disregard the capital, it will affect what we can afford to do. I'm self employed, DP is waiting to see a neurologist at the hospital and not very well at all unfortunately. He's totally unable to work. We're utterly reliant on UC to get by. If they refuse to set aside the equity, we'd have to use it to pay for living costs and won't be able to afford to do all the essential renovations. We won't get everything done for £50k anyway.

The trouble is that in my experience so far, UC decision makers move at the speed of a slug, and the decisions aren't always particularly reasonable.

Has anyone asked UC to set aside their house equity for six months while they renovate? If so, how long did it take to get a decision - and did they agree?

Thanks for reading - sorry, I can't work out how to condense my post and still say everything necessary!

It's not really a matter of setting equity aside, it's more that as soon as you have more then 16k in savings your Uc would stop. It can be disregarded if you are putting it into another property , for example if you sold a house and had to go into rented for a while whilst waiting for another property sale to go through, but this really is a different situation. To be honest i don't think it's something you can get an answer to quickly. I think the only thing to do is to report when you have over 16k savings, then get the work done as quickly as possible then claim again once it drops below 16k and when they ask where the capital has gone you will need to set out your case that it was spent reasonably on adaptions and hope they accept it. I appreciate it's a really difficult situation and potentially risky but I don't see any way around it.

Thanks so much for reading and replying @Babyroobs.

I haven't got the precise wording in front of me, but the UC rules say that the equity from the sale of your home can be ignored for six months if you need to use it to renovate your new home.

If I hadn't bought a doer-upper and had bought a 3-bed bog standard house with a kitchen/bathroom I'd have needed to spend that £50k - and some more - on the purchase. In my area, I'd need around £100k on top of my sale price to get a 3-bed. I need a 3-bed as I've got two teens, a DD and a DS. So by doing what I have, I'm actually spending less - and also providing both day and night care to both my DM and stepdad.

I'm working as much as I can to reduce the UC we have to claim but I can't earn enough to keep up afloat without claiming.

It just seems really unfair that if I bought a "finished" property then the £50k would be disregarded, but as I've bought a shell and need to put in a kitchen, bathroom and basics like flooring, then it might not be set aside...and I've got to wait to find out which means I could commit to spending money that I can't afford. I'm not gaining anything financially from this. It's the same outcome. We've had to do it this way as there were no houses available that had a 3-bed main house and an annexe ready.

I've got a great builder lined up and waiting to get started - I've got everything ready so the minute the money comes through, we can immediately launch into the work. It really won't be much fun living there without these essentials - or while the work is being done, so we're all primed to get going! I just need to make sure we can pay our bills and put food on the table - and to do that I need to know if UC will pay me. I can't commit to work and then wait 2-3 months for UC to decide whether they're going to carry on paying me or not. By the time I've spent the money on building work it will be too late to change my mind if I'm not getting UC!

If they say no money from UC then I would have options such as not paying to put in a kitchen. I could get by with just some second-hand cupboards, a sink and a cooker. Obviously I would prefer to have a proper kitchen and it's hardly a luxury! But there are ways of not spending as much if they say they won't set the equity aside. What I was going to use on putting in a kitchen (for example) I'll have to use on paying for bills, buying food etc for the 4-6 months that the building work will take.

It feels like I should have just said bollocks to it, and just bought a regular house and left Mum and stepdad to rely on the state for their care. I've got so much on my shoulders, this isn't an easy life and it's all on me, and it just feels that UC is being made unnecessarily difficult too. I've never claimed until now and I really bloody wish I didn't have to.

Sorry for the rant! Am just exhausted and fed up!

No experience but id have a copy of the builders quote, complete with information on providing an adapted bathroom for your child etc to send with any application. I'd be a squeaky wheel too - can you get a face to face meeting with decision maker etc.

I think there's also grants available to adapt a home, though it sounds like it will be too slow a process for your needs. Might ease some stress if it's possible?

Are your parents not putting any money into the home ? Presumably they, if both unwell have pensions and disability benefits coming in to help you out in the worst case scenario that you don't get help. Will they be paying you any rent also to live there?

Sorry I didn't mean this post to sound like I was dismissing the issues you face, just that if you have moved partly to assist them, they now have no housing costs themselves, you are mortgage free by the sounds of it and potentially still have quite a bit of money coming into the household. Did they sell their house or were they previously renting- either way they now have no rent so should be contributing to help you out short term at least.

I would also focus on maximising non means tested benefits so that if Uc isn't awarded , you still have those. So if your dh has worked over the past few years but now can't due to ill health has he made claim for new style ( contributions based ) ESA ? Would dh qualify for PIP ? if your self employed earnings are less than £139 a week can you claim carers allowance for looking after your mum or your disabled child ? All these benefits are non means tested and would not be affected by the 50k equity.