UC - savings and jewellery

[Adele38]

Hi please can anyone advise whether buying jewellery would be seen as Deprivation of capital?

From what I understand the person upthread who questioned how long before you are likely to claim again is correct.

There will be questions as to whether you think that your situation is likely to change in the future and whether you would likely expect to use that £2K to live on - so if you are likely to start working and not expect to be using your capital for supporting yourself, then yes, you probably could get away with buying it, however I certainly wouldnt do it the moment your case is closed down.

If however you have a long term condition / situation which means that you are going to support yourself on your savings, and then put in a new claim when they are down to £16K, then its a risk, as they are likely to question why you spent it, knowing you would need to claim again.

Without knowing your situation it would be really hard to say.

So you are buying it to stay under the 16k limit then ?

No you’ve mis understood.
over 16k and even with buying it would still be over 16k .

And this is why the country's in the state it's in.

If you'll still have over 16k after they won't take any notice as you won't be eligible after your migration year anyway

The issue would be if you try and reclaim after your savings have dropped.

Why have you been claiming for the past year? I get you're technically allowed but I can't imagine sitting on morr than £18k and thinking 'hmm let's claim Univerak credit'. It's poor morals.

Yes, they can ask to see bank statements. So too can local authorities relating to housing costs, discretionary housing payments and many housing associations will ask to see them too, to prove affordability or to deny help.

This might help
https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit-reviews

The regulations say that two things are not deprivation. One is paying down debt and the other is purchasing goods or services that are reasonable in your circumstances.

If you have £30k in capital now, spend £2k in jewellery leaving £28k and then reclaim in 2027 when you drop below £16k I'd be amazed if it was seen as anything other than reasonable in the circumstances.

She is perfectly entitled to claim, that is why the transitional protection is in place. You'd be very surprised at how many people are in this situation.

It depends on when you’d be planning on starting to claim again, and depends on really what is seen to be reasonable- and that’s subjective.

Spending £2k on jewellery to deplete the savings you need to life off, before starting to claim again, doesn’t look great. If you need to claim UC, you don’t also need £2000 jewellery.

The it wouldn't matter

It's perfectly straightforward. Tax Credits which, for rerasons I cannot fathom, had no capital limit are being abolished.

People who got them are offered 'managed migration' to the replacement, Universal Credit (UC). UC does have a capital limit - £16k - but, same as for other people who would otherwise lose out there is a transitional protection for people with capital. They can get UC for 12 months and retain the higher capital though there are some extra conditions.

I didn't say she wasn't. But you have to actively opt in and claim it, as opposed to opt out which might be more understandable.

As I said, poor morals.

Tax credits were far too lenient. Many are renting out second homes and claiming benefits.

I’ll say.

I recently spoke to somebody who had £356,000 in savings (not a typo… 3 hundred and fifty six thousand) and was still entitled to UC due to transitional protection.

I don't get why they can get the protection with that.

'kin ell

Got to say I think you are lying and are trying to be able to carry on claiming after that protection ends. Let's just say that they (UC) won't be impressed.

I am sure I read the same thing a month or two ago.

I don't get that they could have claimed tax credits with that either! Are you sure you weren't being wound up @thisfilmisboring123?

God knows, assume to give people time to adjust considering they had no choice but to move.

Tax credits were a fucking joke, multiple properties allowed, unlimited savings and a working limit of 16 hours!
What a way to get people back to work. Madness

Don't they just have to declare the interest on those savings when on TC?

I don't remember anything about being allowed unlimited savings when I claimed years ago! I always thought 16K was the ceiling?

No, unfortunately not. Saw it with my own eyes.
No limit on savings at all with tax credits.

They’ve been forced to move over to UC so will only be eligible for 12 months whilst they have transitional protection.

Yes, given you are depriving yourself of capital in order to remain eligible... If you have 16k of savings you shouldn't need UC. Why should the taxpayer pay?