UC savings

[Montea]

If I have more than 6k credit built up on my energy account does that count as savings

Missing point of threadbut how in the hell did you manage that😮

I haven’t, but I want to know if I can do that on universal credit or if it counts as savings

I imagine they'd see it as a deliberate deprivation of assets

assuming your energy bills are nowhere near £6k per year then I assume it would be a way to ‘hide’ savings as it’s not in your bank account or savings account. However, the money effectively belongs to you as you could ask the energy company for a refund at any time.

You can have 6k savings and be fine so it wouldn't matter.
I dont know if the energy company would let you have that much credit and still pay so they may suspend your payments so your usage can eat into the accrued amount.

It's a random question I can only guess you want to hide 6k in your energy account. It's bizarre when you're allowed 6k and then every 250 above this means your UC is docked by about 4 quid.
This may well be seen as deprivation of assets as it doesn't make any sense to do it. Why help the energy company earn Interest when you can yourself.

Why do you want to defraud UC?

As pp has mentioned I imagine the energy company would stop taking payments. I have £250 credit with my energy company and they reduced my monthly payment as I am going to build more credit than I need to cover the expensive winter months.

How did you manage to accrue £6k in credit? You must have been overpaying by a huge amount!

Yes, purposefully, to defraud UC 🤷‍♀️

Sorry, I just got that this is hypothetical.

I guess you could get away with it as UC don't check what is in your energy accounts.
But when you try to access that money and it goes in your bank account then they will know then, and you will have to declare it if over £6k.
Your energy company will probably stop taking payments from if you are in a large amount of credit anyway (happened to me for a while) so I doubt you could ever be £k in credit.

The energy company would stop taking payments, or mine refund it once a year if it’s too high.

I’m not sure it is hypothetical .. more OP’s way of trying to find out if she’ll get found out, and a way to play the system.

I want to know if it’s allowed or not under universal credit rules but looks like it isn’t possible anyway

Why would you be on UC if you can rack up £6k of credit?

UC credit, often requests the last 4 months bank statements and if they see a 6k payment going into your energy account they will question it and in turn more than likely investigate you and request a years bank statements with an investigation

If you have more then 16K you cant claim UC
If you have between 6k and 16k you can but for every £250 over 6k they will take off £4.50 from your UC

If the money you have has been from benefit backdating or a house sale or things like that, there are slightly different rules

I had my Dd reduced by £40 a month I was no where near £1,000 in credit so not sure how it would happen

Perhaps op is bored and wants to rattle a few cages/start a bunfight/goad a few people out of their Sunday lethargy??

I wouldn’t do it if it isn’t allowed
its wiser to ask before doing something like this just in case, and it isn’t possible anyway

I don’t understand how you thought it wasn’t allowed? Or do you mean you wouldn’t do it if you thought you’d be caught?

I still just wonder why you want to defraud the benefits system 🤷‍♀️

I don’t. If it comes under fraud then I wouldn’t. Which is why I was asking

It is an interesting question, for sure.
But yep, no energy company would let you accrue so much credit anyway. And when they do, they would want you to use it rather than refund. Is just a really clunky and ineffective way of hiding savings.

UC don't check your energy accounts. Is enough they check bank accounts and Paypal without going into that too.

What would be the point?

To hide savings from UC…

But it’s not savings if it’s in your energy account? Or can you top up and withdraw that as you wish?