Universal credit review?

[LCxox]

Hi everyone, I have a universal credit review coming up and I’d never heard of this before until I googled and seen loads of threads about people being anxious, just like me haha!

I have to provide 4 months worth of bank statements, my I.D etc and I just have a few questions if I may and if you’re able to answer then please do! Just for reference, me and my child’s dad aren’t together, for my own personal reasons he has only ever had our child 1 time over night, that was recently and I can’t imagine it will happen again until he’s in a better place. So our child is in my care 24/7, even when he see’s our child it’s around me or I’m around in the park etc.

My passport is out of date, is that okay?
Do I have to provide credit card statements?
My child’s ISA account? (£250 paid in by grandparents at £25 per month)
Vinted account? (I have made £9 but I haven’t declared it, I didn’t know it was a thing until googling is this okay or will I be in trouble?)
Paypal? (It’s linked to my bank account, balance is £0.00)
I pay my mom monthly for my phone contract, will this be okay? (I have bad credit and couldn’t get a phone contract)

Also my mom sends me money occasionally to buy my child a gift off Amazon, if they are poorly, when they were potty training, Easter etc. Or to pay for me to have a haircut or get my nails done. Will this be okay? She hasn’t referenced the transactions, it’s just “money”. Will this count as income? I don’t understand what income is classed at, as I’m reading all different things online.

Also, I have borrowed money in dribs and drabs off my child’s dad over the years but especially since November 2024 time (lead up to Christmas) for shopping, my vacuum broke, car parts, our child needed new clothing etc, I had to buy a bridesmaids dress for my best friends wedding - he has always said I don’t need to repay the money and because I have our child 24/7 it’s the least he could do, but I always do if and when I can as I don’t want it being held against me at a later date. Would this be classified as income? I am so confused and keep reading conflicting things online! He pays me child maintenance as and when he can (he's always starting and leaving jobs) so it can be £250 a month - £1500 a month if he has a job etc.

Another thing, my grandparents gifted me £2,000 in December / January and £2,000 in March / April. The £2,000 in December / January was to help ease the cost of Christmas as I do have a horrible habit of overspending and miscalculating my finances and the recent £2,000 in March / April was for my 30th birthday. I don’t need to repay neither of these, as they were a gift. Should I have declared these? My statement for April shown over £6000 but by the end of my statement it was like £16000. I never once had over £6000 in my bank as a solid number if that makes sense? It’s just worked that way on my start and end balance, incoming and outgoings etc.
I got paid UC twice within this bank statement (every 4 weeks), plus the £2,000 off my grandparents and over the course of the month I sent my child’s dad money as I had it available and he had finally started a new job after living off a loan he took out and needed help and I offered in hopes that he would finally gain some stability in his life (he smokes weed, drinks, just mixes with the wrong crowds hence the no alone contact, apart from one time) and would be more reliable for our child going forward. He has come and gone with jobs, employed and then unemployed, he has repaid me back £1,000 of the money I borrowed him, this does calculate on bank statements that I have borrowed him a sum and he’s repaid half. He needed the money to get straight with things, pay for diesel (it’s a driving job and wasnt issued a fuel card yet), work clothes etc. The repayment was part of the same bank statement but now after looking online and seeing all these people say about hiding money I’m worried sick but he repaid me half the money. The bank statements just reference “owed to you”. I never thought to make amendments / get him to make amendments to what’s child maintenance and what’s the repayment and looking at my bank statements sometimes he will just bulk them together, because I know at the time what monies what and now looking back I can’t work it out apart from a few recent ones.

My statements look a right mess, I never check my statements as I just check daily what’s coming in and out and obviously hadn’t heard of the reviewing process, so I’ve never really paid much thought, which I now regret because I can’t remember what a few small payments were for, will this matter? I’m talking about £3 for something in a shop, a £10 spend in another shop, I can’t remember what I bought…? I can barely remember what I had for dinner, let alone what I spent £10 on in January.

Sorry for the long post, I’m sick of googling now and getting myself all worked up when everything is explainable, I’m just nervous as my statements are a mess and I can hardly make sense of them myself when it’s my money, let alone a total stranger trying to make sense of them. I’ll be sure to keep track of my spending habits now as they are disgustingly bad. If I have made a mistake along the way I’m sure they will let me know, but it’s like waiting for a job interview.

Any advice on anyone who’s had a review would be appreciated. Thank you xx

Are you saying you an partner claim as a couple but live apart?

Just send them what they asked for. Out of date passport unlikely to be an issue, if it is ask them what else will do.

I don't think anything you mention about your incomings/outgoings are an issue. They're looking for large scale rule breaking - eg big time black economy work - or evidence of capital over the limits. Gifts from parents shouldn't be an issue either.

And get off the Googling. Nobody posts on forums to say how easy a UC review was!!!!

They are more interested in money coming in than small outgoings. So they are looking for fraudulent activity like undeclared work or savings. It would be best if your ex gives you money for it to referenced on bank statements as child maintainence as this is disregarded for UC. You would just need to explain the big gifts from family if asked about them.

Anything coming into your account is income. They do take things off like regular child maintenance and DLA. When I had mine done last year they mostly cared about at how much money I had in total over the 4 months and if I went over any threshold. So they will care about the money your grandparents have given you I'm afraid.

You have to show them everything, so every debit and savings account statement. ISAs you have access to (so your child's is safe if you can't access it), NS&I, PayPal, help to save schemes, everything. I was over the £6k threshold when I had my review...which was my fault for not declaring it but my money goes up and down over and under that threshold on a regular basis, like you're saying, and I didn't understand when to tell what.

Anyway, I ended up having to give them 4 years worth of statements on every account I ever had in that 4 years. Something I was unable to get easily. To hopefully reassure you, it took an entire year to sort it out for them to eventually decide I owed them a grand total of £350. It would have cost them far more than that working it all out. So it's all a little ridiculous to be honest.

NO NO NO

There are very specific terms in the Regs about both earned and non earned income. If it's not income it's capital. This means some things you'd think are income, rental from property is the obvious example, are not.

Children's money is around who has the beneficial interest and is rather more complex than the names on the account or who can access it.

I do have an ISA account for my child, it’s in their name. I’m the person who set up the account, so I presume I’m the one who has the control over the account, but I do remember when signing up to the account the rules were that no one could access the money, not myself / my child until they turned 18. There’s only £250 in the account as I only set it up last year, my grandparents pay in £25.00 a month, as her pocket money kind of thing. I only have 1 statement for this, as they only send yearly statements so I really hope they don’t ask for more statements as that will stress me out trying to figure out how I’m going to get them.

I’ll be honest I don’t understand the whole savings, incoming, capital terminology, but the only money I have coming into my account is UC, the £25 for having a child per week, money from family to help me out if I need help and money from my child’s dad, what he either owes me or child maintenance, if he owes me money he won’t often pay child maintenance. I have no savings, I do have money left over some months. Depending on how much my child’s dad gives me, it could be £25-1000. Should I be reporting each month that balance? Because I haven’t been and now I’m worried I’m going to get into trouble. But then from googling you don’t need to make them aware unless you have over £6,000 which I certainly do not (I wish I did)

So I have borrowed money to my child’s dad, which he has paid me back, does this count as income? Because it’s only money I’ve had incoming before, but just sent out to be sent back again. I’m confused 😂😩