UC want all my money back…

[MapleHazelLatte]

I applied for UC when I separated from DC’s father 3 years ago. I have since been living with my parents and he stayed in the house we bought together. I’ve been asking him to take my name of the mortgage to give me my share but he just has been dragging his heels about it. I applied for UC when we split up.

i then got a notification to say I was having a review phone call. Apparently someone had accused me of still being with DC’s father. I had to send all my bank statements for the last 3 years and fill out forms regarding the house. Originally I vaguely remember they did say they would disregard the house for 6 months then I heard no more.

a couple of months later I was told I had been overpaid but it was only slightly and a manageable amount to pay back.

I’ve not got another letter saying I shouldn’t have got UC since 2022 and they want ALL the money back other than the first 6 months. It’s “disallowed” I’ve worked this out to be around £30k. I have no idea what I’m going to do. Anyone else been in this situation ??

I think you can be give more than six months if you can prove that you are doing everything you can to get the house sold but you can't just do nothing, keep your expensive asset, and claim UC.

She cant implicate her parents, they are nothing to do with her uc claim. Op works two days a week and cant afford to repay 30k why an earth do you think she has savings? Shes obviously on her arse struggling.

Regarding this part, your legal share in the house does not depend on the financial contributions you made. It depends on how you and your ex agreed to share ownership of it when you bought it. That's why I asked the questions I asked in my previous post.

If your ex is mistaken, or trying to pull the wool over your eyes, you may be entitled to half the house, in which case he is better off agreeing to sell it now so you can get your half of the equity and the two of you will no longer be financially linked. He would be better off accepting this sooner rather than later because if you do own half the house, you will still own half the house whenever it comes to be sold, when it might have appreciated in value. If he doesn't want to be paying 100% of the mortgage on a property you own half of, he needs to buy you out at a fair market price or sell it.

If your ex is not mistaken and your equity really is only £20k or so, you need to be able to prove this so that you can appeal the decision to make you repay the universal credit.

So either way, you need to find out exactly how much equity you are entitled to before doing anything else.

Lots of other posters, including you, were providing helpful advice.
That one opened with 'But can you see why having such an asset would mean that you shouldn't have access to benefits like UC?'
They were making an ethical argument- (see the word 'shouldn't') which I strongly disagreed with. By 'I cant help you' I meant I can't help them see the world beyond the end of their own nose.

Threads like this always bifurcate into practical advice for the OP and a wider (but relevant) discussion. See pretty much any post involving a dilemma.

@CoreyFlood totally agree and perfect example of a relevant ethical argument....

OP good luck- you've had good advice, you've told the truth and even if you do have to pay it back you can do so very slowly.

Its not owning a house that's the problem, you are allowed to own a house no matter how expensive on UC however you have to live in it yourself or your child does. The issue is owning a property that you don't require to house yourself. That is seen as an asset and removes your entitlement to UC.

You may not have paid towards the mortgage but as you are not married you are entitled to the percentage according to percentages owned, if nothing specified you are entitled to 50% of the equity at the point the house is sold or transferred into single ownership. He's losing money every day he stalls unless house prices start dropping which is unlikely. It may be worth pointing out the longer he delays the more it will cost him.

It’s your house too. You don’t need his permission. Ring three estate agents now and meet them at the house on Monday. Pictures taken by end of next week and it can be on the market first week of October. Get cracking and start paying it back.

How does that work if the ex partner is refusing the sale? That can drag out for years

Thats presuming he agrees to it. No estate agent is going to agree to sell a house whilst the occupant is actively refusing them access, for starters it would completely waste their clients time as they won't be able to even get an offer accepted or anything proceeding without a lengthy process to get a court order.

If you had sold the house and then not been eligible for UC you would have spent that 16k quite quickly though. It doesn't seem fair to expect you to pay more than the 16k because once that had been spent you would have been eligible again. Agree your ex needs to buy you out ASAP though. Or you could consider bankruptcy. The CAB would be a good place to get some advice.

You need legal advice.

This is more complex than most users of a parenting forum could begin to comprehend.
If you go to court with these people they walk in with a textbook the size of the entire works of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens added together that they will use against you that unless you have a lawyer you will never even see the criteria

Bankruptcy will not wipe out any government debts such as this. The only thing you could do is take out a load of credit cards to pay the universal credit people off with and then default on the credit cards and then you will never be able to borrow money from that establishment again so if it’s somewhere like the bank of Scotland that rules out an enormous amount of the lending market

DWP are reviewing all claimants to UC as, during lock down, in order to cope with the huge influx of new claims that occurred on the first day of lock down and subsequent weeks, they suspended all the usual checks and just paid people based on what they told DWP. Obviously this resulted in a large number of fraudulent claims. They've recruited staff to review all claims, asking for bank statements, ID checks etc. So, as you say, since you weren't interviewed under caution, you haven't been accused of fraud.

As PP have said, get yourself an appointment with CAB ASAP, take a device that you can access your UC claim on, any letters or other evidence with you. You will be able to negotiate a payment plan with DWP and CAB will be able to help you with this.

Good luck, and as PP have said, don't panic, no bailiffs are going to turn up on your door as long as you are talking to DWP.

The reality is that if this was allowed, lots if middle classed parents who split would keep the house in play for comfort and inheritance reasons. Yes it will mean that some people like the OP end up in tough situations, but that is because of the people who always seek a loophole to get what they think they deserve.

If I didnt see past the end of my nose, I'd think it was totally wrong for the OP to be in this situation because personally I know more people hurt by it than not. However I also know a lot of people who try anything to fix their situations to gain as much as possible and in my world, it is never the poorest people who do this. It's the ones who have things but want more. They'd definitely use this loophole if it existed.

I think part of the issue is for 3 years OP hasn’t really taken any real steps to either force the sale or get ex to pay her her equity. So it looks as though she’s happy for her ‘investment’ to be growing and gaining more money whilst she’s collecting UC

She needs to asap contact a solicitor to start divorce proceedings and sort out how much she has in the house and to get it out. And the pay back all the UC she has received that she wasn’t entitled to.

You could look at it as if a landlord owns a property and the rent covers their mortgage - yes they’re not getting income but eventually they’ll own a property worth a lot of money. I’m assuming OP’s ex is paying the mortgage for her, so essentially this is what’s happening

The first thing you need to work full time. You will be entitled to 30 hours childcare, so costs of childcare isn’t a barrier. Presumably you also receive child maintenance and child benefit on top of your salary?

I think the OP, who has not claimed any abuse, needs to do some adulting here. She had two options. One is to agree a settlement with her ex to sell the property or get him to buy her out. The other is to apply for an occupation order to live in the property.

The OP and her ex need to deal with their situation like grown ups. This is basic adulting and the state shouldn’t have to step in to adult for them.

I'd ask for an appointed chat through the journal. If they want paying back, you could offer a pound a week. I'd contact a solicitor to get some money and your name removed from the deeds. Perhaps the house sale money could be given to your mum to look after, you could say you repaid a debt you owed her. So it doesn't affect your UC claim, also they don't ask for it towards the debt.

But you’re living in your house - OP isn’t.

Please don't encourage the OP to lie to DWP - that will not end well.

You'll be receiving the same allowance as everyone else on it - 400 a month personal allowance and
"For your first child (born before 6 April 2017) £339
For your first child (born on or after 6 April 2017) £292.81
For your second child and any other eligible children £292.81 per child"

So around £1000 with 2 children. You must be earning quite a lot per month to only be getting 100 with renting costs included as you have to earn £400 + nearly double your UC allowance to get nothing, so not sure why you're jealous of someone living off £1k a month squashed in with their parents.

It’s been 3 years - a sale could have been forced through in that time, but the OP hasn’t done anything to put the wheels in motion.

Is that 30k in 3 years?

No wonder everyone is flocking to the UK!

Thing is she hasn’t done everything she can. She’s kind of just left it - not even taken legal advice……..for over 3 years. I don’t think they’d look particularly well on this - especially as they did tell her 6 months of disregarding

But she’s working too - 2 days a week but not necessarily NMW. We don’t know how much she earns so can’t comment.

And if living with parents she’s not paying rent/council tax/gas/home insurance etc. So £1k plus wages for 3 people and no bills is quite nice

My ex was dragging his feet in buying me out, so once I was in a position to buy him out, I told him that’s what I was going to do. It’s amazing how quickly he managed to remortgage in order to pay me what I was owed.

If there is little equity in the house then it’s likely the OPs ex could extend the mortgage to pay her off - the house might not need to be sold.