Advice about Universal Credit

[Catlover19]

Hi I'm in the processing of getting divorced and have applied for UC. I received first payment in December. I'm trying to buy my husband out of the house but couldn't get a big enough mortgage so my dad had gifted me £10000 (very lucky ) to make up the short fall so hopefully me and my children can stay in the house. I've told UC about the money and why it's been put in to my account but waiting to hear back, I just want to confirm if my payments will stop till the house sale goes through and the money leaves my account. Thanks x

I went through similar. I was told, due to divorce you can hold in 3xcess of the £6k limit for 6 months if its going towards new house etc.

I declared mine, they stopped my payments. Took 3 weeks to sort, they wanted 6 months worth of statements even though the money went in on wed and gone by the Friday. Of every account I had. Mine, budget, old joint, old isa etc.

I complained (because it made me miss my mortgage payment) then they started asking for an account id never heard of, its my pennies round up account so they withheld again over £2.90.

Honestly, if dad can hold it for you I would do that. The policy says one thing, the computer system does the opposite.

Hi @Catlover19 , Savings/capital of £6k or less are ignored by UC. If your savings are currently £10K, they will reduce UC but you may still receive UC, just a lower amount (for each £250 you have above £6,000, your UC is reduced by £4.35).

If your savings are now over £16K, that will mean you're generally not currently entitled to UC and you won't be entitled for however long your savings are above £16k (capital limit is £16K). But you can sometimes have savings over £16K for 6 months (sometimes longer) and get UC through a 'capital disregard'- eg if you've just sold your home and the money is in the bank while you sort the purchase of a new home.

UC has some rules about not being allowed to deliberately deprive yourself of capital in order to get more UC, but you are allowed to spend savings to reduce debt (including mortgage debt). See H1796 (pg 64) in the UC guidance Advice for Decision Makers Chapter H1: Capital (google it).

If you're going to give the £10K to your ex to buy him out, I'm not sure if UC would see that as paying a 'debt'. Might be a good idea to see a benefits advisor in that situation.

(Using savings/capital to purchase 'goods and services' can be tricky because a UC decision maker may decide the purchase is not 'reasonable' so if you were planning on spending a big chunk of money on eg updating your furniture, again, you might want to get advice first!)