Savings in my name stopping Universal Credit despite low income

[slowingdown1]

can anyone more financially savvy than me help?
Recently divorced, ex DH pays minimum child maintenance. Have a low
income due to home working in low demand role so I can care
for 2 x disabled children. Yearly
salary is £31k before tax, I save £100 monthly into pension. I claim Scottish disability payments for both kids which go on private treatment / therapies. Each month I scrap by and have a constant low credit card debt despite my best efforts. I have savings that were gifted to me by my mum as long-term financial security of £80k. Although the money is legally in my name, I have made a firm promise to her that I will not use it, so morally I do not feel able to touch it until she is no longer with us.
My current income is low, but because these savings are in my name, they are preventing me from applying for Universal Credit as above
the threshold.
I understand I can’t eg transfer the savings into trusts for my kids as this would constitute deprivation of capital. I can’t ask my mum to eg take it back for the same reason.

Why the double exclamation marks then?
A simple statement would have been enough.

Chipping away at savings is what happens when you're in a period of needing more money than you earn.

Spending that £80k slowly on everyday expenses to make ends meet couldn't be considered a deprivation of assets, that's what you're expected to do. Who told you it would be?

Not 100% sure in all honesty , I haven’t asked, she certainly though has used it to justify why she can’t work more than 8 hours a week ( doesn’t want to) and gets a ton of child maintanance too

OP doesn’t need to share the details. In relation to UC, she has said she has severely disabled DC, which means they receive high rate care CDP. If you read her posts, her DC are clearly disabled and they have disability related expenses.

T1D absolutely is a disability as per the Equality Act. Many with T1D have additional costs.

Many with ADHD have additional costs too.

Your posts are just showing your lack of understanding about disability.

Outliers surely? Can you give examples?
As per…..this thread is turning into benefits bashing.

Where are my posts benefit bashing? Nowhere.

It isn’t every case, obviously, but it’s certainly not rare. For example, a couple over 25 with 2 DC and the full childcare element with £5k earnings per month.

Standard element £666.97
Child element x2 £303.94 x2
Childcare element £1,836.16
Total = £3,111.01

£5000 - £710 (the work allowance) = £4,290

£4,290 x 0.55 = £2,359.50 (the earning deduction)

£3,111.01 - £2,359.50 = £751.51

That’s just one example. There are other ways such as having a high rent element or having disabled DC.

Good point about the bank records - they can only keep records for seven years, I believe. But let's say they check that OP's mum sold her house (hypothetical scenario) in in 2018 and how much they sold for, would the LA just stop investigating because they can't access OP's mum bank statements? I find that an unlikely prospect.

It absolutely is a disability. It can impact whether he'll be able to drive, what jobs he can, what sports and what level he can participate at. It increases risk of nerve damage, blindness and other conditions.

When he is at work it'll impact his ability to work longer hours or do some elements of a job which could impact his career prospects.

Travel insurance and life insur will cost much much more.

It sounds like he has well managed diabetes but if it becomes difficult to manage for whatever reason, the impacts for the whole family could be huge.

@fundamentallyauthentic Some people are obviously very determined that OP should not be able to claim a penny. We dont know that OP's mum sold anything, we dont now if she had additional savings. Mum is now confused and if she remembers ever having any money could have spent in on anything. The local authority finding proof of anything is unlikely.

After a diagnosis of dementia the average person lives just 9 years. Sorry, OP, this could all become academic before long.

Edited because you might look into whether there are carers allowances if you end up looking after your mum at home.

Do you have disabled children? If you did you would know it is very hard for parents of SEN to work full time or at all.

@anyolddinosaur My point is that LA’s are very tenacious when it comes to investigating anyone they suspect of deliberately depriving their assets. If OP’s mum did sell a property then it would take them not much time at all to find out this information and when and how much it sold for. Land Registry info for property sales goes back to 1995.

You have money, the taxpayer shouldn't have to support you.

the savings limit for UC is 16k. If you have 80k in the bank you’re committing fraud.

Calm down. OP isn’t claiming UC, so no fraud.

I think only in rare cases would a child be registered as disabled with T1 diabetes, thus qualifying the parent to not be obliged to look for full time work.
I think it unlikely that there are many parents of T1 diabetic children who feel they can only work 8 hrs a week because of their child's disease.

OP hasn't said what disabilities but has described them as severe and mentions spending DLA plus more on carers and therapies as well as also mentioning multiple hospital stays.

OP may not want to share their disabilities, especially considering the fact that some people on here may decide that they aren't severe with little to no experience of the disabilities.

That isn’t true.

T1D meets the definition of having a disability under the Equality Act.

Having a disability as per the Equality Act isn’t what enables a someone to claim carer’s allowance &/or turn off UC’s work commitments and receiving UC’s carer element. It is the child being cared for receiving mid or high rate DLA that does that. It isn’t rare for children with T1D to be eligible for MRC or HRC.

The maximum you can have is 16k in savings to be able to claim UC

https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit

Apologies and thanks for correcting me.

Use it to pay off a chunk of your mortgage. You might or might not be able to claim UC but you will be better off anyway because your mortgage payments will be much lower.

The talk of deprivation of assets might have been in relation more to your mum rather than you perhaps? Her giving away money if she needed it for care home costs would be seen as deprivation of assets. Or there may be inheritance tax to pay on it if she dies within 7 years and has a large estate.

To be fair I was thinking more about autism. I didn't see it was about diabetes.

Whether you like it or not T1 is a registered disability. You clearly have no experience of what it takes to care for a child with T1.

Yep. Have friends and family who have children who have dla and their life is hard

so yes anything that a parent can get while having children with additional needs they deserve

I don’t disagree with any of this - I do however disagree that with a child of 14 that plays football multiple times a week and is out the house at school every day and condition is well managed that she can’t work more and hence claims in full -plenty of others do manage to do so -

I already apologised for not understanding T1 diabetes.
I now understand that children will be able to claim DLA and that their parent can register as their full time carer, thus removing them from the requirement to find work if claiming UC.
Am I right in thinking that it would become more challenging the older the child is, as (ideally) they are better able to self-manage their own care?
Once again, I apologise for my ignorant post.