Am worried about this so much! Income Support question

[Ilovebunting]

I've just been told I qualify for income support, but my mum recently died and I got the money through three weeks ago. I got £13,000, but £7000 went on debts and another £1,000 on insuring the car she left us (which won't count as expenditure I know but thought I'd put it in as it isn't in the bank account now) so we have less than the savings threshold (alot less now , I may have hit the sales a bit!). Am ringing I.S. tomorrow, but will they stop our Income Support by saying we have £13,000 in savings, or the £2,000 we actually have. I feel like such a benefit fraud because we had money left to us, but had so many debts to clear that we couldn't have used it as income, I am so worried.

If you can show that the debts were due and payable nnow (as opposed to loans which still had several years left in which to pay), the benefits agency should be OK about it. However, they will investigate and you should make sure that all the relevant evidence available (such as final demands, etc).

yes they will want to check to make sure you havent deliberately spent the money in order to claim benefits, but as long as you have all the proof then it should be ok.

Even if you still had al the money then they wouldnt have stopped your benefit just reduced it by about £20 a week.

Message withdrawn

the threshold is £6000 for savings dilemma - (I know as I had my review at the job centre yesterday and took my bank statement which showed me depositing a cheque for £2600 after my claim had been accepted). The statement I took showed that I still had nearly 1k of it left (I don't - as the statement was the most recent - quarterly next one due next month). She told me anything more than £6 in savings had to be declared so she wasn't in the slightest bit bothered by that amount of money having been sat in one of my accounts after my IS had started.

Would they really get funny about her spending the money to pay off debts (even if they were loans which she had a length of time to pay off??)

I just got this off an website so might be of help:
The capital limit for means tested benefits is 16,000

Less than 6,000 has no effect

anything over 6,000 up to 15,999 it is assumed that you have 1 income for each 250 you have in savings, which is then deducted from your benefit pound for pound.

eg savings of 6750 would = 6750-6000 = 750 over
750/250 = 3 pounds off your benefit

Only your own capital is counted unless your IS claim began prior to April 2004 (ie before child tax credits replaced the child premium of IS)

hope makes sense!

Ilovebunting, if the debts were at court stage etc where they needed to be paid you will be ok. If they were being managed properly and had x years payments left on them it will be seen as deprevation of capital.

The insurance is tricky, if you can prove you need a car - ie disabled child etc - then you may be ok. They may argue that you could have paid instalments or got a cheaper car.

The sums dont add up to £13k though.

You mention us, usually if there are two of you then if the other is working you wont qualify for IS anyway.

Sorry us means dd and I! They weren't at court stage, but wanted to get rid of them as couldn't pay them off if I was on IS. The rest of the capital went on paying off various bills etc that mum left behind, paying fees for various things to do with the estate, paying for a cleaner and decorator to come and do mum's house before we sold it, and a computer. And clothes for both of us, pans, a pasta machine and some books and cd's.

Any debts your mum left behind and charges re estate would have been deducted before the inheritance so not sure why they were paid out after. The computer, clothes and luxury items will be sees as deprevation of capital so you may be in for a rough ride with the IS people.

see here para 29805 onwards

should have added

...in volume 5