SAVINGS AND BANK BALANCE JUST OVER £6000 BUT IT VARIOUS WEEK TO WEEK

As I understand it shares are a massive hassle for the DWP, you can check the manual online but when I read it the procedure in the manual is to look at the price in a newspaper, but they now go to yahoo finance, look at the previous days lowest and highest prices, average the two and use that as the value, they don't do this every day.

I'm self employed, my share trading account is a savings account for DWP purposes (shares are classed as capital), any assets that are to be used for the purposes of a business are disregarded while you are trading (trading as in running your business, not share trading), so they do not affect the UC amount received.

the amount of business assets is not taken into account when they look at them, the assets do not need to have been generated by the business as far as I can tell, the law says something like "assets that are to be used for any business purpose", in my case this account is earmarked for large capital expenditure, the DWP decision maker looked at the rules and my situation and classed this as a business asset on that basis, it's just under £30000

If you're claiming ESA perhaps you'd like to do some permitted work? (it used to be essential to get a doctors letter before starting or they'd say you were capable of work and suspend or end your claim), I don't know the rules, it's easier on UC if you are classed as LCW or LCWRA because you get a work allowance, about £384 a month before benefits are affected, this can be self employed work and you are not subject to the MIF (minimum income floor) in these two groups, which is designed to make it impossible to be self employed on UC basically, you would then be allowed to use some or all of this money for business purposes, for instance you might need to save for a lock-up garage or a cargo bike to make deliveries, the work allowance is designed so that you can try some work without a fairly decent amount of your pay affecting the level of your UC, but it's only available in LCW and LCWRA groups

hi, my ESA is paid every 2 weeks and by the time i send them the letter it will be less by the time they take to open the letter. ive written to them in early january and asked if and when they want me to report it. NO REPLY, probably lost like most documents i send. i dont see why i should have to pay for recorded delivery every 2 weeks for them to lose or not even acknowledge recept. POINTLESS ringing them, ive recently been hold for over 1 hour and they then terminated the call without answering. Broken system, there are no guildlines on the government website. They cannot treat people like this especially with a severe anxiety disorder and historic mental illness. Have any other members of this community had any experience or advice regarding this please~???

Hi DC

I am sorry to hear of your difficulties regarding this issue. My own personal experience however has fortunately not been problematic. I am on ESA income related and following a family death I subsequently inherited. As a result of the inheritance my savings exceeded the £6000 lower threshold but were lower than the upper threshold (which from memory is £16000.) As soon as my saving exceeded £6000 I phoned the DWP on the number at the top of my ESA letters from them. I don't recall how long I waited to get through but I don't think I was cut off and therefore having to phone again. The DWP official I spoke to was perfectly pleasant. He asked me to send him a copy of the bank statement showing the inheritance which I duly did. He told me (which I already knew) that this would reduce my ESA. I cannot remember what envelope I sent it in but regardless of that I have never sent DWP letters by registered post or similar and this has never caused me any issues. I always take a copy of forms, letters etc that I send to the DWP. I didn't in fact contact the DWP every time my savings reduced however I did contact them again when they had fallen below the £6000 threshold. When I first spoke o them following my inheritance I asked the person I spoke to for his direct number which he gave me. As a result when i phoned again I spoke to him again. He asked me the date when my savings fell below £6000 again which I did. He then told me that I would be due money back from them because of this and he told me there and then how much this would be. I was expecting to be asked to send a copy of the bank statement showing my savings were now lower than £6000 but he didn't in fact ask me to.

Like most people on the forum I am no fan of the DWP itself however I have to say that on the individual level of contacting officials regarding my claims I have found them both helpful and pleasant. As mentioned though I am sorry that you are experiencing difficulties re contacting them etc and hope that you will find a solution to these in the near future.

Kind regards

Mr B

HI DC,
I have to provide a bank statement yearly for the DWP to assess how much is taken off my ESA. If I was to offer any advice it would be don't give the DWP the opportunity to stop your benefits if they decide to investigate your account. They did this to me but luckily I had a paper trail and dates of telephone calls to prove I had done everything correctly. By sending them a reminder letter that I had received a small inheritence they immediately stopped my ESA! They just hadn't acted on it but seem to take the view the claiment is guilty of withholding information on the balance of their bank account. I had to get welfare rights involved to get my ESA reinstated. Also the capital amount that they use to calculate the deductions is not necessarily the same as what is showing in your account- they obviously have a way of calculating savings whilst taking into account rent payments or possibly other regular outgoings.
Personally I would send another letter recorded delivery about your circumstances just so you are showing you are taking responsibility. If you get no reply again perhaps consider getting your MP involved, that should speed up a response and then you can get the matter settled which would give you peace of mind.
Its stressful I know but it could save you more stress further on if they take the sort of action they took with me.

Best wishes,

Gaddy

have they got any kind of online service like UC have? this is the kind of thing you would put in your journal for UC

maybe it'd be easier to take a letter into the jobcentre once a month, as long as you get a receipt for it I think that'd prove you'd reported any change, then if they don't do anything and there is a small overpayment they might decide not to pursue you for it, they have that option

when I first went self employed the jobcentre didn't fax the thing through to stop my benefit so they kept paying it, after the first giro I phoned them, they stopped payments and didn't ask for the overpayment back, they were supposed to pay me some kind of back to work bonus that they didn't then pay, I just left it, there were no repercussions