Can someone help please?

[shanew49]

Can someone help please?

 

I am going to receive a settlement agreement from work of £7700.

 

I am currently receiving £200 every 2 weeks in ESA,

 

I owe my dad £5000, will the benefits office still take the £5000 into account?

 

I know I am allowed to have £6000 in savings, so will they base any deductions on the figure of £2700?

 

I thought I read somewhere that they deduct £1 for every £500 over £6000?

 

is this correct?

 

Thanks.

[rebel11]

Hi shane

 

Welcome to CAG

 

The guys will advise as soon as they are available.

[time4change2]

do you get contribution based ESA? or income-related ESA ?

 

 

in-come Related ESA will be reduced by £1 per week for every £250 (or part £250) you have over £6000

 

you might be best informing the DWP of this and about the debt your going to be paying back to your dad in case it causes any problems for you in the future

[shanew49]

Hi thanks for your response, so I'm looking at maximum deductions of £5-10? could it cause more problems than its worth explaining about giving my dad the £5000 I owe, I mean obviously I am going to inform them that I have received a settlement agreement and the total figure.

[shanew49]

Hi thanks for your response, so I'm looking at maximum deductions of £5-10? could it cause more problems than its worth explaining about giving my dad the £5000 I owe, I mean obviously I am going to inform them that I have received a settlement agreement and the total figure.

[antone]

The concept here is called "Deprivation of capital", basically defined as needlessly spending or otherwise disposing of money in order to increase benefit entitlement. There's no definition in law of what is or isn't needless - each case is looked at individually by a DWP Decision Maker.

 

Now, paying debts that are due would not normally be seen as deprivation, whereas paying off debts early sometimes can be. So there are two possible outcomes.

 

1) They will treat you as having the full £7700. If they do this, they will ignore the first £6000 and make deductions from your benefits on the rest. The deduction is £1 per week for each £250 or part thereof. So that would be £1700 in capital, leading to a £7 per week deduction.

 

2) They will accept your reasons for disposing of the £5000, in which case you will have only £2700 left and there will be no deduction from your benefits at all.

 

There's no real reason not to inform them of where the money went - since the debt is to a family member it seems somewhat likely to me that they'll accept that and not make any deduction. In the end, you have nothing to lose by trying. If your Dad is willing to write a letter confirming that you owe him the money, so much the better.

[shanew49]

Will he have to write a letter, or would they likely accept my word? or could he speak to them on the phone? would that be sufficient?

[antone]

A letter would be best if possible. It's not always possible to speak to Decision Makers directly about these sorts of things.

 

But they are supposed to believe you unless they have some specific reason to doubt your word. It's hard to say how any given DM will view the situation, though.

[shanew49]

Part of me thinks to save any hassle, maybe just take the £28 hit per month, I know I'm telling the truth tho. do I have to inform them when I spend any of the £1700? I mean so they can recalculate what I should be receiving? this all seems a bit petty doesn't it?