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ESA - gift of money problem

  • LovelyBitOfSquirrel
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1 year 1 month ago #283575 by LovelyBitOfSquirrel
ESA - gift of money problem was created by LovelyBitOfSquirrel
Hello, I hope someone can advise as I feel sick with worry over this. I’ll try to keep this brief, but it’s complicated (or I’m complicating it).

So I recently received a surprise cash gift of around £10k from a distant relative who passed away. They’d been trying to find me for a while before they passed, so it wasn’t deemed an inheritance.

After calling ESA daily for a week and spending over 90mins on hold each time, only to be cut off, I finally got to speak with someone today. They said they just needed a letter from the solicitor who handled the gift, to show how much I received. In the middle of the conversation, the call cut out again. A little later I received a call from somebody else who said “you were speaking to my colleague but hung up on them” which I really didn’t, I was in the middle of asking where to send this letter. Anyway, she informed me my claim has been suspended “to prevent an overpayment” and I now have to provide 3 months of bank statements for a “capital review”.

I understand they can ask for these at any time, although it feels so invasive. One problem is that previously I didn’t have a bank account, all payments etc went into my husband’s. We opened a new joint account, which my husband transferred to and so his old account is closed. We’ve only had the new account for a week, so not long enough for a statement to be generated, but we have statements from the old account, letters from the new bank and the solicitors showing what was transferred re the gift, and a letter from the old account showing the £700 which was transferred over to the new account. Will this be sufficient, do you think?

We’ve nothing to hide, we have no other capital or anything like that. I’m just really concerned that they’ll be judging where we spend our money. Due to disability we buy everything online, including everything we need for our 4 children. Do they then put limits on what we can spend the cash gift on/how long it must last? We really need to make some adaptions to the house as I’m currently living mostly upstairs as I can’t manage stairs anymore. Do I have to go through this every time that money drops? Lastly, if we have that £700 in there (or roughly that amount), will this be added to our cash gift and thus used to work out deductions from our ESA, even though this money is needed for living expenses? Does anyone know the address I need to send these documents to?

I am so sorry this is so complicated. I tried to ask the lady who phoned but she was so abrupt and I think annoyed that she thought I’d hung up the earlier call. I’m totally overwhelmed, my dad died 2 months ago, my mum is on end of life care and I’m really struggling to keep on top of everything as it is. Thanks so much in advance.

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1 year 1 month ago #283585 by Chris
Replied by Chris on topic ESA - gift of money problem
Hi there LovelybitofSquirrel ( what a way to start off a conversation with a total stranger :P ) - I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your dad, and what you're going through with your mum - Life can be so cruel at times, and throw things at us, that we just wonder how on Earth we're going to cope?

I had a slightly different situation to yours, but I'll explain it, and it may give you a bit of clarity on the way things can work, however I do know that UC and ESA have different rules - so what I'm telling you happened to me, may not be the same situation that will happen to you.

I had the DWP review my finances for UC just in May - although I had no idea about it, my UC was just stopped after sending it my bank statements (4 months worth) and I had no idea why. I contacted them, and it was simply that I didn't show them my Help2Save account. I explained that I read online that I thought I didn't need to with it being a govt. based account, but the lady said "Well that's my decision to make, not yours". Anyways, because I had a sum in my account of just over £10k - they wanted to know why I hadn't declared it, and was claiming full UC. I told them that I got a backdated award of PIP (from a case that had been ongoing over 2 years) and I read online that it was £5,000 for every year that it's disregarded, so I thought I had 2 years to use up the £10k, but it turns out that I didn't, and it was only 1 year that the money is dis-regarded for, no matter how large the amount. So to prove this, I had to send in a years worth of bank statements (luckily I'd been with the bank around 2 years), but I asked what would've happened had I not been able to prove that as I change bank accounts usually every year to get the switching bonus, and was told that I really should save electronic copies of my statements every month, and that the likelihood is that they would've had to have taken the full amount into consideration, rather than the year it was dis-regarded.
I know ESA is totally different to UC, but being new to moderating, I don't really have any experience of ESA, but I do know that the legacy benefits are being moved over to UC soon.

There is rules with UC involving the capital below £6,000 - £6,001 to £16,000 - and over £16,001 in what you can get if anything, if you're over the £16k threshold, however, like I mentioned before, this may not be the same as ESA.

Sorry, I couldn't really give you any information that may be of any use to your situation, but one of the other experienced mods should be able too.

Good luck, kind regards, Chris.

Nothing on this board constitutes legal advice - always consult a professional about specific problems
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1 year 1 month ago #283612 by LovelyBitOfSquirrel
Replied by LovelyBitOfSquirrel on topic ESA - gift of money problem
Hi Chris, thank you so much for your reply. I really do appreciate it. It’s been one of those “surely nothing else can go wrong” years, and I’m barely clinging on. Your kindness is so appreciated.

That’s really good to know, I’m hopeful it’s straight forward and I’m just overthinking. I’ve just had another thought, I have a personal injury trust (part of my disability is due to a really extreme case of medical negligence). As it’s in a trust, it’s disregarded for the purpose of benefits, but I’m now wondering if I need to be declaring that also? There’s not much in there now as we bought our house from the landlord to give us some security (renting as a disabled family became untenable and it seemed a good use of those funds). The rest (£2k>) is set aside for house emergencies.

The lady was just so rude and I got the feeling it was all because they thought I’d hung up. Which is a ridiculous notion given how long I’d spent trying to get through to them - is being cut off a regular thing with these helplines, I wonder?

Anyway, I am so grateful for your insight. Hopefully another mod will be able to advise on the other questions. I do catastrophise with these things, but only because I’ve had so many bad experiences with the benefits system.

Ps. I chose my forum name to hopefully make people smile - I’m glad it seemed to work 😉
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1 year 1 month ago #283614 by Chris
Replied by Chris on topic ESA - gift of money problem
Well hello again,

Oh yes, it certainly made me smile :P - and with what you're going through, it goes to show just how much of an amazing character you are by trying to make others smile, when it's probably the last thought on your mind - so well done to you for staying so strong.

Well, the person who reviewed my finances at the job centre (the decision maker) told me I had to declare absolutely everything, and it was her decision as to what was and what wasn't counted as income. Whether this is the correct procedure, I don't know. I think some of them just make their own rules based on how clever they think they are. Mine even asked to see a copy of my will because I told her I'd left funds in it!

I think with you mentioning the word "catastrophise" - there's so many who think along these lines, even myself, and I genuinely think it's the fear of not knowing, and the worry of how much of an impact these people are having on people's live-li-hood, because it's their decisions that are affecting so many people's emotions. Suicidal, Lonely, Helpless, Defenseless, Destitute, Powerless, Vulnerable, Weak etc etc......it's a never ending list.

I'm sure one of the other more experienced mods will be able to help answer your Q.

Anyways - I wish you well for today, and please come back and let us know how thing's are progressing.

You take care - kind regards, Chris.

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