Been sent a letter by the DWP ESA team asking me to calculate my capital

Hi everyone,

I sadly suffer from very debilitating mental and physical health problems, and struggle to keep on top of things. I wrote to the DWP ESA team back in June expressing concerns that I may have inadvertently gone over the £6K capital limit. I attached a copy of the back payment letter that I received, which related to a SDP back payment of £16K in 2021, alongside 3 recent bank statements.

When I received the back payment in 2021, my bank balance shot up to around £20K. My bank balance has fluctuated a bit since, and I was therefore concerned. I think it may have dropped to around £8K or £9K at some point, but slowly went up to around 16K again over a few years, so I asked the DWP to assess whether I had inadvertently gone over the £6K limit. I thought it was best to be open and honest.

The DWP ESA have just sent me a letter asking me to calculate if/when my total capital exceeded £5500 (I am not sure why they have used that figure and not £6K), and, if it did, to send them bank statements from that date. The calculations are overwhelming for me, not least because of my poor health, hence the reason why I approached the DWP for assistance. I understand that I need to disregard cost of living payments, income and possibly a recent UC back payment (there was a delay in processing my UC claim due to issues working out my total capital) amongst other things. I think the UC team may have got my total capital wrong, but I am not sure, as they didn't go through all my bank statements over the past 5 years, unless they did that without my knowledge.

My thinking is to send the DWP all my bank statements from when I received the SDP back payment in 2021, and say that I genuinely do not know if I went over the £6K limit, and that I find the issue too complex, and that my health is also very poor. Is that reasonable?

If I did accidentally go over the £6K limit, presumably I won't be severely penalised? I imagine, at worst, it would be around £1K or £2K for around 3 or 4 months before I notified the DWP, and possibly 3 or 4 months afterwards. Presumably this is a common problem amongst people who suffer from very debilitating health problems?

Sincere thanks for any assistance, or if anyone could share their experience if they faced similar difficulties.

Many thanks, David. It proved to be nothing to worry about.