please can someone advise me

[mammyspippy]

last year my matrimonial home was sold and i rec 40.000 from the sale .at the time i was on income support so it was suspended naturaly . i payed my rent and bills ext but as im not used to having lots of money i have spent most of it .i have 2 disabled children and im a single mum i bought us a good reliable car for 7.600 as i knew i would never be in the position again to aford one . i never kept cheqe on my acounts properly and spent a lot of money on my children i basicaly gave them all the things i couldnt aford before .i im my eyes gave them a better quality of life .i thought this was mine and the kids money to spend just as if it was a wage . now ive hardly got any money left and put a claim in for income support .first they asked for 6 months bank statments then they asked for statments from when i got the money of which ive sent to them . my friend had told me i might get into a whole load of trouble because of my spending and be charged with benafit deprevatin im so scared i had no idea about that at all i didnt think i was doing any harm like i said earlier i thought it was our money to spend .someone please help me i cnt sleep on a night with worry i dread the phone ringing and feel like a criminal .

[mammyspippy]

[RaeUK]

Well, to be fair that seems like quite a lot of money to have spent in about a year. I can't really advise as I know nothing about deprivation of capital (but others will no doubt pop by tomorrow).

However, I can play 'let's pretend'. After all, I don't know what you have spent the money on. But you can narrow the gap a little.

You paid your rent. Let's say that was £500pm for 12 months. That's £6,000 spoken for. Let's say your heating etc averaged £30pw. That's about £1500. Food and sundries for the family, say £100pw. That's another £5200. You bought a car that was needed. £7600. Council tax? Water Rates? Say another £1500. Telephone, internet, tv, say another £800.

That's an approximate £23000 accounted for before any other expenditure,

You need to take a little time to make a list of all the necessary things you have purchased. Then a list of the things that might appear not quite so necessary and why you felt you needed them.

Oh, and that's not including clothing, books, etc.

Edited March 20, 2013 by RaeUK

[antone]

OK, first off, you say your Income Support was suspended when you informed them about the money. Now you've made a new claim for IS, have you received any payments?

 

There may, possibly, be an issue about deprivation when it comes to your new claim, but that's not a criminal matter.

[mammyspippy]

thanks for the reply i did that when i sent the bank statments back to them i know ive over spent by a lot of money but im absolutly usless with money i just thought it was our money to spend ppl can call me niave but hand on heart i didnt reailise i was doing any harm . im so scared im going to end up in prison for spending the money

[mammyspippy]

hi no i havent received any payments its with the decision makers at the moment

[mammyspippy]

OK, first off, you say your Income Support was suspended when you informed them about the money. Now you've made a new claim for IS, have you received any payments?

 

There may, possibly, be an issue about deprivation when it comes to your new claim, but that's not a criminal matter.

 

sorry new to this no i havent rec any income support i put a new claim in its in the hands of the desision makers thanks for the reply

[antone]

You are not going to prison. I repeat, you are not going to prison.

 

In fact, you haven't really done anything wrong. The Decision Makers might possibly decide that you aren't entitled to benefit. That will depend on whether they consider your spending of the money to be reasonable, but even if they decide it was not reasonable, you still haven't committed any crime based on what you've said so far.

[mammyspippy]

You are not going to prison. I repeat, you are not going to prison.

 

In fact, you haven't really done anything wrong. The Decision Makers might possibly decide that you aren't entitled to benefit. That will depend on whether they consider your spending of the money to be reasonable, but even if they decide it was not reasonable, you still haven't committed any crime based on what you've said so far.

thank u so much for your help.

[antone]

thank u so much for your help.

 

No problem at all. What happens is that when you made your new claim for IS, the DMs will need to look at how the £40k was spent to determine your possible entitlement to benefit. They may possibly decide you have deprived yourself of capital, but that is not a crime. It might affect your future entitlement to IS, of course - the DMs could say that you spent this money unnecessarily, so you're not entitled to benefit.

 

Even so, it was still your money, and you were free to spend it as you chose. The worst case scenario is that you might not get IS for a while. And that could be difficult if you're short of cash, but it's not a crime to spend your own money.