How Money Spent - Appointment

[STS]

Hi

 

I have been claiming JSA since September, but I have yet to receive any payments due to various reasons that DWP have been making up along the way. Let's not get into that now though.

 

I received a phone call from them this morning. They want me to provide them with a full disclosure of everything that I have spent money on in the last six months so that they can see how my money is spent.

 

Do I need to provide them with this information?

[citizenB]

Not heard of this before, will try and find someone to help.

 

Did you have money which they are claiming you have tried to dispose of to below a certain level ?

[STS]

Possibly. But the only amount that matters is £16000 correct? I don't have this much money.

[Old Cogger]

Usually you have a renewal/claim in for benefits, you may get thru part A then be forwarded to part B, this where if they know you have money within a set period then they want to know where it is or where it has gone, I found that out after selling a house and buying another property, a lot of money made from sale went in paying back money owed, paying off mortgage, fitting a new Bathroom & kitchen etc etc in new property as areas were old/broken down, hence they wanted to know where every penny went in the end I told them to forget it as I am not going to find invoices for every 10 pence they ask for, for a princely sum of maybe £10/15 per week

[STS]

And how did that go down? Did they continue to pay your benefits?

[Old Cogger]

I walked away, disgusted they were treating me as if I was trying to defraud them, end of claim I told them but I was just highlighting the way they operated, they wanted evidence of EVERY penny spent!

[citizenB]

 

I received a phone call from them this morning. They want me to provide them with a full disclosure of everything that I have spent money on in the last six months so that they can see how my money is spent.

 

 

Note it was a verbal request and not written......you are not at liberty to respond to that

 

here you go

[STS]

I have agreed to the appointment though. So I guess I attend then tell them that if they want a full list of everything I have spent money on, they will have to put it in writing?

[Nystagmite]

Possibly. But the only amount that matters is £16000 correct? I don't have this much money.

 

No. It's £6000. £16000 is the upper limit.

[essexmat]

My (in my case) response to "let's see how your money is spent" would be "get stuffed" but that is just me. If you qualify for JSA how you spend it is nothing to do with them otherwise they would question every time you bought a bag of chips - what a way to treat people.

 

My second response would be "What exactly do I need to justify to you as I qualify legally for this benefit and trying to get by on this paltry amount is hard enough without being questioned but as you have asked I now but a multipack of 6 tins of beans instead of 4 as it works out cheaper and I also get supermarlet own brand instead of Heinz"

 

I would also get in "I also spent £1.20 last week on a bus fare to visit my Mother, as long as that is OK with you and it does not effect me looking for fake jobs on UJM"

 

I do realise I have been sarcastic here but my point stands - my response would be "get stuffed" In a nice way of course.

[SabreSheep]

Noone seems to have asked you this question.

 

Are you applying for Contribution based JSA or Income Based JSA

 

If it is the latter then they are investigating the possibility that you have disposed of assesable income prior to making your claim for the reason of being able to claim an income related benefit.

 

If it is the former, tell them to get shredded

[estellyn]

They are looking at something called 'deprivation of capital', where they investigate if a person has spent capital in order to qualify for benefit or more benefit.

 

If deprivation is found, benefit is reduced by £1 for every £250 of capital that they think you should still have.

[squirrelly Whirley]

As I understand it, having savings of £6,000 or above, is the point at which your collective-benefits start being tapered-down towards zero by the DWP. As stated by estellyn, your benefit is reduced by £1 for every £250 (or part thereof) above this amount. If you have savings exceeding £16,000, any benefit claim would be rejected. This is the point at which you would be expected to live off your own savings.

 

If you have made any major-spends over the past year, I can only think that would be what the DWP are fishing for here. Beyond the necessities of life - food, bills, transport etc, I find that I spend money on very minor items on an "as and when" basis. Since these items generally cost less than a tenner, I don't keep trivial details on every last penny. If the DWP press you to provide this level of detail, tell them they're being unreasonable.

[antone]

Yes, I agree with Squirrely Whirley here. They may well wish to check up on major expenditures to determine whether or not deprivation of capital might be an issue, and they are quite within the law to do this. However, they should not be expecting you to explain every single £5 or £10 expenditure for the last year. It's not reasonable to expect you to be able to state whether that £6.99 spent at Aldi in October 2014 was toothpaste, cans of beans or whatever.