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.