Cost of Living disregard

Cheers! I will be calling the welfare rights team and letting them know about this!

They have led me up the garden path, even offering to support me at tribunal!

I would have made a real idiot of myself, arguing black was white.

What a mess!

This is going to be rumbling on well into next year now, whereas i think it would have all been cleared up by now had i not put the MR in.

So annoying.

Thanks though for helping me understand it; you have bern very patient!

I have been also told the same as you that so long as your overall capital (ie other savings and capital in seperate accounts to the one in which the cost of living payments went into) never dropped below how much you received in COL payments, even if the account the cost of living payments went into went below the cost of living payments amount. Then your total cost of living payments will still be disregarded as capital full stop.
For UC purposes they look at your overall capital.
How did you get on?

Ok - there is an update today but not one i expected.

For timeframe, this whole saga started 18.12.24.

Claim closed 16.01.25.

MR logged onto UC system 14.2.25 (they called to say all received and logged)


Then radio silence until today. Bear in mind journal is closed. No letter through post as i was expecting - text alert to check journal.


See attached letter.


No reference to my MR.

No mention of my civic penalty.


The claim which previously had a close date of 25.12.24 has been adjusted to 25.11.24.

My son has been overpaid by £657.84 (one month's payment) and they want it back.


What on Earth are they doing? I have paid that via online banking but my son owes much more and they can't work out how much more until they ask for all the statements going back 5 years (this is what my MR said)


Obviously, i take it they do not agree the claim was closed in error as it is still closed.

Why they have picked 25.11.24 to close it is a mystery as his balance was under 16k then. It went over in October 2024 so they should have asked for 2 full months payments back.


Will we just get loads more payment demands now in dribs and drabs?


And what of the MR - is that shelved and ignored? I haven't phoned them as i know they won't have a clue.

I suppose on a positive note, they have done something!!
This might be the start of them about to correct the full claim.

Going to be slow though if they only correct it one month at a time.


They never applied COL and say my son's capital was £17302 in December 24.

And - at this stage - they don't know i spent that money on energy.

They just have not deducted it off the capital there at all, despite both my MR and letter in response to civic penalty UCD 68 advising them that £1850 COL was received.

Deduct that and it's under 16k.


Whatever they have done - it's wrong.


But if this is the end of the matter, that is a small overpayment compared to what is actually owed (£2.5k ish)

At least my prompt payment shows compliance which will be helpful if i do get a compliance interview i suppose