Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

[wales01man]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

I don't for one minute doubt your integrity/honesty even more so because you are seeking advice would I think you intent to defraud the state,the blame if there is any is with your late mother who failed maybe unknowingly to declare the money,its easy done if your trying to fill in the ridiculously long forms,i like others admire you for sorting this many would not,you should view this as a mistake from your mother that you now are putting right you have nothing to be guilty for

[Firemonkey]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

Thankyou for your response. This is an emotive issue and a problem I want to sort out as soon as possible. I am waiting for a response from the DWD but I am assuming they will want bank statements. Mums bank have been helpful and they are sending me ALL of her bank statements which I will look through. Ironically, The Estates Recovery Dept are situated in the Forset of Dean so I can take them myself.

I want to shout from the rooftops(anonymously of course) to warn people and for adult children to check what their parents are getting in benefits. Is there anywhere where this advice can be posted?

[charitynjw]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

Thankyou for your response. This is an emotive issue and a problem I want to sort out as soon as possible. I am waiting for a response from the DWD but I am assuming they will want bank statements. Mums bank have been helpful and they are sending me ALL of her bank statements which I will look through. Ironically, The Estates Recovery Dept are situated in the Forset of Dean so I can take them myself.

I want to shout from the rooftops(anonymously of course) to warn people and for adult children to check what their parents are getting in benefits. Is there anywhere where this advice can be posted?

This forum is as good a place as any, Firemonkey.

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[Twiggy]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

Thanks for all the good information. We just received the DWP letter asking for probate details. We know mum in law didn't declare increased savings so are expecting a DWP investigation and all the hassle involved. Will try to update this thread as we go along.
did the bank involved charge for the statements?

[marcus18]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

hello twiggy, did your mum in laws increase in savings happen after her initial claim for pension credit? If the DWP had allocated her an assessed income period and the increase happened during that or if she turned 80 during it and moved into an indefinite assessed income period then her increase in savings is irrelevant and they know it. She could have won the lottery during an assessed income period and would still have had an underlying claim for pension credit. these people are jokers pure and simple. They are being propped up by people who should know better. solicitors will tell you it happens to a lot of people and to pay up so will citizens advice who in my experience were totally useless as far as this is concerned. All the DWP form asks for is your mum in laws financial details at the time of passing not at the time of claim which means the form is not fit for purpose as it only gives a snapshot of her finances not the full motion picture from claim to passing. If your mum in law had an assessed income period it will appear on any and all letters from the DWP even the annual 'your increase in benefits' letter has it at the bottom of page one. If she had one I suggest ringing the recovery from estates phishers and getting in their face I did it was over inside one hour as i threatened to sue them if it wasn't.

[Twiggy]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

hello twiggy, did your mum in laws increase in savings happen after her initial claim for pension credit? If the DWP had allocated her an assessed income period and the increase happened during that or if she turned 80 during it and moved into an indefinite assessed income period then her increase in savings is irrelevant and they know it. She could have won the lottery during an assessed income period and would still have had an underlying claim for pension credit. these people are jokers pure and simple. They are being propped up by people who should know better. solicitors will tell you it happens to a lot of people and to pay up so will citizens advice who in my experience were totally useless as far as this is concerned. All the DWP form asks for is your mum in laws financial details at the time of passing not at the time of claim which means the form is not fit for purpose as it only gives a snapshot of her finances not the full motion picture from claim to passing. If your mum in law had an assessed income period it will appear on any and all letters from the DWP even the annual 'your increase in benefits' letter has it at the bottom of page one. If she had one I suggest ringing the recovery from estates phishers and getting in their face I did it was over inside one hour as i threatened to sue them if it wasn't.

Yes to a great extent I agree they seem to be trying it on as her letter in 2012 advising of her claim for extra pension credit specifically said she had an AIP. As far as we know she was below £10k at that time and the increase in savings was probably due to the extra pension credit but I guess they have to check. They haven't asked for bank/savings statements (yet).

One problem we have is the ridiculously long time it takes from DWP to answer letters etc. We've been waiting nearly 6 weeks for them to tell us whether they think she owed them money or not.

We still don't know whether we're also facing a refund claim from the county council as she was over the savings limit for home care in her last couple of years and should have been paying at least a part of those costs herself.

Nowhere (despite intensive trawling) can we find any information as to whether county councils check the home care support situation on death, nor whether they pursue such things if they find they have 'over supported'.

We could ask them of course but that would be 'giving the game away' so to speak. Not sure what our legal position is as executors - i.e. if we think she's been given too much support are we bound to own up....

[marcus18]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

Does her letter from 2012 state the dates of her AIP? Was she 80 already? Did she become 80 during the AIP? The AIP over-rules everything they do not have to check and you have no need to tell them of an increase in savings during one.

A brief summary of my mums case which is on here in greater detail but you can see if this is in anyway similar.

original claim for income support dated 1994 when she was 65. She had less than £1000 in the bank at that time. changed to pension credit when everyone elses did (2003/2004). In 2006 she sold her house to move to a council bungalow with me as her sole carer as she was starting with vascular dementia. I wrote to them and told them even though according to their rules i didn't have to because she was in an assessed income period. I got a letter back which said her income did not alter her entitlement to pension credit. I kept both letters. During her AIP she became 80 and moved to an indefinite AIP until she died in february this year. In may after the will had gone through and beig sole executor and beneficiary i got the DWP and started panicking until on here and elsewhere i read about AIP's and then i got angry. She had been charged for her home care, respite and rent on the savings she had if the DWP had got their invented way she would effectively have lost the entire value of her house. The solicitor who handled the will didn't want to know, citizens advice brought a whole new level to the definition of crap. i rang the dwp recovery team told them the situation told them the letters i had the proof i had as her DWP appointee etc and told them that if it wasn't resolved inside one hour I would be suing them as she nor I owed them nothing and as an until recently full time carer I had no income but this sum was preventing me from claiming income support/housing benefit/council tax benefit etc. I got a phone call within 45 minutes to say they were aware of the AIP and had both letters from 2006/2007 and they would take no further action and put it in writing which i got the day after. I am still actually considering suing them as healthwise I am still suffering due to the shock of the situation - i have gone through my entire life (51) without owing anyone a penny. They will have your mum in laws original claim as they had mine. Since it appears legitimate and she was covered by an aip game over. I can't stress enough how important it is to get the dates of the aip sorted then ring them and get at them. They are chancers, it's debatable whether they really are the DWP or an offshoot paid by results because the first time i rang them i got a hello dwp etc the second time i got a totally different reply which didn't mention the letters dw or p.

[Twiggy]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

Does her letter from 2012 state the dates of her AIP? Was she 80 already? Did she become 80 during the AIP? The AIP over-rules everything they do not have to check and you have no need to tell them of an increase in savings during one.

A brief summary of my mums case which is on here in greater detail but you can see if this is in anyway similar.

original claim for income support dated 1994 when she was 65. She had less than £1000 in the bank at that time. changed to pension credit when everyone elses did (2003/2004). In 2006 she sold her house to move to a council bungalow with me as her sole carer as she was starting with vascular dementia. I wrote to them and told them even though according to their rules i didn't have to because she was in an assessed income period. I got a letter back which said her income did not alter her entitlement to pension credit. I kept both letters. During her AIP she became 80 and moved to an indefinite AIP until she died in february this year. In may after the will had gone through and beig sole executor and beneficiary i got the DWP and started panicking until on here and elsewhere i read about AIP's and then i got angry. She had been charged for her home care, respite and rent on the savings she had if the DWP had got their invented way she would effectively have lost the entire value of her house. The solicitor who handled the will didn't want to know, citizens advice brought a whole new level to the definition of crap. i rang the dwp recovery team told them the situation told them the letters i had the proof i had as her DWP appointee etc and told them that if it wasn't resolved inside one hour I would be suing them as she nor I owed them nothing and as an until recently full time carer I had no income but this sum was preventing me from claiming income support/housing benefit/council tax benefit etc. I got a phone call within 45 minutes to say they were aware of the AIP and had both letters from 2006/2007 and they would take no further action and put it in writing which i got the day after. I am still actually considering suing them as healthwise I am still suffering due to the shock of the situation - i have gone through my entire life (51) without owing anyone a penny. They will have your mum in laws original claim as they had mine. Since it appears legitimate and she was covered by an aip game over. I can't stress enough how important it is to get the dates of the aip sorted then ring them and get at them. They are chancers, it's debatable whether they really are the DWP or an offshoot paid by results because the first time i rang them i got a hello dwp etc the second time i got a totally different reply which didn't mention the letters dw or p.

The 2012 letter does not state the period of the AIP, only that 'you have an assessed income period'.
At that time she was a few weeks short of her 90th birthday.

As she didn't keep many records we cannot categorically state that her savings at that time were below 10k, but we presume DWP would have checked at the time. If above 10k then not by very much.

[marcus18]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

Then i would suggest the AIP is indefinite and the game is over she nor you owed them anything.

https://www.entitledto.co.uk/help/as...-income-period

she has no need to declare increased savings.

They have access to all this information. This shouldn't be happening on the scale it is it's disgraceful and insulting. The current older generations whose relatives are being attacked by these chancers were and continue to be incredibly honest. As i've said to someone else on here they are getting away with it because it's not a photo opportunity issue for mp's and solicitors etc are part of the problem. The solicitor who dealt with my mums will emailed me about eight weeks later to ask how i was going along with it. I wrote back more or less what i've written here this afternoon and got no reply - at the very least you would expect a "well done" or "glad you dealt with it" .

There are two very easy solutions. One the "DWP" checks details of the original claim and any correspondence/involvement since against the details they are presented with. Two, any solicitor applying for probate checks the facts first. If my mums estate had been £25000 i wouldn't have needed probate i could have simply gone through the solicitor and the bank. £25000 would have still been enough to rule her out of means tested benefits but because it wouldn't have gone through probate then it wouldn't have gone to the DWP even though someone could have stashed away £25000 throughout a claim rendering it illegitimate throughout. The system is flawed throughout.

edit I just checked on later letters my mum's wording changed to "she has an assessed income period" with no date given so it looks like that is the wording of choice when it becomes indefinite.

[Amethyst]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

Not really sure on the purpose of picking this post back up from September Spirit - particularly just to have a snipe at someone who posted in 2013 - Pension Credits is a ridiculous system where when you are alive they tell you not to report changes unless it would entitle you to more pension credit ( the 'assessed income period ) then come after the beneficiaries/executors after death when it's really really difficult to check the circumstances and relatively easy for people, at a time of stress and grief, to just pay them out of the estate.

[marcus18]

Re: Debt Management Recovery From Estates Pension Credit

.
As a fellow taxpayer, I think that the this Government should claw back every last penny it can
Why not?

Let's start with the simple fact that they, the DWP, do not use information which they already have available to them before they start accusing the deceased of fraud. In my mothers case they 'found' a letter from me that was ten years old explaining her change in circumstances although by their rules under assessed income periods I didn't have to inform them. They found this letter within 45 minutes of my threatening to sue. Really? do you believe that? a ten year old, handwritten letter from a relative can be found inside 45 minutes but when others on here have asked them for details of their relatives original claim they can't find that.

Here's a not impossible scenario to show the stupidity of this. Let's say mrs x, a widow on a small pension claims income support legitimately, her savings are £10,000. She lives in rented accommodation and concerned about their mother one of her children moves her in with them. Over the next say ten years mrs x spends very little, and when she passes away her savings have almost doubled. Who is entitled to that money? the government or her son/daughter who has housed her etc for the last ten years?