No sleep and spitting feathers

Yorkshire Sal I so agree with you especially when my DS has a life limiting illness which means he should automatically be eligible for PIP. Yet when he didnt receive a letter from PIP to attend an interview to be transferred from DLA to PIP they just cancelled it straightaway and his motability car had to go back. He has appealed but the appeal wont be until May at the earliest. The last time he received any money was August so he will have been without money or car for 9 months or more. Without the car he is almost housebound. So hearing about the OPs SD and your sons partner getting away with it makes my blood boil.

Thanks, Jillybird - I was beginning to wonder if I was missing something.

Funny how this subject has come up after recent threads re austerity and Universal Credit. Has the OP, Livlass, posted before? I don't recall her name.

I agree that you need to talk to your husband first. A broad hint to her that ‘someone’ is bound to report her, before long, may convince her to stop. I would certainly question why your husband is giving her an allowance, at her age.
By the way, I missed out on three years of Pension Credit, about £3,000, because I wrongly believed that having my working son living with me meant that I wasn’t eligible. I should have done more research.

I am sorry. she is not entitled to full UC. If her father is paying her a regular allowance that is part of her income and must be declared. It is her business and the Benefit Agencies.

Likewise, if her son is living in her flat, even if only for a month or two, and the OP suggests something more permanent she hadn’t disclosed to the DWP that her 26 yr old working son,he’s got a good job in the City was living with her. then she must declare it as he will be attributed as sharing the expense of living in the flat, whether he pays her money for living there, or she lives there free.

Benefit fraud is theft and there is no way round that. This woman is stealing our money from our pockets, which most of us wish to see going to those in need.

Anyway, come the end of the financial year when the financial authorities make their annual reports to the HMRC, she will be caught up with and will have to repay it all back. Including money due over previous years for the council tax rebate she claimed but was not entitled to.

If she wants to risk getting a criminal record, then that is her problem, but once you cross the HMRC, especially if you end up in court, they will have you in their sights for decades after. It just isn't worth the risk.

However, I do agree, personal appearance is irrelevant. Appearing in the Dock at court is not in a beauty pagent and no one cares how they look, and I doubt whether the person concerned will be that bothered about how she looks at that point.

Eloethan I am sure some posters are journalists trying to assess general sentiment before deciding how to angle their articles. Gransnet and Mumsnet posts are regularly referenced and quoted in publications.

I went on the UC website, and to be honest, it’s not clear about the allowance from the father. One bit seemed to suggest it wouldn’t be taken into account, but another bit didn’t mention it at all! One bit said irregular gifts would be counted as savings. Any savings over £6,000 start to be considered. Whichever way you look at it, she’s happy to defraud the government. However, the OP has never come back, and I’m starting to think this is a hoax. I’m quite pleased though, because I’ve learnt something ?. Happy New Year everyone.

To all those who replied to my post I,m overwhelmed to have so much good advice and support. It started through general chit chat in a taxi on the way to a restaurant. Next morning I calmly told her (step daughter ) I would never ever agree with what she’s doing it’s completely wrong,it’s fraud.She smugly said she would carry on.So after a few walks/talks with her Dad,ignoring me and telling the rest of the family how badly I treated her she left on an earlier train.
Later when I asked my husband had he already known, he completely hit the roof,started a massive argument,told me to mind my own business and threatened me, no answers to anything. Big crack in our relationship now.
Tigertooth,you say I,m jealous of her long blonde hair.Not at all.I was trying to compare the money she pays to have her hair dyed every 6 weeks to the amount of food that would feed a family for weeks.
And yes I will wait a month and then report her.

Oh... it's a pity you didn't come back and read the comments before tackling it. It was a fairly obvious outcome. But then maybe you'd prefer not to have a relationship with someone who condones this type of selfish fraud. I know I would.

@endlessstrife. A lot of the time it’s organised and carefully orchestrated fraud that goes on for years. Individual low level fraud like the OPs daughter is committing tends to be picked up quicker - usually because the perpetrators don’t think of what they are doing as fraud, and as a result they are careless and blatantly out of step with the lifestyle of genuine claimants. I wasn’t trying to excuse the behaviour, just recognising the rift it will inevitably cause if the OP gets involved and suggesting an alternative to actually shopping her.

HMRC have a computer system which can compare lifestyle with declared income and I believe it’s being trialled for use in the benefits system. Among the things the system references are home environment, vehicle ownership details from DVLA, credit card spending and it can even extract details from store loyalty cards. A contractor doing some work on our house told us of someone he knew who was taking cash in hand for work and claiming UC. The HMRC system singled him out from information gathered from DVLA - he owned several vehicles - and he was investigated because his declared income was low and did not support his actual lifestyle. They turned his life upside down, he lost his home and cars to pay back the benefits he’d claimed and he received a suspended jail sentence. By the time he was first approached to attend interview under caution the DWP had everything they needed to convict him. Benefit fraudsters think they are cleverer than the system. Most are not and they will eventually get caught out all by themselves because of their own stupidity.

Thank you, that’s so helpful Pammiel. I still think people should report, no matter what the potential outcome to relationships. I would always worry I could be implicated. Knowing my luck, I’d go to prison too, because I kept quiet!!

Bless you Livlass. Thinking of you and praying. One of the reasons people get really angry, is when they’re in the wrong. Your husband has his reputation to consider, and this has challenged that. You’re doing the right thing, and when you get through this fog, you’ll be grateful you did it. God bless.

I understood that if you keep quiet to defend your husband’s misdeeds the court is more lenient. Or is that a thing of the past?

The OP and her DH are not going to be tried in any court. That is ridiculous!!!

Your stepdaughter is either morally immature or she is a cynical thief.

Since she cavalierly informed you about her cheating she is probably morally immature. Whether or not you report her you might be able to make her more morally aware if you can joke about her bad behaviour.E.g "What have you spent your ill gotten gains on this week?"

"Does your best friend not like to tell you ?" Keep it light and laugh out loud at her.

You yourself are not the best person to police her uncharming lifestyle.

@daisyboots. Unfortunately no one is ‘automatically’ eligible for PIP in the way they were for DLA - with PIP, it is not your condition which qualifies you, but the way in which it affects your daily living and mobility. 95% of new and migrated DLA PIP claimants have a face to face assessment no matter what their condition. The only exception is cancer, when the diagnosis is terminal and the claimant is not expected to live 12 months. The application is then fast tracked by liaison with the claimants’ GP and oncologist. Even those claimants who were given life or open ended DLA awards had to reapply as DLA has officially ended for those of working age. If your partner made his initial claim and filled in the PIP application form, he would have been made aware that a face to face assessment would be carried out at some point. The DWP are not responsible for sending out assessment letters - this is done by the contracted assessment providers. I can’t understand how he missed an appointment letter because there is not just one letter sent. The assessment providers send a notification by text message and a reminder as the appointment gets nearer. All claimants are made clearly aware that if they don’t apply for PIP their DLA claim will end automatically without further notice. If he did not receive any of these safeguards then the only course of action is to make an official complaint and hope it’s upheld. Unfortunately if the DLA claim is closed before the PIP claim is made, no back pay is possible, so your partner will not receive anything until he makes a fresh claim for PIP.

Unfortunately DLA had to be overhauled to make it sustainable. It was intended for people living with disabilities which incurred extra costs and unfortunately it was hijacked by those who had health conditions (not the same as a disability) and found it an easy benefit to claim long term. PIP is a difficult benefit to claim, and rightly so as it is meant to support those genuinely living with disability. Some see it as overly harsh but you have to ask what the alternative is to stop unscrupulous people exploiting it.

I don’t know enough to think that talking to OP’s OH would help in any way. Does he have the same moral compass as his DD? Perhaps he feels guilty if he was an absent father albeit for work reasons? If he is a decent person he could help his stepdaughter who appears to be really struggling. Is it possible that the stepdaughter realised OP would feel this way and is deliberately throwing a spanner in the works hoping to derail their marriage?

Pammiel when I worked for Age Concern (as was) as a Benefit Advisor. We were quite clear that DLA and Attendance Allowance were only paid for how an illness affected your daily living and mobility, not for just having the illness. The only automatic reasons for getting it were being registered blind or having a life expectancy of under 6 months.

I had clients who were given DLA and AA for limited periods only and there were then automatic re-assessments on retirement.

Your differentiation between those with health conditions and those with disabilities defeats me. If someone with epilelpsy or Multiple Sclerosis needs assistance because they cannot get out of bed or dress themselves with out help from another, or need constant supervision, how do they differ from someone who needs the same help as the result of an accident?

In my years as a Benefits Advisor, I do not think I knew a single person who got a benefit for just having a health condition without an ensuing disability. Indeed, even before PIP there was a large and very efficient Appeals service independent of the BA, where anyone turned down could appeal a decision. I accompanied quite a number of my clients to their appeal hearing and 90% of the time the Appeals decision was in favour of the claimant, which rather suggests that getting either Benefit was not a foregone conclusion.

The Appeal Panel consisted of a lawyer and, a doctor and layperson, with disability experience. The lay person was often a social worker working with a charity. The Appeal Panel were rigourous and knew and understood disability in a way that the the lower grade civil servants with no medical knowledge who assessed the forms and made the decisions to grant or not grant the benefits did not.

The conduct of the PIP assessments for some years was an absolute scandal. I have a solicitor friend who worked for the Appeals service for over 30 years and her comments on the conduct of the PIP assessments, are unrepeatable on a forum like this. I recently had a client with MS whose PIP was withdrawn because, on the day she went to the assessment, she was having a 'good' day - she was sometimes bed bound for weeks on end. On this day, she got to the assessment but had to shuffle to the assessment room with a walking frame and her DH to assist her as they couldn't get her wheelchair into the lift!!!!!!!!!!!

We got it reinstated and back dated, but it should never have been withdrawn in the first place.

Livlass, I am sure my DH would have reacted in the same way even though he's an honest person and hates benefit scroungers. I would keep him out of it, no point in wrecking a marriage over it.
Let things lie for now, she isn't up to her 6 months leeway yet and things may be picked up when this assessment comes round. I wouldn't discuss it further with anyone, expect a good and trusted friend who is totally out of the frame if you feel you need support. I think its been a disaster to discuss it directly with her - but thats in hindsight.
If things haven't been sorted by the summer, then I think you could use the website (someone gave it earlier) and report her anonymously - without telling anyone else - ever! Even if you are asked directly.
OK its sneaky and might mean your lying in your teeth. Are you strong enough to stand up to this?
I don't think its worth a serious split with your DH.

I’d go to prison too, because I kept quiet!!

I feel as though I've fallen through the looking glass. A woman is given 'an allowance' by her own father, and you seriously think that anyone not reporting this to the DWP would go to prison? We don't live under the Stasi.

How much is this allowance? If there is a rule that forbids parents giving gifts to children, there must be a cut-off amount, or hypothetically a cup of tea could be counted, which I'm sure even the most punitive would think was ridiculous? The OP has been very short on detail - we don't know whether her husband is giving his daughter £5 a month or £500 a week, and either would constitute 'an allowance'.

I understand that savings have to be declared, so if the allowance pushes the SD's savings above the allowance (and it goes into her bank account) then it would have the potential to take her out of benefits. Personally, I think that this is a poverty trap that discourages self-reliance (save any nest-egg and it will be taken from you when you really need it - squander your money and you can claim), but savings are not allowed under the rules.

Maybe all charitable donations to alleviate poverty should be diverted to overseas causes, as if people on this thread are right, charity can no longer begin at home.

So, supposing her father was really wealthy and gave her £400 a week.

Is it still ok for her to claim everything she can without saying a word?

I gave my son allowance but it was only £50 a week while he was waiting for his UC to be processed. The DWP accepted this as OK.

*So, supposing her father was really wealthy and gave her £400 a week.

Is it still ok for her to claim everything she can without saying a word?*

This is effectively what I am asking. We don't know, do we? I assume that £400 a week, which is nearly £21000 a year, would push the stepdaughter's savings to over the limit, unless the treatments on her long blonde hair are hideously expensive, so yes, they would be taken into account.

This whole thread has got to be a wind-up, surely?

That is interesting, Barmeyoldbat. So presumably there is a cut-off figure for parental gifts. That would make sense, and it would make a massive difference to the credibility of this thread if we knew what the OP's husband was supposedly giving his daughter.

As far as I can see, having read the regulations, anything HMRC deem to be income, is income. Income received regularly is treated as income for benefit calculation purposes.

Her father could get round it by paying it out to her in used bank notes, which means there would be little trace of it to be picked up.

The book form to fill out even had a question on whether you had any money at home, though I'm not sure its still on there.