To ask what access the DWP have to your bank account if claiming universal credit? | Mumsnet (2024)

This is actually on behalf of my mum. My dad passed away very suddenly 6 weeks ago. My mum has been off work understandably and been in receipt of sick pay during this time. She also suffers from depression and don’t think she will be returning to work anytime soon.

There is now understandably a huge difference in income as she has went from 2 full time salaries to her receiving SSP. She has made a claim for universal credit for housing costs etc.

She is now worried that she won’t receive any help as the DWP have informed her that they will have access to the activity in her bank account. I don’t know if they have said this exactly or if this is her understanding.

There is a small amount of money there (less than 3K) and she is worried that they will be able to see this or they will know if she takes it from the account. They mentioned the “live system” whatever this is.

Can anyone advise please? Thanks.

I don’t believe this is true.

I work for a charity where we help people set up benefit claims, I must have done close to 50 UC claims and have never heard this.

@Miniwinnie So sorry for your loss

Even if they did have access to her bank account. She is allowed up to £6000 in savings before the amount is taken into consideration for calculations of benefits. So she has no need to worry about any money unto £6000.
Get in touch with your local Welfare Rights Officer, they will be more than happy to help her navigate the system with regards to applying for benefits especially if she is likely to be sick long term.

They would have to convince a judge to give them access to her bank account and they would need to provide evidence of fraud in order to do this.

DWP, HMRC, Police etc can all access your bank accounts, phone records, emails if they have enough evidence to convince a judge that it’s in the public interest to do so.

Back in the day (2007) When I worked there they had a data matching service for fraud detection purposes which flags up large balances and it will data match to discrepancies in benefit claims. It certainly wasn’t accessing bank accounts, that wasn’t done unless fraud was suspected, in which case they obtained statements from the bank using enforcement powers . With the advent of instant real time banking I imagine it has moved on a bit thought and makes it quicker for them to detect significant balance changes, but they would still need a valid reason to obtain statements/access the account.

But as pp said, if it’s less than 6k it won’t affect benefits, BUT any failure to declare might do.

if doing a fraud investigation they can apply for a court order for bank statements. However this takes ages and would not be the case if your mum has new claim.

Sounds like she's misunderstood something. Either she's declared on the online form she has over 6k (in which case they'd ask for bank statements to total the real figure).

Or most likely they were talking about real time earnings which is just the earnings feed they get sent by hmrc so entitlement can be calculated depending on how much extra help your mum needs on top of her earnings.

Just tell your mum to be open and honest. Do not try to hide any savings, property, or incomeon top of earnings. Fraud takes way too long, but if she does something dodgy it will come back on her eventually.

As others have said anything under 6k savings isn't taken into account anyway. If she does go over this mark she would need to inform dwp quickly.

Oh, and if she will not be able to attend work for a long period she'd need to provide fit notes and ask to be sent for a work capability assesment (though whether she qualifies to be sent will depend on earnings too).

If she needs time to adjust then she needs to provide fit notes for the time she needs, and have a discussion with her work coach if she hasn't already. They usually automatically apply easem*nts in the case of a bereavement so this may have been done already.

Of course the covid virus may mess with the usual process.

@Miniwinnie Has sh declared the savings on her application?
If yes, not a problem.
If not, do it!

My neighbour ‘forgot’ to declare it... didn’t end well...

You can have more than 6k of savings, you just have to declare it. Then they take a bit off the benefit on a sliding scale type thing. Taking out 3 thousand pounds in one hit isn’t recommended because they will think something fraudulent is going on. Obviously You can make large purchases (washing machine, fridge , even a car! etc because you can produce evidence that you purchased it)

It’s probably best if the 3 thousand stays in her account, then she uses it as and when she needs it.