Jobseeker's Allowance Query

[Want-to-know]

I do not want to do anything illegal, unlike many politicians with their claims, but would like some advice.

My husband left his job after 4 years of bullying. I agreed, as I did not want him to get ill. I myself am retired and get a very small pension - nowhere near enough to live on. I cannot find work, despite trying. Neither can he, despite his best efforts. We are around aged 60. However, as my husband has been unemployed for nearly 6 months, because we have over £16,000 savings in a joint savings account, which we have been living on and pays our mortgage, I would like to know one thing. Would it be illegal for him to transfer his savings into my name, so he can continue to claim unemployment insurance? For nearly 40 years, he has been paying into National Insurance and only recently as he needed to claim.

Can anybody advise me if it is illegal or not, since we do not want to break the law, but just keep afloat and not lose our home until one of us can find a job.

Thanks..

[bednobs]

they look at your savings as a couple don't they?

[R1Geezer]

pay all your savings into the mortgage and get down and get what benefits you can. You have put some in , get some out.

[Buenchico]

The JSA system examines your joint assets, so transferring the money from one account to another would make no difference.

However you state that you're both aged around 60. Up until April of this year that was the age when both men and women became entitled to to Pension Guarantee Credit. That age is now gradually rising (for both men and women) in line with the gradual increase in the State Pension age for women.

Read the general information here:
http://www.direct.gov...ow_income/dg_10018692
Then click on the link for the State Pension Age Calculator. Enter your own date of birth (and, of course, set your gender to 'Female') to find out when you're entitled to your State Pension (and hence also to Pension Guarantee Credit). Then enter your husband's date of birth but LEAVE THE GENDER SET TO FEMALE. (That's because HIS entitlement to Pension Guarantee Credit is based upon when a WOMAN, born on the same day as him, becomes entitled to the Credit). Hopefully you'll find that one, or both, of you will already be entitled to Pension Guarantee Credit, or will shortly become so.

Chris

[dotty.]

I;m not happy, I should have been retireing at 60 but they've changed it now and i have to work until I'm 65, I've got 3 private pensions and so I suppose I could retire early but would I get pension tax credit (if they don't do away with that)

[sara3]

you will be treated as a couple, so what's yours is still his.

if you try to "lose" it somewhere else it would (if you were found out) be classed as deprivation of resources. and yes, it would be an offence.

I don't see how you are only just keeping afloat when you have over £16k capital.

[THECORBYLOON]

The mortgage is a loan which need not be repaid immediately. Therefore if any savings are used to reduce that loan, it will be looked upon as deprivation of capital.

[Want-to-know]

Thank you all for your answers.

[Kathyan]

I find this situation disgusting. When you have worked all your life and saved hard, you aren't entitled to claim benefits from the system that you have paid into. If you have never had a job, you are given everything on a plate, whether you were born here or not! It's just not right.

[R1Geezer]

go to France and sneak back in and claim to be a Roma Pikey, then you'll get the lot!