council tax

[topman9thnov]

a friend of mine who claims sickness benefit and help with her council tax has had a letter from the council tax saying they are going to pay a visit to look at bank statements etc......are they allowed to do this by law...?

[sara3]

yes, and I suspect they could even request her statements directly from the bank without her permission.

why wouldn't she confirm the details she's already provided?

[dot.haukes]

by etc what else have they asked to see? Her bank statements will show the amount of benefit being paid , if she is actually claiming council tax benefit and has undeclared income that is not shown on the bank statements they will not be able to use them for anything, but maybe they have information about an undeclared income and are trying to clarify that.

[maclarencat]

They need to see them to check on the amount of capital. Normally you are asked to supply them when applying for the benefit. If you have above a certain amount in the bank your council tax benefit is reduced irrelevant of income. I know it happened to us!

[tboo]

The ' visit ' won't be by the council tax dept it will be by the council's benefit section
They visit everyone receiving help every now and again to verify that nothing has changed.
While there the officer will ask to look at documents to make sure they haven't for eg earned more income than declared, or got more savings etc
They definitely can not get bank statements themselves without permission unless the counter fraud unit at the council request them

[sara3]

↑ in which case they can get them.

[tboo]

What I meant is - if it's a normal visit then the person visiting will ask to see proof of savings while they are there - if the statements are not available the claimant will have to get them from the bank themselves.
The only time the council can get statements without the claimants permission is via the fraud section using the relevent fraud act and only if they have commited benefit fraud

[topman9thnov]

thanks for all the replies.

[padanarm]

This sounds like a compliance interview. They will be checking that the circumstances she reported remain the same. They are fully entitled to make such checks.

There are capital limits for CTx claimants. If the claimant has less than �6000 savings it will not affect benefit. If more than �16 000 claimant will not be entitled to any benefit. If between �6000-�16 000 there will be an adjustment.

They may also want to check any additional income.

If your friend co-operates there shoudn't be a problem.