Capital we don't count to work out your benefit
- Money which is part of your regular income
- The value of your home where you usually live
- The surrender value of a life insurance policy
- Backdated benefit paid to you by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the last year or so. We may count it as income.
- Any payment from the DWP Social Fund (for example a funeral grant)
- The assets of a business in which you are self-employed or were self employed until recently.
- Personal belongings such as a car (unless you bought it to take advantage of savings rules)
- Money in trust paid as compensation for personal injury
- The value of any property that a partner or relative of any member of the family lives in, if the person living there is 60 or over or is disabled
- Capital belonging to a child
- Money from the Macfarlane Trust, the Independent Living Funds for severely disabled people or money from the Skipton Fund (you don't need to tell us about these)
- Christmas bonuses for pensioners
- Any payment of £10,000 if you or your partner were imprisoned by the Japanese during the Second World War, even if your partner received the payment but has since died
- Any payment (apart from a war pension) made to compensate for the fact that, during the Second World War, you, your partner or any partner of yours who has since died, was a slave labourer or a forced labourer, had suffered property loss or personal injury, or was a parent of a child who had died
This is not a full list.
We ignore some capital for a set period - usually six months but it can be longer in some circumstances:
- Money to carry out repairs or improvements to your home or that you plan to use to repair or replace damaged or lost items. If you or your partner are 60 or over, we ignore this money for one year from the date you receive it. ·
- Property you bought or inherited which you plan to live in as your home.
- Your previous home if you are separated from your partner, from the date you left the property.
- Property you are trying to sell, from the date you put it up for sale.
- Property which needs repairs or alterations before you can live in it, from the date the work started.
- Money from selling your previous home, which you will use to buy a new home. We can ignore it for longer if that is reasonable. If you or your partner are 60 or over, we ignore this money for a year from the date you receive it.
- Property where you have started legal proceedings against the person living there to get possession so you can live in it, from the date you started proceedings.
This is not a full list.