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House Price Crash Forum

If you claim Income Support,


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HOLA441

Some very good and imaginative replies, but i am still perplexed as to whether the government  or government departments, social ,tax consider crypto-currency an asset ,I have asked an accountant about this ,his reply was what is Bitcoin .Is it only an asset when it is sold and would you get the same capital gain tax allowance ?

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17 hours ago, Sour Mash said:

You couldn't buy a second property to dodge having benefits docked but you can certainly buy a primary residence to 'ringfence' your money if you don't already own a house.  Of course, if there's a HPC you could stand to lose a chunk of that should you end up forced to sell during the crash.

You can also prepare by cutting down on using credit/debit cards and instead withdraw amounts of cash regularly over a period of time, paying for living costs with cash.  Who's to say that you took out an extra few hundred quid more than you needed for cost of living every month and put that towards gold and silver coins, or secondhand high end watches or the like?  (Of course, you would declare anything that you are required to.)

Another thing you could do if you own a house or are sure you can stay where you are renting (thanks to housing benefit), is to buy and store a lot of long shelf-life food in anticipation of having to live off benefits later on.  That's going to cut your living expenses considerably when you use it.  If you owned a house with a suitable south facing roof area, you could also buy a solar/battery setup and reduce costly energy bills down the line later on when your income is restricted.  Maybe even get a secondhand electric vehicle and you can retain cheap to run personal transport later on (some can also augment battery storage for the house).  Again if you have a house, buying selected secondhand designer furniture to kit out your home is a good way to store some wealth as well as improving your personal comfort.  You can always sell it for cash and go to Ikea (or Gumtree) for replacements if you need funds down the line.

 

The key is not to be caught unemployed with a bunch of bank savings/ premium bonds/ equities/ investment funds representing your wealth that you were saving to buy a house when prices normalised .. only to find that an economic crisis comes along and you lose your job.  You will be expected to divest yourself of most of what you have saved, to support yourself before you can access benefits, vs someone who has pissed away everything they had and not bothered to save for a rainy day who gets everything instantly.

 

 

For the sake of a few months unemployed why bother? just spend a few grand of your savings on living expenses. Having to buy lots of assets etc, then flog them on is a lot of hassle and also rarely do you get what you paid for them, even if second hand.

So the difference between what you spent on your own savings, or the amount you lost on buying and selling stuff plus the dole money, its not that great.

If you were planning on milking the system for a long period then it would make sense, but i think those who milk the system professionally are prepared to put their wholes lives behind the endeavour, willing to raise have kids without enough financial backing, tattoos on faces to ensure no job interview success etc.

In saying that there is a lot to be said for being lean with your life-style. spending to save money so you take the hit up-front, with solar panels and storage etc. Cheap reliable cars, hybrids etc. Having some long-lasting food items in bulk. There is a great sense of security that whatever happens your not ruined straight away.

Sadly if you want to own your own home, these-days you need massive massive deposits just to ensure the mortgage wont cripple you underemployment situations. 

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HOLA445

The idea would be to be as self-sufficient as possible.  A paid up house with a bit of a decent sized garden, solar panels/battery storage, electric vehicle, store of food, some physical cash, non-cash monetary assets (PMs, crypto), assets that you could liquidate quickly for ready cash (watches, furniture).

The problem is that you need to have the house in the first place to do many of the other things to make you secure and largely immune to the fortunes of the economy.

Rather a bummer to be caught in the situation of having to use the funds saved for a house to support oneself in the event of unemployment during the sort of financial crisis likely to accompany houses becoming affordable, because you can't access welfare benefits that someone who had never bothered to save a penny got without a question.

 

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9 hours ago, ExiledMatty said:

Wouldn't blowing 100k of your 106k total savings on a flat, just to be under the 6k benefits limit, somehow disqualify you anyway?

Surely the dole office would say you deliberately spent your savings for benefits sake.

 

No. Not if you used it to house yourself.  Yes, if you used it to go on a round the world cruise.  

The rules all fall under 'deprivation  of assets' for qualifying for benefits.  I'm sure there's a section on the Gov website on it.  

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On ‎31‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 10:24 AM, kzb said:

It's a long time since I claimed IS (37 years ago) so I am no expert on what it's like now.

However, I concur that they probably don't take your house (your home) value into account.

I'm not sure what the position is with second homes or property empires though.  That would be worth checking. 

If you were collecting rent from properties you own I am sure that would count as income.

If you spent your dosh on property but kept it empty you would have the council tax and upkeep to pay for, so you're wasting money.

they don't take your home into account - come on - don't you know that home owners are a privileged group...??

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A handy FOI request here with info on deprivation of capital/assets.  

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/deprivation_of_capitalincome_rul

They mention that capital can include jewellery, though not sure how they would know you owned a couple of £50k Rolex watches.  

Basically, the whole means tested benefit system is fundamentally a joke.  

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59 minutes ago, Wayward said:

they don't take your home into account - come on - don't you know that home owners are a privileged group...??

The posts from others on here say only one home is allowed though.

I hesitate to widen the discussion, but there is a difference between contribution based and means tested  unemployment benefits.  There used to be anyhow.

If it's contribution based benefit, they don't take your assets into account at all.

But this only lasts 6 months and I believe there are all kinds of hurdles to it.

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