Universal Credit

(asked on 19th November 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department seeks to recover remaining payments on an advance payment for universal credit from the estate of a deceased person.


Answered by
Justin Tomlinson Portrait
Justin Tomlinson
This question was answered on 26th November 2018

Universal Credit (UC) advances are available to claimants as a form of budgeting support, allowing them to better manage their finances. In most cases an advance would be repaid through a series of monthly deductions from their ongoing UC entitlement. The claimant is able to select the amount of time over which they repay their advance, currently up to a maximum of 12 months.

If an advance is not recovered from the associated benefit claim because the claim ends or there was no entitlement to that benefit, the outstanding balance is treated as if it were an overpayment and referred to the Department’s Debt Management team to arrange recovery.

Where a debtor dies and leaves outstanding Social Security debt, the Department becomes a creditor of the estate and will then make a claim for these debts from the estate. Where it is established that there is no estate the outstanding balance is written off.

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