Bank Statements - Advice

Lorcan

Lorcan

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So the council want to do a financial assessment following on from my last Care Act assessment. Has to be in by 5/1 and they're demanding six months of bank statements "for every account I have" and apparently if they don't get them they'll assume I can pay the full amount.

I don't want to give the council six months worth of statements and that's at least in part because I don't have any. I don't get paper statements. I'd have to ring up the bank and get them to send out six months worth of paper statements and the chances of that turning up by the 5th are slim to none. I don't own a printer, so if I were to do it myself I'd have to go somewhere with a shared printer and do it that way. Those are bank statements, ain't gonna happen.

I'd like to come back to the council with something a little more nuanced than "it's not gonna happen" but...it's not gonna happen. I will give them everything else I possibly can but the statements are out of the question. If anyone has advice, I'm all for it?

ETA: they didn't even send this request to me. They sent it to my keyworker at the housing association.
 
Could you ask whether sending screenshots/pdfs of the statements would be acceptable?
Or ask if they have a printer they can print them out on?
Or if they can give you another, say, 10 working days notice, or even better if it's really necessary to show them your bank statements?

Sorry you're in such a predicament- it sounds like they've been very disorganised.
 
Can your keyworker not assist? It is likely that it is something they are trained and/or experienced in doing in a safe manner that protects your confidential information.

If not, then I would contact them asap when they are open and politely point out that with the request being sent to your keyworker alone there was a delay in you knowing about it, couple that with the Christmas period and a lack of places to give support you have not been able to access all the information they need. Provide what you can, ask for an extension for the statements and put a polite request that future requests like this are sent to both you AND your keyworker so you can do more to meet their deadlines in future.
 
That’s sounds a bit threatening - if you don’t provide them they’ll assume you can pay the full amount huh …. I’d say that you don’t get paper statements , you don’t own a printer and you’re worried about confidentiality if you send copies by email. Could you show the bank statements to your keyworker who could vouch for you and confirm what you receive ? I’d also explain about your ill health and how some days you can’t manage to do much at all and this is adding to your stress and anxiety .
 
I can't even ring them til next week because non-essential services are closed til Tuesday - meanwhile I could do the financial assessment online. The fact I can't get the bank statements for now is only half relevant, I'm not prepared to ask to have six months worth of them sent to me via post to then send them on via post, especially when their online service doesn't require it and (so far as I can tell) there's no justification for it. They already know exactly what I have coming in benefits wise because it had to be calculated when it turned out they owed me council tax repayments several years later.

Unless they think I've got some magical source of income they don't already know about so they can claw their council tax repayments back. I know "produce bank statements or pay £330 a week because that's our terms" sounds like it would be a smart idea but, no. Not unless they can come up with a very good reason for attaching that as their cover letter.
 
Can you download the statements as an excel or pdf file and email the files to the council. I do this, but I have a computer, I don't know if that's possible if you just have a phone.
 
I could, but that would require them to actually check for an email. And I'm still not going to do it - if I physically send them bank statements I'm going to be redacting the hell out of them. The only info those statements could tell them - that they're not already aware of - is that my bank account's at just under -£80. It's in the red. It is every time the fortnight's up. I have no savings, no ISA, no nothing. They know what benefits are going in because someone finally worked out two years ago that I'd been overpaying council tax - and why - and there's been no change to any of it other than the statutory rises every April. They already know all of this if they actually bothered to look.

So, no. If they want bank statements they can have heavily redacted ones that give them the info they need (and already have) and only the info they need, or they get none at all. I'm just baffled, the entire front page of the letter is just blatantly hostile.

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It does not make me inclined to just...give it to them, no.
 
I should imagine the dire financial situation in most councils has meant they have become stricter. I'm not sure when they last had this information from you to do a financial assessment for your care but yes, it is normal for any government agency to check details of what you have had in to your account.

My parents were caught out and didn't even realise. My Nana left an inheritance between all 4 of her children. My dad hadn't had anything to do with her for years and I got him to make amends on her death bed in case he regretted it later. It was a little over £6k and stayed in their bank for a month while he figured out what to do with it (passed it to me and my brother because he didn't want everyone thinking he made up with his mum for the money). Problem is that anything over £6k affects benefit entitlement so they should have got less, giving it to their own children counted as deprivation of capital (purposely getting rid of it to get more benefits). So it was calculated how many years they should have had less benefits for and then bam, huge overpayment. Sorry it's a long story with too much information but just goes to show that, even with honest people, these things can happen and have an impact on things like this hence they do like to check everyone. Then of course there is the less than honest people who, despite being the minority, ruin it for everyone else
 
I did kind of wonder when I first read it if it was just me, but I'm both glad it's not, and kinda wish it was. It's so much easier when it's just me being difficult.

I have no issue with them seeing the money from benefits going in, it's certain payments out I don't want them to know. And I know how that sounds, these are not payments that are necessary or that I'd want calculated against my ability to pay - if the money's going on care said payments stop, I've no issue with that. It doesn't mean I want the council to have access to every single outgoing payment when they really don't have any right to it.
 
Lorcan said:
I did kind of wonder when I first read it if it was just me, but I'm both glad it's not, and kinda wish it was. It's so much easier when it's just me being difficult.

I have no issue with them seeing the money from benefits going in, it's certain payments out I don't want them to know. And I know how that sounds, these are not payments that are necessary or that I'd want calculated against my ability to pay - if the money's going on care said payments stop, I've no issue with that. It doesn't mean I want the council to have access to every single outgoing payment when they really don't have any right to it.
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I think it might be helpful if you or your keyworker can find out exactly what information they need and what they use it for. I.e. are they just checking that you don't have more money going in or savings sat there, are they doing a full assessment of what comes in and goes out, or are they just checking it matches what you put as essential outgoings for things like your bills?
 
I mean I've done these a few times, they generally care more about what goes in than what goes out because what goes in is generally what they can calculate from, bills and other costs be damned. Which I get. I don't like it, but I get it. The actual form contains sections for explaining what rent/mortgage you owe, what money/savings you've got in the bank, other property that might give you extra income, what benefits you receive and how much and how often, and lastly a section for disability-related expenses. I have to assume at this point they want the bank statements to back that up? Because without the statements they won't accept the form, looks like, so it's maybe just a case of dotting the i and crossing the t, but it's the hostility that gets me. I don't necessarily expect niceness from the council, but I'm going to need compromise of some description over the bank statements (and I doubt I'd be the only one) unless they can guarantee it's income they care about, but it's also not my fault the letter they sent on the 19th December is one they want returned by 5th January when they can't even be bothered to send it to me direct in the first place.

I'll be less cranky about this tomorrow, but I'm still adamant I want some sort of confirmation on those bank statements before I'm even asking the bank to send 6 months worth of them.
 
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