My thought is that if the claimant needed access to £16,000 of their savings could it be arranged that they got it? If the answer is yes then surely we have to treat them as having too much savings?
I think if that was the case it would count as capital available on application, i.e. the only reason they don’t have it they haven’t asked, and it would count as notional capital – reg 49(2) if working age but there is no analogous reg for pension age apart from reg 47(1)’s general deprivation rule, and I think it might count as actual rather than notional capital.
