•If you have more than £16,000 capital, you are not entitled to income support (IS), income-based jobseeker’s allowance (JSA), income-related employment and support allowance (ESA) or housing benefit (HB).

•If you have capital above a lower limit of £6,000 (higher if you live in a care home), your benefit is affected because it is assumed that your capital gives you some income – often called ‘tariff income’.

•Some kinds of capital are ignored when working out your benefit – eg, the value of the home in which you live.

•Getting IS, income-based JSA or income-related ESA means you always get the maximum amount of HB, so there is no need to work out your capital again for HB.

•If you deliberately get rid of capital in order to get more benefit, you are treated as still having it. This is called ‘notional capital’.