My Story from the 23/06/08. Im BR.

tigerfeet2006

K2nga I am so sorry to hear about your situation. I am sorry but I have no helpful advice for you, just to say I'm thinking of you and sending you both some cyber (((hugs)))

EDIT: Have you checked on https://www.entitledto.com . Also maybe go to the CAB and see if they will help chivy the job centre along.

Sunk

Hi all
Can someone tell me why lots including OP print off 3copies?
I always read this on posts prior to me going BR.
Got to say I did not print 3copies.
I had my original forms took them to court, the court copied & gave me a copy, so it kind of confuses me how you would need 3copies.

Bit late asking but just wondered.:D




All the best K2nga

peachyprice

Not all, courts will copy them for you. Another one of those BR things that varied from court to court.

peachyprice

Kanga, sorry to hear you're having such a sh!tty time right now. Bloody bureaucracy drives me mad. You weren't self employed so how the hell can them lump you with your OH, you'd think the fact that you both have different types of claism would mean it would be easier for them to handle you separately :mad:

Godd luck, hope you get somewhere fast.

k2nga

Yeah thats my point too i cant see why they cant pay me mine at least as that would help us out. I am going to call shortly to see what is going on.

Costus

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, me and my OH are just about to make the leap into BR and reading all that you have written makes us feel that we aren't bad people, and that we are doing the right thing to get our lives back.
Just hope it goes as smoothly for us, and we get a decent judge and OR.
Thanks again K2nga.

k2nga

Well we have heard back from the JSA and my partner and i have both been given contribution based JSA but thats the only good news.

My mother in law lives with us and she is the one that has owned her business. Since we we laid off she still was not able to get an income from the business and when we explained the situation to the Housing/Council tax benefit people they said she might be able to get help too and should apply which she did.

This is when it started to get messy. We have always divided the bills in our rented property 3 ways and we are all mention and liable on the rent lease as we all our on the council tax. The local council have however decided that my partner and myself are 50% and my mother in law 50% even though legally it should be all 3 of us individually as thats whats in the lease.

Our rent for the property is £725 which will make you think that we are living it up but where i live this gets you a very damp 2 bedroom crappy flat. They have given us just £198.38 a month towards this and £37.70 towards our £155 a month council tax.

We went to the CAB which i have to admit were useless. They could not work it out after discussing it with the rest of there team and after an hour of trying gave in offering us help (Maybe) with money off our water bill. I dont want to sound ungrateful but that was the least of our problems. The CAB suggested i appeal which in fact i was doing and had the letter with me as we went to the council offices straight after. They said that as my mother in law lived with us that was knocking the calculations but they could not understand how and said we sort of fell out the perameters of the calculations so i have to say i feel my 2 hours with CAB was a bit of a waste of time and im dissapointed with them because of it as i had heard good things on here about them.

We have taken the appeal to the council who were not best pleased when i asked for the letter to be stamped and copied so i could have a copy that they had recieved it and i also asked for a copy of there appeals procedure. The women asked about and did not like the fact that i had included the entitledto.co.uk paperwork i had done in the appeal. I did point out that my mother law could not be added as a non dependant as she was as liable for the rent as we are but even if you add her in as a lodger paying her way we still should be recieveing double the benefit we had been given.

We then had a phone call from my mother in law. The account had told her she has to cease trading. So thats it the business has gone so much for this government helping small businesses there was nothing left and nothing she could do. So now she has to claim JSA too.

I came home and decided i would do a SOA for all 3 of us just on the flat bills to see if we can make up the short fall on the rent and council tax. It worked out that we could pay everything on the property but would be left with £3.51 each and this would have to cover food, Mobile bills, Insurance for the van, my dental plan, my mother in laws and partners personal bills.

I thought i would have to go and chat to the agent for the flat who i have to say have always been great to us but they told me the reason for that was i have always been upfront and when people are like that they will always help. I told the state of play and gave them £200 that we had just recieved from the housing benefit but im still £225 short for this month. They said they would have to have a chat with the landlord about it but he and his wife who lived in the area had decided to start a fresh abroad and as they too were renting but a bigger place have decided that they dont need that and if he does not sell his business will need somewhere to stay when being over here so we are likely to recieve notice next month anyway. Plus our situation and not being able to meet the rent was likely to make this decision a bit easier for them......:( The only silver lining is they may have a smaller place coming on the market and it would be cheaper than we have now and they are hoping to get us in there if it comes up but as you can see life is pretty rubbish right now.

We have all been desperately looking for jobs but its hell at the moment i have called companies i have worked for in the past who hated the fact i have left there and they are laying off no taking on so with my luck at the moment i thought that to be about right.

So thats it playing a waiting game but very depressing and looking like not only will we be having a awful christmas anyway now its likely that we will be homeless too.......

deedee_3

Get yourself on the council housing list. If you are made homeless take yourself to the council and ask to be rehoused.

k2nga

Hi deedee,

I should have mentioned that i had done that i called them to give them a laugh as we only have 20 points at the moment but the lady was helpful she said obviously with our points we have no chance but if we get an eviction notice to send it to them but as the eviction notice would give 2 months we would have to wait that out. we would then have to wait for the landlord to get a court order to get us out then they would work to the court order date. We know we would likely end up in a B&B or something the trouble is my partner is having a fit as we have 2 cats and she will not let them go or put them in a cattery and i cant see the council giving to stuffs about that with what i have experienced so far.

k2nga

Well it appears i am wrong and that the CAB are going to help us. I have just had a phone call from a supervisor in the area where i live and he thinks that he see's what the council have done with calculating out housing benefit and wants to write a letter to them for us in order to back up my appeal but point out errors. He said it was definitly a mistake and i hope to god he is write.

We have heard back from our agent about another possible place for us and we are going to have a look at it. I have been to have a look from the outside and it seems really small which is a little dissapointing but i keep my fingers cross that our luck has to change at somepoint but still wonder where rock bottom is for us.