Do maintenance and tax credits count as income?

BARGAINHUNTER!

oh yeah - forgot to add - I got hit with stamp duty too! Apparently I had to pay stamp duty on the £150k plus £20k cash that I gave my ex - something I didn't know about until solicitors bill arrived and it was on there!!

Loobysaver

BARGAINHUNTER! wrote: »

So in effect you have a £102k deposit? The house is worth £150k but you only need £48k? I was in a similar position, with a similar amount to borrow, but my house was worth about £300k. Are you going to be buying your ex out? Only reason I ask is that I couldn't afford to hand over half the value of the house to my ex and add the £150k to my mortgage (they wouldn't lend it to me anyway!) so luckily my ex agreed to have a charge against the property. I have to give him a % share either when I co-habit, get married, move or my youngest son reaches 21. My lender wasn't very keen at first, but after a long battle I got them to my ex having charge against the property I was trying to mortgage.

Fortunately for me my ex is going to sign the house over to me. Mainly cos he is feeling very guilty about the way he has treated me, and also cos he doesn't want the children and me to have to leave the family home. He isn't signing over a whopping £102k though as I put in a lot more money when we bought it.

BARGAINHUNTER!

You get a lot of tax credits - you must have lots of children! Don't forget to add child benefit to the amount of income that you give the mortgage people - it all adds up and can help push the decision in your favour! Have you approached your current lender to see what they would be able to offer you? I stayed with IF as that way I didn't have to pay an arrangement fee for the new mortgage which probably saved about £1k - not an insignificant sum when you only borrowing £48K! My monthly mortgage payments are approx £320 a month and I overpay this by £200 a month - something I would recommend if you have any spare cash as it really brings mortgage term down. Also, please remember that tax credits are not paid forever, they will no longer be paid when children leave full time education so if you children are quite old you will need to factor in the fact that this income could reduce dramatically, also you will lose some of the child benefit too when this hapens. What would happen if you ex suddenly stopped paying you as it is a private agreement? I have a private agreement too (but I don't get as much as you) and I must admit it worries me if something were to happen as he didn't pay or had to pay me less.I also worry about the future as one day I won't be getting the tax credits or maintanance income.

BARGAINHUNTER!

Loobysaver wrote: »

Fortunately for me my ex is going to sign the house over to me. Mainly cos he is feeling very guilty about the way he has treated me, and also cos he doesn't want the children and me to have to leave the family home. He isn't signing over a whopping £102k though as I put in a lot more money when we bought it.

You are doing this all through a solicitor arn't you?

Loobysaver

BARGAINHUNTER! wrote: »

You get a lot of tax credits - you must have lots of children! Don't forget to add child benefit to the amount of income that you give the mortgage people - it all adds up and can help push the decision in your favour! Have you approached your current lender to see what they would be able to offer you? I stayed with IF as that way I didn't have to pay an arrangement fee for the new mortgage which probably saved about £1k - not an insignificant sum when you only borrowing £48K! My monthly mortgage payments are approx £320 a month and I overpay this by £200 a month - something I would recommend if you have any spare cash as it really brings mortgage term down. Also, please remember that tax credits are not paid forever, they will no longer be paid when children leave full time education so if you children are quite old you will need to factor in the fact that this income could reduce dramatically, also you will lose some of the child benefit too when this hapens. What would happen if you ex suddenly stopped paying you as it is a private agreement? I have a private agreement too (but I don't get as much as you) and I must admit it worries me if something were to happen as he didn't pay or had to pay me less.I also worry about the future as one day I won't be getting the tax credits or maintanance income.

I don't have lots of children !! lol. :rotfl: I only have 2 but as I am on a low income I get the higher rate of CTC and WTC.

All your points are very valid. My youngest child is 7 and I will get a better job when she gets more independent.

Maintenance is a worry I admit. Based on my ex's income I am getting £200 per month more than what the CSA would make him pay. So if he stopped i'm assuming I'd have to go to the CSA and get the £300 instead.
We are newly separated so I expect he'll want to start paying less when the separation is less painful and raw on all of us.

BARGAINHUNTER!

Loobysaver wrote: »

I don't have lots of children !! lol. :rotfl: I only have 2 but as I am on a low income I get the higher rate of CTC and WTC.

All your points are very valid. My youngest child is 7 and I will get a better job when she gets more independent.

Maintenance is a worry I admit. Based on my ex's income I am getting £200 per month more than what the CSA would make him pay. So if he stopped i'm assuming I'd have to go to the CSA and get the £300 instead.
We are newly separated so I expect he'll want to start paying less when the separation is less painful and raw on all of us.

What you might also find is that his 'private arrangement' might change if he met someone else or purchased another house. I bet he is so full of guilt at the moment that he is doing everything he can to make you feel comfortable by paying more in child maintenance than he has to. He might look at this in a few months time when he is getting on with his life and give you less. As your youngest is 7 you probably have another 10 years of maintenance, child benefit and tax credits. Unless you take out a mortgage lasting 10 years you need to be prepered for making mortgage payments whilst having a substantual drop in income. But a lot can happen in 10 years!! I have read in some of your other posts that you were not married. We were not married also. You need to see a solicitor to draw up a 'deed of seperation' which details exactly what is happening with what (house, kids, loans, savings etc) Also, as you have a private agreement about the maintenance have you discussed how this will be reviewed? Mine increases each year according by how much ex earned according to his P60 (we use CSA calculator as guide as to how much he should pay) All this is written into Deed of Seperation, including the fact he has to show me his P60 so I can check maintenence is correct. We had slight problem with the transfer of the house into my name, in that ex put £20k deposit down, which came from sale of his previous house which was his and in his name only. We then took out joint mortgage in both names on new property. We had to decide between us how we wanted to split everything, so in order to be fair I decided to give him his £20k back (he needed this as he was buying new property for himself and needed deposit). We sat down and worked out all finances, and decided how to split savings accounts. We went to mediation to do this so everything was documented.

How are you paying the bills at the moment as he is still living there? Are you splitting them 50/50 including the mortgage? What we did was decide on a date when we oficially split, and listed down all fixed outgoings. These we split 50/50, even though ex earned more than me. When he physically moved out I paid all bills including mortgage in full whilst property was transferred into my name. The feeling of joy the day everything completed on the house and it was all mine was great (and a bit scarey!) Next step will be when I pay him his % share in the house, as then house will be truley mine!

Anyway - sorry for rambling - you need to do this all through a solicitor as there are children and house involved. Also does your ex have any parental responsibility as you were not married? If not he will have to apply for this through courts but solicitors will advise you of this. Mine didn't have any parental responsibility even though he was named on birth certificates (my children are 13 and 11).

Don't forget to ask the solicitor about Wills as well and have a think about what would happen to children if anything were to happen to you (not nice thing to think about!)

If you on WTC have a look at evening college courses as you can often get them for free or at discount and these might help with future job prospects and earning power!!