Dilema, and no where to turn!!!!

pitkin2020

Hi, all, thought i would share my dilema with you and see if anyone has any advice to give or maybe some insights to any experiences which may be similar.

At the moment i work full time, my partner is claiming Disabilty living allowance, (Higher mobility, middle care component) and we have a 3 month old son. She has a re-occuring dislocation to the knee which is why she is on the benefit. Apart from DLA we receive a small amount of working tax credit, child tax credit and child benefit.
We are in private rented accomadation which i pay for from my earnings in my full time job.

In approx 3 months time my partner is to go in for an operation on her knee, (Which is great as have been waiting 6 years), which means she will be in hospital for around 7-10 days initailly and then will be allowed to return home, where she will spend the first 3 months in a split with little to no movement, next 3-6 months with about 30% movement allowed, increasing every six months approx.

So this brings me onto the fact that i am going to have stop working to take care of our child full time as well as my partner full time, and this will be atleast for 3 months but more likely to be 6-9 months.

Obviously we are trying to prepare ourselves and get our selves in the best possible postion to be able to atleast keep a roof over our heads, we have no savings so we can't afford to just sit back.

We have spoken with the benefits office, who offered very little help, and we spoke with the housing authority who offered even less help. my concern is that we are not going to be able to pay the rent, so will get kicked out. Housing have said that because i work at the moment i am at the bottom of the list for house. They have also said that if i leave/or get sacked from my job to take care of my child and partner, i would have no income to pay the rent which could be classed as making myself homeless, which they would then offer no support at all.

The benefits office said that i may be entitled to income support but i "may" have to wait 26 weeks for a decision. What am supposed to live on in the mean time.

As you can imagine this is casuing a great deal of stress on us and we don't know where to turn or what to do. It seems that because i work i am being offered no advice.

Does anyone know what we can do or what we should do, any help is truly appreciated,......sorry for the rant lol

Richard
North Devon

notlongnow_2

Would you be able to get a child carer for your baby as tax credits will help with these costs.
I know you will be caring for your partner too but if it just her knee( I dont mean 'just' in a belittling way...just mean it could be worse) then could she not do majority of her own care herself? I work with re-hab patients and they are surprised at what they can do after major surgery.

I know its not ideal, but if it means you keeping your home or job....

Can you maybe drop hours? Go part time maybe for a few months?

Scarlett1

Did the benefits section not mention housing benefit to you, now know as LHA ?, I would have though that you would be entitled to joint Income Support, Carers Allowance and Council Tax Benefit, speak to Tax Credits as you might be able to claim more Child Tax Credit, although you will lose your Working Tax Credit. The best thing you can do is get the forms now ready to fill in when the times comes, and save as much as you can to pay your rent in advance as that can sometimes take a couple of months for a decision

rachnbri

As a previous poster mentioned, if you were to pay for registered childcare for your baby you would be entitled to help towards these costs through working tax credit (up to 80%).

If this is not an option then as your partner receives middle rate care component you should be able to claim carer's allowance and an income support top up. Income support would not take 26 weeks to come through . I think they may have been referring to job seekers allowance when they told you that as you can be sanctioned for up to 26 weeks for job seekers allowance if you leave a job. As a carer JSA would not be appropriate for you anyway.

In addition to that you would be able to claim LHA towards your rent and council tax benefit also.

mummytofour

Ok, You can apply for carers allowance to care for your wife. This is £50.55 a week. Once you get carers you can apply for income support. The combined carers and income support will be aprox £120 per week. You should get max tax credits for the baby but it might depend on your income for the year, Im not sure on that part.

[Deleted User]

mummytofour wrote: »

Ok, You can apply for carers allowance to care for your wife. This is £50.55 a week. Once you get carers you can apply for income support. The combined carers and income support will be aprox £120 per week. You should get max tax credits for the baby but it might depend on your income for the year, Im not sure on that part.

not to forget that an award for income support would mean automatic 100% council tax rebate and maximum housing benefit/LHA

mummytofour

Of course!

ecgirl07

All above advice is good but look into all the ramifications of you voluntarily leaving your job - this could have a knock on effect on your IS and LHA claims check this out with the CAB before leaving work. Also looking long term will it be easy for you to get back into work? As advised it might be worth looking at going part time or re-jigging your hours if you can ie working more hours over fewer days?

[Deleted User]

mummytofour wrote: »

Of course!

sorry mummy2 4 i wasnt having a go,just pointing out what the OP might not have known

john :beer:

pitkin2020

Thanks for all the replies guys, there is some really useful advice to work from there. My main concern was how they would perceive it if i did voluntarully leave work to care for my partner, as opposed to getting the sack lets say or even redundancy. Or if i were to take a career break for say 6 months, would i still be entitled to benefits? as i would not be earning.

So if for arguments sake say, that i take a "career Break" (if they will let me), and the DWP give me income support, i would then be entitled to the maximum for LHA and council tax benefit??

Also if i were to claim for carers allowance does that not get deducted from my partners money???

With regards to child care, personally i wouldn't be comfortable handing over my 6 month old son for someone else to care for whilst i was at work. My partner has been told for the first 3 months she is to restrict all movement to an absoulete minimum to help with healing, so she would still need some care, obviously a few hours without anyone isn't going to kill her lol, so part time is an option.

So thinking about part time, what help would i be likely to be entitled to then?? Would i still get any help with housing and council tax?? I guess my working tax credits would increase??

I'm sorry if some of these questions seem really dumb, but i have very little to do with benefits, as normally i find trying to get an answer from the people who are meant to know at the job centre just simply "don't know" which makes the whole process even more frustrating.

Thanks for all the replies, know that i am likely to get some help has eased the stress some what

Richard

pitkin2020

is there any advice on housing, i mean we are on the list as our current private rented property is cold damp, no heating (apart from electric heaters which take about 3 days to get warm) and we have very bad draughts from sash windows that have an inch gap all around them. we also have 3 flights of stairs outside which are extremely slippy when wet. My concern is that with my partners knee op looming she will be completly house bound, any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Richard