Benefits unravelling help please.

suethedriver

Hi. My daughter has recently been made redundant from her job where she hasnt been for very long.
She has been job hunting ( not signed on) and expected to find a job fairly quickly !!!!!!!!!!!!!! She has now been given a sick note from her doctor but doesnt know if there is anything she can do with it ? as she is not claiming benefits YET. It is for a week but will probably be extended for a while.
She is very concerned how she is going to pay her rent & bills.
She shares a two bedroom flat with a friend ( joint tenancy each pay half)
She is still job hunting even whilst not well , if she manages to get a part time job she will still be short for rent, bills etc.
Housing benefit seems to be a possibility from what i have read but as she is under 25 ( age 20) the LHA rates seem to be low.( if you can decipher which rate applies !)
Can anyone suggest what action she coould take & what to claim if anything.
Thanks

suelees1

She should have made a claim to benefits as soon as she finished work. If she is incapable of work then she should claim ESA along with HB and CTB. First thing tomorrow she can ring 0800 055 66 88 to make all the claims

suethedriver

Many thanks. All three applied for today + asked for backdating !!!!
Well we can give it a try.

suelees1

She can self certify incapacity for the first week but she'll need continuing sick notes after this.

They'll now send out a customer statement which contains all the details they took over the phone. She needs to check this is right and submit it with any of the required info they'll specify in the covering letter (they should send her a pre paid envelope). If she doesn't have everything they've requested tell her not to delay sending the customer statement as she can always supply the info at a later date.

If she stops getting sick notes she'll have to sign on for JSA so will have to go through the whole telephone claims procedure again (apart from new claim for HB and CTB)