Just been made redundant

skoobz_2

Hi all,

Having never been on benefits before and having read through a lot of posts on this site I find myself very confused so hopefully someone can help me.

I have just been made redundant and got a redundancy payment of around £12k. We have no savings and a mortgage of around £80k which hopefully will be paid by the mortgage protection insurance. I realise I will be entitled to £60.50 from JSA. I also have 2 children and my wife only works 24hours per week for minimum wage.
My plan is to go back to college for a year but I need to be able to keep the roof over our heads in that time. The course I am going on is one of the training for work funded ones so I will get an extra £10 per week for that.

The area of confusion for me is what benefits we will receive for the kids.
We currently get the 40 odd pounds for what used to be family allowance.

Can anyone give me an idea if I will be able to get any other child tax credits please.

Thankyou

Skooby

Conor_3

You will be entitled to Child Tax Credit and should be claiming this already. You will also be entitled to working tax credit. Phone them up and get the claim going, if you haven't already, and notify them of the change in curcumstances if you are already claiming.

mouseymousey99

Just to say (this always gets forgoten) if you have paid for any insurance on loans/credit cards etc etc - this is payback time! Don't forget to claim...
with best wishes

skoobz_2

Thanks for the info. I have insurance for the car loan and the mortgage.

I dont officially get made redundant until 31 dec although I already have my p45. When I phone the job centre or the tax place no one will talk to me until the 1st jan which is a real pain in the ***.

As far as the child tax credits are concerned am I right in saying that they look at how much you have earned this year, even tho you are now unemployed. In my case that will be around £20k so will that not cause me a problem?

skooby

cw18

loss of income for the last 3 months of the tax year will still (presumably) mean this years income is less that last years?

If so, then you may not get the full £50+ a child that someone on IS gets, but you should be due for an increase.

Not sure how CTC works when you end up on benefits for part of a year -- the only one that's happened to for us (2007-08) currently has an appeal on it which covers much more than the fact they didn't pay us anything for the 7 weeks we had some IS

bestpud

How much does your wife earn?

They will take your earnings so far into account but you will still be entitled to child tax credits of at least £10 a week until April.

At the beginning of April they will reassess your income using just your wife's income and you will more than likely get wtc too.

If she can work 30 hours (maybe possible if you are going to be a student) you will get an extra element.

skoobz_2

Wife only gets around £6k.

Skooby

k2tog

Sorry for your bad news.

i would suggest phoning the Child Tax Credit people - they are always really helpful and because it isn't renewal time (August) should be reasonably OK getting through on the phone. Good luck with them.

skoobz_2

k2tog wrote: »

Sorry for your bad news.

i would suggest phoning the Child Tax Credit people - they are always really helpful and because it isn't renewal time (August) should be reasonably OK getting through on the phone. Good luck with them.

I phoned them the other day but they wont talk to me until the 31st which is when I am officially redundant. I hate not knowing

skint-student-nurse

have a look at www.direct.gov.uk and you should be able to find out exactly what you should get. also try the tax credit calculator - there is a link on the direct.gov websit.