voluntary redundancy / benefits

crispeater

Hi,

Im currently on maternity leave after having my 2nd child and i have been notified that my company are offering release so i have applied for it. i cant stand that 1hour either way travelling and plus my 1st child will be starting school soon so i need a job that can accommodate the school holidays.
sooo my question is. if i am accepted to take release then obviously i will be given some money and i was going to pay off my debts, credit cards etc.
will i be able to claim JSA or income support until i find a part time job? or will they say that i was stupid to of paid my debts off and i should use that to support me until im employed again.
i dont care if i even get a job in a supermarket, i just want a stress free (ish) job!

any info greatfully received!

exil

Have to pass on that one. Ask the CAB. A quick trawl of the internet suggests that the powers that be will not let you spend capital on anything other than ordinary
day-to-day bills and other living expenses. Paying debts seems to be a grey area. If you pay off all or part of a mortgage, this actually saves the taxpayers' money (as the interest you would have to claim later on is less) but it seems it's not allowed. Paying off cc debt - would appear not to be allowed either. Even though a minimum payment
on a cc card includes an element of repayment!

I suspect a lot would depend on the scale of the repayments. Paying off 50k of debt would obviously ring the alarm bells, a few hundred would probably be ignored - but I'm guessing, you do need to take advice!

I can see the dilemma the authorities are in. Obviously a millionaire shouldn't be able to dispose of assets like St Francis and then start claiming benefit. On the other hand,
a prudent action like using redundancy money to pay debts is penalised too. Rule doesn't seem to apply to pension credit, where debt repayment is allowed (after all, you're not likely to get a job once you're of pension age).

Anyway - getting another job would seem to be priority number 1. As soon as you
are actually working, you can spend your money how you like.

shelly

I was made redundant in March last year so I applied for contribution based JSA. I was told that you have to wait to make a claim depending on how many weeks money you got. e.g. you got 3 weeks redundancy pay and 1 week holidays that was owing to you, so you can't claim for 4 weeks. So you probably won't be able to pay off debts/bills as you have to live on your redundancy money for X amount of weeks.



HTH

CIS

Officially you can only pay off what costs are essential for living, ie rent, food etc.

Paying off anything more than minimum payments on debts , credit cards etc, could be taken as deprivation of capital.

I think that the best way is to take it easy with money and live sensibly, make what you have go as far as possible before you need to resort to claiming JSA.

shelly

CIS wrote:

I think that the best way is to take it easy with money and live sensibly, make what you have go as far as possible before you need to resort to claiming JSA.

Why deprive yourself of money you are entitled to? I see nothing wrong with *resorting* to JSA. Theres nothing to be ashamed of by claiming benefits you are entitled to. I know alot of people who use up all of their savings just so they can say they aren't on benefits.....to me thats just daft.

exil

Sorry, if you have capital/savings you can't GET JSA (other than the contributory JSA)! This thread is about how you can actually spend your capital to get below the JSA limit without breaking the rules - and the answer is, very carefully.

camper

Actually, redundancy is IGNORED for conts based JSA. only pay in lieu or holiday pay taken into account. so you can do want you like with the redundancy money!!

shelly

camper wrote:

Actually, redundancy is IGNORED for conts based JSA. only pay in lieu or holiday pay taken into account. so you can do want you like with the redundancy money!!

Its ignored in the sense of how much you got. They don't ask that. They don't ignore the fact you got some though so you have to be careful with it as it has to last you until X amount of weeks are up.

e.g. you got 3 weeks redundancy pay so you can't claim for 3 weeks. The money has to last you.

By all means take it easy till your waiting time is up then spend it on bills.

recovering_spendaholic

I was made redundant on 31 December last year and got an enhanced redudnancy payment and a bonus. I didn't get any pay in lieu of notice and so could sign on with effect from 1 January. I only applied for contributions based JSA and this does not take into account how much you got, or how much money you have in any bank accounts etc. To qualify for Contribution based JSA you have to have sufficient class 1 National Insurance contributions, but in effect, if you have been working for all or most of the last two years you are okay. They usually want to contact your employer to verify that you were made compulsorily redundant, because if you take voluntary redundancy you are not entitled to contribution based or ordinary JSA because you are intentionally jobless.

Once you have made your claim, if you have received pay in lieu of notice you can't have JSA until the notice pay period runs out. The claiming process is very straightforward for contributions based JSA - you just phone them up and they do the application over the phone and then they make you an appointment with an adviser at the Job Centre and you go and sign on for the first time. I have no intention of applying for any means tested benefits so it doesn't matter what I spend my money on (well it does or I'll be skint, but you know what I mean!!) but, if you do not have sufficient NI contributions then you can still apply for JSA but it is means tested and they ask you a million questions about money and savings and child support and stuff like that and they contact the CSA if you are a single parent, even if you tell them that you have an arrangement for maintenance. You can't have ANY JSA at all if you say you are not prepared to work full time and if you are not prepared to travel within a 10 mile radius. If you get non-contributions based JSA then they link the application with a claim for anything else to which you may be entitled like Housing Benefit, Council Tax benefit, Income support etc. It's all incredibly bureaucratic but otherwise not too bad! Good luck with finding something more kid-friendly! HAve you thought about asking your employer if they will offer you family friendly hours or term time work or an annualised hours contract? Employers have a duty to try and accommodate maternity leave returners you know!!

shelly

My job centre must have different rules to yours recoveringspendaholic, or rules have changed since last march when I was made redundant Because I had 3 weeks redundancy money, 1 week pay in lieu of notice and 1 weeks holiday pay owing I couldn't claim conts based JSA for 5 weeks. And when it came to the part about how many hours/days you are willing to work I said I didn't want to work full time as my bills per month were X amount (cos I'd reduced them where I could after being made redundant) and a part time job would cover them sufficiently. They were fine with it. Sometimes I think job centres are run on the moods of the advisors

recovering_spendaholic

Shely, I think they did you out of JSA for at least 3 weeks!! We had people come into my work from the DWP and they gave us the guidelines and said that redundancy amount (for conts JSA) didn't matter but pay in lieu and holiday pay did. I got 46 weeks redundancy money but no pay in lieu and no holiday pay and got conts JSA from 8 Jan (three waiting days after I signed on on 5 January). You may be right about changes though because they seem to change the rules every 5 minutes as far as I can see!