'Going around in circles'

meggymoo311

First time of posting,sorry this is going to be long.

I was made redundant in January 08 from a well paid job.I don't like claiming benefits so it wasn't until July 08 I decided to go onto CBJSA purely because I was able to do a course at learn direct through being on this. Unfortunatly in September 08 I became ill,had to go into hospital for 3 days and have been on Incapacity benefit since. Had a medical assesment about 6 weeks ago and reading on here what others have said not sure I will pass this (as I'm not dying yet lol!!)
My husband also had a very well paid position with the same company and was made redundant this January 09. He was put on CBJSA. We are claiming council tax benefit but that is all.
We have a mortgage,as soon as my husband was out of work we went to speak to our lender and discuss our options.Our mortgage lender suggested going from a repayment of £984 a month to an interest only at £462 a month this we agreed and could manage for about 6 months. We still owe £98000 on the mortgage. While we were there we also mentioned the fact it might be better to sale the property straight away and down size our mortgage.Our property is valued at around £230000.We were given the advise not to do this straight away as we have a fixed rate until next year and would incurr a £5000 penalty for paying it up,the only other way we were told was to put the money we made from the sale into the bank and drip feed it into the mortgage until the fixed term had finished.This would mean we would port our mortgage.
My husband and I discussed this a week later and decided that as things look bad for the near future we would do this now. So we put it on the market and 6 weeks later recieved 2 offers one being £225000.We were looking to buy at around £175000. We went back to our lender to tell them this is what is happening and were told by someone else there that we couldn't do this,the mortgage would have to be paid of,we would have to pay the £5000 penalty and we couldn't get another mortgage as we are both out of work (how stupid is this as we are trying to help ourselves rather than go to the government for any more help and there would still be enough money in the new property to cover what we owe the lender should they need to take it). Any way our lender told us to get a claim form for this mortgage interest support as soon as possible which we did and sent it to them,they sent it to the job centre with in 2 days.
When my husband next signed on he asked if they had recieved it and would there be a problem with it as he is on CBJSA and not IBJSA she said there wouldn't be a problem as they are both the same thing.
Well I expect you have guessed by now letter from them this week to say you can't have it because you are on CBJSA. I rang them and told them what we were told she said you shouldn't have been told that but could send the forms to claim IBJSA, but it does depend on any other income. I explained I was claiming Incapacity benefit and her reply to that was it might be a problem then.
(Sorry to go on so long but I wanted to put you in the picture )
Right I am now totaly confussed as it seems if you work all your life you get penalised and if you try to help yourself rather than go on benefits you can't.
Now my questions, are we entitled to IBJSA if I keep my Incapacity benefit or should I just tell them to stick it?
If I were to come of it what could I expect to claim?
Will we have to be on IBJSA for another 13 weeks or will the fact my husband has already been on CBJSA be counted?
Lastly I have scanned the internet for articles about the government papers when they decided to bring this 13 weeks MSI for people in exactly our position and they all only state JSA they don't stipulate either one. It's not until you go onto the job centre website that they IBJSA or income support. Do you think they have made the rules up themselves as they seem to make everthing else up as they go along!!!!
Help please before I go completly mad!!!!

deb0020

I would advise your husband to claim JSA IB (JSA3 form)and help with the mortgage (MI12 form) as soon as possible.
As you in receipt of Incapacity Benefit there would probably be no entitlement to JSA (IB) without the mortgage. But once your claim has been assessed to include the mortgage you could be entitled to some help. The mortgage amount may be approx 114.00 per week
The calculation is
JSA (IB) plus mortgage less Incapacity Benefit.

The qualifying period should be 13 weeks from the date your husband was first paid JSA (C)

It may take a while to sort out depending on how busy your local Jobcentre is.

Hope this helps.

meggymoo311

Thanks debb0020 for your reply.

So what your saying is I can stay on Incapacity benefit. We fill out the form for JSA (IB) and as soon as this has been processed we fill out form MI12 again and as he has been claiming for 13 weeks already this help should kick in. Is this taking into account Incapacity benefit has gone up to £80.15 a week as from the 9/4/09. Sorry to ask so many questions but never been through this before. Probably get this all sorted and he will be offered another job,but would rather have that anyway. Like I said we both had good jobs and to lose an income of £50,000 a year comes hard.