Council are being a pain & won't backdate my housing benefit

dmg24

vegankris wrote: »

To be fair, the benefits system allows people to have a capped amount of savings (sorry can't remember the amount off the top of my head) and still be able to receive benefits.
Yet again, people are being overly harsh and presumptious towards the OP in their replies.

Where has anybody been presumptuous?

Sometimes people need to be harsh to try to make a person understand that their understanding/ viewpoint is incorrect/ pointless.

blindmouse

You could always move back to parents which is what my dd has done and boy will you save money not only for yourself but the taxpayer as well x I don't mean this in a nasty way, I am more than pleased to have my dd back home x London and no job is very hard x

vegankris

dmg24 wrote: »

Where has anybody been presumptuous?

Sometimes people need to be harsh to try to make a person understand that their understanding/ viewpoint is incorrect/ pointless.

Yourself, below, as the OP has already pointed out to you she wasn't claiming for the months in which she was a student.

dmg24 wrote:

If you have recently graduated, then you would not be eligible for LHA for the period of backdating as that would still be term time. Students are not generally allowed to claim LHA (there are limited exceptions to this).

mvengemvenge

vegankris wrote: »

Yet again, people are being overly harsh and presumptious towards the OP in their replies.

If by that you mean that a critic might presume that someone who had graduated from university should have more than a little intelligence, then I certainly plead guilty.


I always find it amusing that the 'I'm a graduate' crowd seem to have more trouble understanding the rules and procedures of benefits than the Wayne/Waynettas of the world. Do you realise that the Basic Skills Assessment (an English/Maths test) was made compulsory because of the numbers of graduates who couldn't spell or count, and the CBI complained to government?


When you claim JSA, you sign-up for all the rules that go with it. That means that after 3 months, you have to widen your 'field', after 6 months, you are expected to apply for any job you are physically and mentally capable of doing. The OP should bear that in mind.

dmg24

vegankris wrote: »

Yourself, below, as the OP has already pointed out to you she wasn't claiming for the months in which she was a student.

Now you have made yourself look very silly.

Had you bothered to read my post properly, you would note that I was responding to the OP's statement that they had graduated recently.

How was I presumptuous in stating that the OP had graduated recently, when he had just stated that he had graduated recently? :rolleyes:

vegankris

You never bothered to clarify by asking the OP how recently?

NASA_2

vegankris wrote: »

You never bothered to clarify by asking the OP how recently?

re·cent (rsnt)
adj. 1. Of, belonging to, or occurring at a time immediately before the present.

Jowo_2

_shel wrote: »

Whilst I agree with some of these points why does this mean he should be entitled to back dated housing benefit when the money is not outstanding?

His rent has, quite rightly, been paid by his savings. He is not at risk of homelessness due to non payment of rent as so many others are due to the current climate.

Are you really suggesting that our benefits system should be used to replenish the savings of people who have used their savings to pay for the unexpected?

Is this not why we save? To cover such things if we become unexpectedly ill, unemployed or a carer. Or do we just save for holidays, the so called property ladder or purly the pleasure of watching the money grow in an account while we get handouts to pay for essential items?

All the luck to him gaining experience so he can get work, but whilst doing that if you have savings they should be used before benefits and he can start saving again once he has paid work.

That's one interpretation and it's clear that there is little or no entitlement to retrospective payment.

A kinder interpretation is that this industrious individual has unnecessarily depleted the contingency fund that you have argued is essential, when they need not have. She has accidentally penalised herself by inadvertently paying an expense that the state should have picked up had she had greater knowledge of exploiting the benefit system. She is fully entitled to have 16k in savings, like anyone else, and get awarded housing benefit if the means test is met, like anyone else.

She has now made it clear that she now has 'literally nothing'. Having exhausted her contingency funds and on limited income, she is actually at risk of getting into arrears should her claim be slow in getting processed or if her landlord doesn't want a HB claimant for a tenant. So, like anyone else in that precarious economic position, she is as much at risk of homelessness as them.

Is it your principle to refuse to apply for any state benefits whatsoever until you've exhausted all your savings?

dmg24

vegankris wrote: »

You never bothered to clarify by asking the OP how recently?

Is that the best you can come up with? :rotfl:

Even more silly ...

vegankris

Jowo wrote: »

A kinder interpretation is that this industrious individual has unnecessarily depleted the contingency fund that you have argued is essential, when they need not have. She has accidentally penalised herself by inadvertently paying an expense that the state should have picked up had she had greater knowledge of exploiting the benefit system. She is fully entitled to have 16k in savings, like anyone else, and get awarded housing benefit if the means test is met, like anyone else.

:TThat was what I thought as well on reading her post. It's nice and refreshing to see people who show a little compassion.