help....anything we can do?

hannah29_2

my hubby has worked all his life as a freelance it consultant and paid high rate tax throughout. his last project was canned suddenly in august and no other work has come to fruition as yet. he went and signed on the other week for the first time ever and we have been told all he can get is jsa of 62.50 per week. we live in private rented accomodation but we do have a mortgage on my mothers house 150 miles from us so we cant claim any housing benefit. we also cannot move in to my mums as its a 1 bed bungalow. we cant understand why i, as a stay at home mum of 2 children, 1 of whom is not school age, cannot get anything for me or the kids. we have tried child tax credit but cant get that either. how is my husband supposed to support a family on £62.50 per week? we will have to hand notice in on our house very shortly if we dont sort something out or a job doesn't come along soon. we do have credit card and loan debts, plus my mums mortgage and we cannot move to a smaller house with less rent whilst he is out of work either as no one will look at us. we are in a catch 22....
any thoughts????

dmg24

Do you have a lot of equity in your home? Do you have savings above £16,000?

You may be entitled to income based JSA, but that would depend on your capital levels.

hannah29_2

we have no savings but there is more than 16k in my mums house of which on paper we own!

hippy-chicy

How old is your mum? and is she incapacitated in any way?

Caz3121

you should be able to get child tax credits although it is initially based on last years earnings (and if hubby earnt over £60k+ it would say no entitlement) I believe you can give them this years expected earnings to be reassessed...hopefully someone will come along with the accurate process.
Do you get child benefit?

hannah29_2

my mum is 65 and gets incapacity benefit, yes we get child benefit and yes hubby earnt over 60k

NASA_2

You have 'other property' which can be taken in as capital. Not sure if it can be disregarded because the person living there is incapacitated which is what I assume hippy chic is thinking about.

I'll have a look and see what DMG says.

hippy-chicy

hannah29 wrote: »

my mum is 65 and gets incapacity benefit, yes we get child benefit and yes hubby earnt over 60k

In that case for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit the property that you own ( that your mum is currently living in ) can be completely disregarded indefinately ( as long as she remains there). Therefore, any capital value in the property is not taken into account.

For HB/CTB any property you own in which an elderly or incapacitated close relative resides in can be disregarded. There is also no limit to the number of properties that can be disregarded in this way .

hippy-chicy

I dont know how it works for other benefits as they are not my area

NASA_2

hippy-chicy wrote: »

I dont know how it works for other benefits as they are not my area

We're a bit more !!!!!!!ish I think.

mouseymousey99

Hello Hannah,
Do you have insurance on your credit cards? Now is the time to claim! (a lot of people forget they have been paying this every month)....(did partner have loss of earnings insurance - banks often sell this very heavily when they see lots of dosh going into an account)?
Could you perhaps work a few hours and partner look after children?
If you want to post your incomings/outgoings on the debt free board people there are very good at showing you where you could be saving some money? Don't rush into one of those cut your debts things until you have explored all the options.
Outgoings - I would strongly steer you to the oldstyle board where you can cut your housekeeping bills (it may seem like pennies but hey it all counts)!!
Try not to panic (I know its easily said) we've mostly all been there. There is a lot of help out there - best wishes