Anyone clued up on benefits? Think me mate is in cloud cuckoo land

SingleSue

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I wouldn't rise to the bait, Sue. If you look at the history of that poster, it's full of attempts to cause upset.

FWIW, I don't see what all the hoo-ha is all about. If the OP was worded differently, such as:

"My friend is concerned about the level of care that his elderly mother will receive by the state and has decided to give up his job in order to take care of her. Can anyone let me know what financial/logistical support he can expect from the state to assist him?"

Then I'd imagine there would be a lot more sympathy. TBH, the fact that it was posted in here rather than on the benefits board and worded in a certain way, I reckon our old friend Snooze is simply engaging in a bit of rabble rousing on an otherwise slow 'first day back at work' day.

I had no problem with what Snooze posted, I was reacting to the post Active X made.

The_White_Horse

whatever, lemonjelly. you are clearly clueless. and for the record, I think the bailout was a disgrace, private savings and businesses money should have been saved and the banks should have all been allowed to fail. better banks would have emerged from the ashes.

lemonjelly

The_White_Horse wrote: »

whatever, lemonjelly. you are clearly clueless. and for the record, I think the bailout was a disgrace, private savings and businesses money should have been saved and the banks should have all been allowed to fail. better banks would have emerged from the ashes.

You is a closet chav, innit?

The_White_Horse

whatever. talk to the hand innit

carolt

OP, I think your friend needs to do a trial run urgently ie try looking after his mother unaided for say a week or 2. With partner around. So they can see whether or not this is really a life they could live. Giving full-time care to an old person with complex needs is a very valuable thing to do - but it's certainly not easy, and I would suspect that far from the cushy life on benefits he imagines, he'd be desperate to get back to his 18K job and have some assistance with looking after his mother, after a pretty short period of time.

I think providing that kind of 24 hour care is hard enough at the best of times, but with a new baby? Is there not a very real danger that he, or more likely his OH could start to seriously resent the old woman once the baby arrives?

It's a very sad indictment of our benefits system that someone actually thinks working as a 24/hr a day carer is an easy way to get rich. (Whether or not that's actually true.)

Snooze

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I wouldn't rise to the bait, Sue. If you look at the history of that poster, it's full of attempts to cause upset.

FWIW, I don't see what all the hoo-ha is all about. If the OP was worded differently, such as:

"My friend is concerned about the level of care that his elderly mother will receive by the state and has decided to give up his job in order to take care of her. Can anyone let me know what financial/logistical support he can expect from the state to assist him?"

Then I'd imagine there would be a lot more sympathy. TBH, the fact that it was posted in here rather than on the benefits board and worded in a certain way, I reckon our old friend Snooze is simply engaging in a bit of rabble rousing on an otherwise slow 'first day back at work' day.

Rather surprised at this from you considering the last words we had. :rolleyes: Clearly you still haven't gotten over the DD debacle despite your protestations to the contrary. You bring a whole new meaning to the phrase 'blowing hot and cold'. Anyway, whatever... that's your issue to deal with.

Everything written in my OP is exactly 'as is'. I really don't see what point (if there actually was one) you are trying to prove and nor can I see what difference the wording would have made. I was not looking for sympathy and nor can I figure out why you think I am either. I simply wanted to get rough figures from those in-the-know on here that I could stuck under his nose and go 'look, this isn't gonna be happening for ya'. As it turns out it seems that I was wrong and from the figures provided by lemonjelly and others, he is going to be living a pretty comfortable lifestyle financially from the state. I don't have a problem with this per-se, as I just want to make sure he gets as much support as he can and doesn't suddenly find out that he actually isn't entitled to a lot of stuff that he thinks he is and ends up struggling.

I certainly don't envy his position and the tough decisions he has to make.

R

Snooze

carolt wrote: »

OP, I think your friend needs to do a trial run urgently ie try looking after his mother unaided for say a week or 2. With partner around. So they can see whether or not this is really a life they could live. Giving full-time care to an old person with complex needs is a very valuable thing to do - but it's certainly not easy, and I would suspect that far from the cushy life on benefits he imagines, he'd be desperate to get back to his 18K job and have some assistance with looking after his mother, after a pretty short period of time.

I think providing that kind of 24 hour care is hard enough at the best of times, but with a new baby? Is there not a very real danger that he, or more likely his OH could start to seriously resent the old woman once the baby arrives?

It's a very sad indictment of our benefits system that someone actually thinks working as a 24/hr a day carer is an easy way to get rich. (Whether or not that's actually true.)

I have suggested he does a 'test' run already but his current place will need quite a bit of work to get it suitable for his mother, eg. fitment of a stair lift plus a whole bunch of major decoration work, which is time and money he doesn't have right now.

I have also warned him that while his OH says she is fine with it that he should be double-checking and triple-checking because it's easy to say what someone wants to hear at the time, but when the reality of it kicks in their answer could well be totally different which will ultimately lead to huge problems in their relationship.

As far as last paragraph goes, you couldn't be further from the truth actually. It's not about getting rich off the state and that certainly won't have even entered his head. He is a grafter and always has been. He just completely disagrees (like me) that you should have to sell all your assets that you've grafted hard for all your life to pay for your care. This is exactly what your taxes should cover you for and if the state refuses to provide good care for you because you have a bunch of assets then they should be sending you a refund cheque in the post for everything you've paid into the system for the past 47 years, or certainly a reasonable portion of it. I'm afraid that I'm quite White-Horsish on this as what he says is spot on : those that pay nothing in should get nothing out, or at least nothing more than the absolute basics. (I know you will disagree with this lemonjelly, so please don't take my comments as a slap in the face for your help as it's certainly not intended, it's just a subject I personally feel strongly about).

R

Snooze

DX2 wrote: »

When the local authority carries out a financial assessment of the person you're looking after it will need details of their savings as well as their income.
If the local authority thinks that the person you're looking after has deliberately disposed of capital in order to get financial assistance from the local authority, it will treat that person as if they still had that capital.
What counts as deprivation of capital

This could apply, for example, if the person you look after:

• spends money on a non-essential or luxury item,
• gives money away, or
• gives away property or a share of property.

The local authority will look at the reason why the money has been spent. Repaying a debt, for example, may justify the action. It will depend on the individual circumstances.

Right, so the money left over after buying a 'lesser' house could go against him then. How would it be viewed by those in power if you bought a bigger/better house and used up all the cash? Would they still pull faces and point fingers saying you could've managed with a smaller/lesser house in a worser area, or would they let it go and not count that as asset deprivation?

R

Harry_Powell

SingleSue wrote: »

I had no problem with what Snooze posted, I was reacting to the post Active X made.

I know, it was active x I was referring to in the first part of my post (the ignore him bit and the 'look at his history' part). Snooze is cool.

Snooze

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I know, it was active x I was referring to in the first part of my post (the ignore him bit and the 'look at his history' part). Snooze is cool.

:huh: :huh: :cool: :j :beer:

R