Housing Benefit Question

bunnygirl007

Hi

I have just recently started claiming contribution based JSA and wouold like to apply for Housing Benefit - I live in a Housing Association property. However I see I need to produce bank statements for the last 2 months, I received a small redundancy payment which would make it look like i have over £16,000 in savings, I think the current balance is probably about £18,000. The thing is I also have a large amount of debt and I need this money to make payments towards clearing this debt and also to pay my bills like food, electricity etc. So my question is do the HB people take this into account or do they see the balance and regardless of the situation say you can't have anything until all this is gone? I don't know if it makes a difference but I'm a single parent.

Many thanks

PaisleyPPL

pls dnt take this as cheeky but u have 18k in the bank and u want benefits ?

tr82

You'll only qualify for Housing Benefit when your savings go under £16,000 by normal day to day spending. If you dispose of your savings to pay off debt in lump sum payments, when you have normal monthly payment arrangements in place, you risk being classed as depriving yourself of capital ... and that means they can still treat you as having savings even though you've spent it.

So tread warily.

HappyMJ

PaisleyPPL wrote: »

pls dnt take this as cheeky but u have 18k in the bank and u want benefits ?

Anyone can claim contributions based jsa.

Bunnygirl you only need to spend £2500 to get under £16000 so make sure all the bills are up to date and paid up for the next few months. You might have to wait a month or two before claiming HB to be able to do that as tr82 says normal day to day spending but that doesn't always mean the minimum payments on credit cards you can pay 10% off the balance reasonably. My reason if it ever came to court is that I don't want a 40 year credit card debt I want to pay it off over 1 year as that is how long the items charged to the card would last for.

PaisleyPPL

i agree with the jsa -obviously as the op isnt working due to redundancy ,i was more meaning about the HB ,just thought the work situation is obviously just until the OP gets another job (sorry to hear about losing ur job tho ,nothing worse) .Wouldnt it be acceptable to use the 18k to live off of until another job is found ,everyone has debts but is it fair to pay them all off with savings ?leaving the OP in a situation where more benefits are needed ? just a thought ,obviously dnt know the whole situation .

Hope u find a new job soon;)

HappyMJ

PaisleyPPL wrote: »

Wouldnt it be acceptable to use the 18k to live off of until another job is found (yes it would be reasonable),everyone has debts but is it fair to pay them all off with savings ?(not all just 10% per month of the unsecured debts) leaving the OP in a situation where more benefits are needed ? just a thought ,obviously dnt know the whole situation .

Hope u find a new job soon;)

She won't be able to spend over £12,500 without that raising a few eyebrows so she'll have deemed income from the difference between what she's got and £6,000 so whatever she ends up with will be reduced anyway.

bunnygirl007

Thank you everyone for your replies.

I'm not planning to pay off all of my debt in a lump - unfortunatley my debts are so high that even if I threw all of my money at them it would only make a slight dint in them. What I'm trying to say is that just to pay my (now reduced by agreement with my creditors but stll high all the same) monthly payments I am going to need this money. So obviously having some help with the rent would make it easier to keep my head above water until i can find another job.

By the way I have worked solidly for the last 20years and not claimed a thing benefits wise apart from Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit. I get no maintenance for my son and I have managed to bring him up entirely on my own and hold down a full time job. I'm sure I've paid enough contributions towards other peoples benefits (some of whom seem to make little or no effort to work) over the years so please do not chastise me for wanting to try and get some help at a time when i really need it. £18,000 soon starts to disappear when your outgoings are around £2000 a month and I would like to use some of the money to get training that will enable me to set up my own business. If I can't get HB so be it - I just wondered that if they see a large balance on my statement and then see sums of money coming out even if its for living expenses are they going to turn me away and say come back when its all gone or is it ok as long as the current balance is below £16,000? I really don't know how they work these things out so was hoping some of you more experienced peeps on here would be able to advise.

Thanks again.

Oldernotwiser

You are only eligible for full means tested benefits if your savings are below 6,000; between 6,000 and 16,000 there is a pro rata deduction.This shouldn't really include food and utilities if you're receiving JSA as this is what it's for.

You need to be very careful about paying anything other than general living expenses out of your savings or it will be considered as deprivation of capital and you'll be treated as if you still had the money.

If your outgoings are around 2,000 per month you need to get these down as you won't be able to afford that much while you're unemployed.

missmontana

If you're on JSA you should be able to get training courses for free, ask at your local colleges/university and the job centre, see if they can point you in the right direction.
Best thing to do is go down your local housing office and arrange a private interview where you can discuss your options, luckily you are in HA property so a lower rent.
Also the CAB are great at helping with debts and stuff. They might be able to help lower the repayments.
Good luck!

bunnygirl007

Thanks again everyone for your advice. So it looks like I'll have to wait until my money is gone. I don't see how paying your debts though can be seen as deliberate deprivation - I have to pay them, they won't go away (unfortunately). As my rent is £350 a month and soon to go up again and then my council tax is £120+ it would have been a great help if I could of received something.

hippy-chicy

Speak to your LA directly bunnygirl007 and explain your situation.

Deprivation of capital is a tricky area for a DM to deal with or proove especially with a new claim where there has been no prior experience of the benefits system. Personally depending on the situation with your creditors I'm not sure that I would look at it as deprivation. Obviously i'm not dealing with your claim and dont have all the information but based on your posts thats how I would look at it. However, if you did choose to pay off your debts using your redundancy payment I would be expecting to see evidence of this e.g settlement statements from your creditors etc.

The capital a claimant has between 6k and 16k will effect any entitlement they may have. For working age we would take £1 as income for every £250 or part of over 6K.

Edit : While you have over £16k you are not entitled to HB/CTB.