Estrangement

student_advisor

If their income is approx £62k, there won't be much difference (if any) between being income-assessed on their details and being non-income assessed if your claim for estrangement is not accepted.

It is not that you won't get any maintenance funding, just that you won't get as much as if you were considered independent. The majority of the maintenance loan and all of the tuition fee loan is not based on anyone's income. As I mentioned, there is also (currently) the bursary depending on your subject.

StudentInCrisis_2

My current bursary and maintanace grant only just manages to fund me now! Andthats with a university bursary.

Mainly its my rent that eats it up. That and travel

StudentInCrisis_2

My grandma spoke to a really lovely lady from SFE today who said a letter from my welfare department at university should be sufficient if I do move out, although they may also want letters from my parents and my grandma in support as well as a letter from me.

Oldernotwiser

I cannot see how you can consider yourself to be estranged if you're in the situation of deciding whether to move out or not.

Taiko

This will be rejected, wasting several peoples time. You are not estranged.

bestpud

Your parents are clearly prepared to submit financial details for you to claim support as you are worried how their new income will impact on that.

They would presumably write a supporting letter too - or you haven't stated that would be a problem for you.

Lastly, you are living at home and pondering whether you will be better off financially if you leave home.

In short, you are not estranged!

Let's say it how it is - you are struggling to cope with the current level of support you receive and realise that will go down when you are assessed this year, so you, granny, and possibly your parents, have hatched a plot to defraud student finance.

That's how it looks to me anyway!

Taiko

I'll be completely honest with you about how I'd approach it if you were applying to my LEA.

Upon receiving your request, I'd write and ask for letters from a welfare adviser/social worker, grandmother and parents. Much like SFE.

If I received all of these, I'd then turn you down for estrangement.

MrsManda

Taiko wrote: »

Upon receiving your request, I'd write and ask for letters from a welfare adviser/social worker, grandmother and parents. Much like SFE.
If I received all of these, I'd then turn you down for estrangement.

Surely if you'd turn him down for estrangement if you received all the letters you requested saying that he was estranged from his parents, if he's not really estranged (which seems to be the case here) he'll just ask his parents not to reply?

Taiko

MrsManda wrote: »

Surely if you'd turn him down for estrangement if you received all the letters you requested saying that he was estranged from his parents, if he's not really estranged (which seems to be the case here) he'll just ask his parents not to reply?

My point exactly. To be honest, it's a fairly sneaky way of proving it. However, from experience students don't seem to be the smartest people when it comes to this, and I've used this method as a way of proving someone wasn't estranged before if I've had severe doubts over it all.

There's other ways I will pick holes in estrangement cases, but I'm not going to disclose everything!

MrsManda

Taiko wrote: »

My point exactly. To be honest, it's a fairly sneaky way of proving it. However, from experience students don't seem to be the smartest people when it comes to this, and I've used this method as a way of proving someone wasn't estranged before if I've had severe doubts over it all. There's other ways I will pick holes in estrangement cases, but I'm not going to disclose everything!

That's fair enough, I was just interested how it works. I presume you write to ask the student to get the letters rather than to the parents etc...?
Estrangement cases must be one of the hardest things to prove from both sides