specialist team for tax credits renewal (merged)

Retford_Red

Hi, I have a question for TaxCreditHelp:
We have a 6 year old, and have had a joint claim every year since he was born, however 2 months ago my wife and I seperated.
We contacted the Tax credits helpline to notify a change of circumstances, i.e. the claim would now need just be in my wife's name, at her new address, going into her bank account rather than the joint account as previous.

Today she has received a letter from HMRC , (not from the usual tax credit department) stating that they do not have enough information to be sure that she's entitled to tax credits. They want her to send 10 or 11 bits of information to them, including P60, pay slips, bank statements, mortgage statement, proof of our child attending school, proof of his address (how we do that I don't know) and several other documents.

Does this sound right? She was part of a joint claim for 5 or 6 years, and this is a basic change of circumstances, therefore this all sounds unnessasary to me. Its causing her a great deal of stress, and although its only £42 a month, she relies on this mony now that we have seperated.

Thanks in advance (sorry for the long post).

justamum2010

hi does any one have a phone no for the specialst team i renewed over six weeks ago when i ring up just keep getting told its been processed i will recive a lettet some time not happy at all :mad:

kurjam

helenj36. . . . i was told the same for 4 weeks then yesterday i was finally told to ring the specialist team . . So i would guess you will ave to eventually

Kyresa

Well I had to go through the specialist team and my claim isn't for anywhere near £8500 !

(And then the computer inflated my income this year, so had to ring them and correct it as I was getting less than I should because of it!)

Telfordstar

kerry13238 wrote: »

hi yes i did but i still had to do my renewal for 09/10 had the new forms for new claim old single claim was closed

Yeah I had done mine through specialist team, have you claimed now for joint claim, if you did how long did it take to get sorted out, im still waiting for forms.

TaxCreditHelp

Kyresa wrote: »

Well I had to go through the specialist team and my claim isn't for anywhere near £8500 !

(And then the computer inflated my income this year, so had to ring them and correct it as I was getting less than I should because of it!)

The £8500 Tax Credit award figure quoted includes Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit... and any ChildCare costs paid as all this contributes to your total Tax Credit award amount.

TaxCreditHelp

justamum2010 wrote: »

hi does any one have a phone no for the specialst team i renewed over six weeks ago when i ring up just keep getting told its been processed i will recive a lettet some time not happy at all :mad:

It is taking around 3 to 4 weeks to receive award notices from date of processing so there's not necessarily anything to worry about if you haven't received anything yet.

It takes around 3 days for the system to finalise completed Renewals and after this time there will be a Finalised version showing on the 'View Award' screen available to the Tax Credit Advisers on the Helpline.

The relevant Specialist Renewal Team contact number varies according to the first letter of your surname so personally I'm unable to provide details of which number you should call.

TaxCreditHelp

Retford_Red wrote: »

Hi, I have a question for TaxCreditHelp:
We have a 6 year old, and have had a joint claim every year since he was born, however 2 months ago my wife and I seperated.
We contacted the Tax credits helpline to notify a change of circumstances, i.e. the claim would now need just be in my wife's name, at her new address, going into her bank account rather than the joint account as previous.

Today she has received a letter from HMRC , (not from the usual tax credit department) stating that they do not have enough information to be sure that she's entitled to tax credits. They want her to send 10 or 11 bits of information to them, including P60, pay slips, bank statements, mortgage statement, proof of our child attending school, proof of his address (how we do that I don't know) and several other documents.

Does this sound right? She was part of a joint claim for 5 or 6 years, and this is a basic change of circumstances, therefore this all sounds unnessasary to me. Its causing her a great deal of stress, and although its only £42 a month, she relies on this mony now that we have seperated.

Thanks in advance (sorry for the long post).

This is what is commonly referred to as a 'Household Breakdown' and is far from a simple change of circumstances and the previous joint award must be ended and an entirely new claim submitted.

Although both of you were entitled to Tax Credits that doesn't mean that you or your ex-partner will necessarily be entitled individually... on the flip side, a new award may well pay a greater amount of Tax Credits depending on the circumstances.

I would advise replying to the letter with as much detail as possible.

Hope this helps.

TaxCreditHelp

helenj36 wrote: »

taxcredithelp

i phoned main helpline again and asked about my claim being inhabited.the lady said she know what i was talking about regarding the specialist team and that there was no marker on my account.she explained it had been sent of to be proccessed.does this sound correct or do you still think it could be a specialist team case.my award is way less than the £8500 pr year yo mentioned earlier

Your renewal could be in a processing queue for a number of reasons. It could be that the details held on the Tax Credit system don't match up with the details you provided on your renewal, or it may be some additional checks are required. I would give it a week or so and then call back to find out what's going on with it.

TaxCreditHelp

kerry13238 wrote: »

so is everyone whos claim is over £8500 claim being handled by the specialist team? i didnt get a letter but when i called a couple of weeks ago the advisor said that when i had filled in my renewals form i had crossed a box to say that i had a change of circumstances that i had not told them about and the tax credits have been waiting for me to call and tell them what this change is before they can finalise this.
he said it wasnt a problem and he would take the cross off he then said my award is now finalised and 3 days later i called and was told it is now finalised. i called on the 5th of april to tell them that my parnter had moved in and it did state this on my renewal but im worried now that this cross he said i put was acctually because of the specialist team i have had no letter and they have not contacted me.
i went over the form 3 times because i get nervous about tax credits and i really dont know how i could have crossed a box to say there is a change?

This is entirely possible... when your renewal is returned to Tax Credit Office it is scanned through a machine reader which is rather sensitive so any stray mark in the relevant box may well have caused it to be held up in a processing queue.

There is a question that asks for a response regarding your circumstances with a 'Yes' or 'No' answer and you may well have missed it when completing your form or misunderstood the question... it is a pretty common mistake. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.