Income support

kittenface77

I am starting a full-time postgraduate course in September. I am training to be a barrister. The only funding for this is a bank loan. I will be borrowing £25,000. I am a lone parent.

£14760 of this is for the course fees
£5000 is for childcare
£1500 is for travel expenses and other course-related costs.

The left over £3740 is for rent and other living costs.

Will this loan be classed as income for the purposes of housing benefit or income support assessment?

Nobody seems to know the answer to this - even benefits advisors! (What a surprise)

Please help!!!!:)

dmg24

How old are your children?

Do you have a pupillage confirmed?

karenx

So how are you paying back the loan if you arent working etc?

NASA_2

It would be capital rather than income, I think, therefore all issues regarding capital (Deprivation etc.) would come into play.

real1314

kittenface77 wrote: »

I am starting a full-time postgraduate course in September. I am training to be a barrister. The only funding for this is a bank loan. I will be borrowing £25,000. I am a lone parent.

£14760 of this is for the course fees
£5000 is for childcare
£1500 is for travel expenses and other course-related costs.

The left over £3740 is for rent and other living costs.

Will this loan be classed as income for the purposes of housing benefit or income support assessment?

Nobody seems to know the answer to this - even benefits advisors! (What a surprise)

Please help!!!!:)

The reason no-one can find the answer is that they are probably looking for a reason to disregard your loan and cannot find one;- therefore it most probably cannot be disregarded and you will not be able to get Income Support.

karenx

What sort of bank would give a loan of 25k to an employed person too??? Even over 5 years your still talking over £500 a month repayments

bubba1585

childcare grants are disregarded as well as an amount for books and travel (its a set amount), unfortunately though, you will still be classed as a student and therefore ineligable for benefit purposes. The only times you could possibly have some entitlement to benefit is in the holidays.
Can you not take out a loan from the student loans company rather than a bank? Also a tuition fee loan which I am sure the interest is much lower than a bank would charge!

Indie_Kid

bubba1585 wrote: »

childcare grants are disregarded as well as an amount for books and travel (its a set amount), unfortunately though, you will still be classed as a student and therefore ineligable for benefit purposes. The only times you could possibly have some entitlement to benefit is in the holidays.
Can you not take out a loan from the student loans company rather than a bank? Also a tuition fee loan which I am sure the interest is much lower than a bank would charge!

The funding for postgrad study is completely different to undergrad.

Oldernotwiser

kittenface77 wrote: »

I am starting a full-time postgraduate course in September. I am training to be a barrister. The only funding for this is a bank loan. I will be borrowing £25,000. I am a lone parent.

£14760 of this is for the course fees
£5000 is for childcare
£1500 is for travel expenses and other course-related costs.

The left over £3740 is for rent and other living costs.

Will this loan be classed as income for the purposes of housing benefit or income support assessment?

Nobody seems to know the answer to this - even benefits advisors! (What a surprise)

Please help!!!!:)

Certainly normal Student Loans are classed as income.

I'm not surprised that nobody knows the answer as yours is an unusual situation. I would expect that the money left over after paying the fees might well be counted as income but that's just a supposition really..

SuziQ

My DD is studying law and she knows someone doing their barrister training this year. He hasen't been able to claim anything, although he doesn't have children. I think there is a lot of talk about how difficult it is for people without money/well-off parents to train as a barrister because of this. I think many people end up working in some capacity so that they can save enough to live whilst they are training.