Benefits advice for friend on really low income

evergreen

I would appreciate any advice. My friend is in her mid fifties and has split with her husband after many unhappy years of his drinking and other problems. They spilt the money after their house was sold and the mortgage paid off. She has been renting for a couple of years using the money from the house plus her low income, she works part time (about 25 hours in retail). She does not spend much but her savings are running out and she is worried about how she can live after they are gone.

Can she claim any housing benefits or any other type of financial help? Does she have to wait until all her savings have gone before she claims anything. I know she does not want to claim, but I can't see what else she can do. She is not divorced from her husband, should she be looking into that.

I would appreciate anyones help on this matter - she is such a nice person I would really like to be able to pass on some useful suggestions.

Thanks

Benefits_Bod

The savings / capital limit for HB/CTB is £16,000. For any savings / capital between £6,000 & £16,000, an income of £1 per week is assumed for every "band" of £250 entered into (e.g. £6000.01 means £1 per week income is assumed).

HB/CTB entitlement is means tested. My advice is to make a claim - nothing to lose apart from a bit of time. Forms can be obtained from your friend's local council. Worst that can happen is the council decides she isn't entitled.

Claims should be made asap - delays can result in lost benefit.

Indie_Kid

Is there anyway she can work an extra 5 hours a week? She might be entitled to working tax credits then.

RAS

She needs to tery and work the extra hours to get WTC.

Also explore the possibilities of CTB and HB.

Try www.entitledto.com

generalcuster

But would not the extra hours worked and the WTC claimed affect the possible HB/CTB claim. I seem to recall that for every £1 earned you lose 85p in those benefits.

I would hate it if after working the extra 5 hours she would only come out net with 15p for every £1 earned?

AnxiousMum

generalcuster wrote: »

But would not the extra hours worked and the WTC claimed affect the possible HB/CTB claim. I seem to recall that for every £1 earned you lose 85p in those benefits.

I would hate it if after working the extra 5 hours she would only come out net with 15p for every £1 earned?

Why? You work, you earn money. You work more, you earn more money and are less reliant on benefits! She would likely lose pennies off of her HB/CTB claim - but she'd be working for it.

Indie_Kid

generalcuster wrote: »

But would not the extra hours worked and the WTC claimed affect the possible HB/CTB claim.

Yes it would.

generalcuster

AnxiousMum wrote: »

Why? You work, you earn money. You work more, you earn more money and are less reliant on benefits! She would likely lose pennies off of her HB/CTB claim - but she'd be working for it.

Yes I agree with you, but my disabled son in law had this problem when he asked for his hours to be increased from 25 to 30.
He was working for the the min wage, about £6 ph if I remember rightly, but with the increase in his WTC, and extra income and reduction of HB/CTB he was only 90p an hour better off!! Not really a lot for that extra work - £4.50 over the week!!
I don't think that the loss of £25.50 out of the extra wage of £30.00 are 'pennies'!

Newly_retired

But it is saving the tax payer - you and me - money.

Benefits_Bod

Originally Posted by generalcuster
But would not the extra hours worked and the WTC claimed affect the possible HB/CTB claim. I seem to recall that for every £1 earned you lose 85p in those benefits.

I would hate it if after working the extra 5 hours she would only come out net with 15p for every £1 earned?

AnxiousMum wrote: »

Why? You work, you earn money. You work more, you earn more money and are less reliant on benefits! She would likely lose pennies off of her HB/CTB claim - but she'd be working for it.

generalccuster is correct. If a claimant is on both HB/CTB (and not on IS / JSA(IB) / ESA(IR) / PC(G)); every extra pound of income will reduce HB by 65p and CTB by 20p.

If out of the original pound there is tax and/or NI, the taper applies to the remainder and it is quite feasible for less that 10p in every pound to actually end up in the claimant's pocket. And that's before the wonderful world of tax credits catches up with a recalc....

generalcuster

If out of the original pound there is tax and/or NI, the taper applies to the remainder and it is quite feasible for less that 10p in every pound to actually end up in the claimant's pocket. And that's before the wonderful world of tax credits catches up with a recalc....[/QUOTE]

Hey that is worse than what I thought it would be!

I think everyone should be able to see that working for £3.00 per week out of an extra wage of £30.00 for 5 extra hours work is ridiculous. That is 60p per hour!!!!

There is no way surely that anybody should encourage someone to do this - it is slave labour!!
Yes it saves the government £27.00, but to the person doing the work, all that they are interested in is how much they will get for those extra 5 hours!