Reporting a change of circumstances, help please

mia1830

Hi,

Can anybody help me with this or advise me what way I go about this?

My husband and I have been seperated for the last 6-8 months and are going to give things another go, while we were seperated I claimed a sa single parent, I just did it when the renewal form came in. So now I know I need to inform them of a change, so what I want to know is....

Can this be done over the phone? Do they send me a new form out to fill in income etc?

Will this be messy? From what I have read on here they can take a while to reduce my payments, then they will be looking their money back for any overpayment, which is fair enough.

I just don't want to end up in a mess with them, so just need to know the right way to go about it A.S.A.P.

Thanks in advance for any help

Murgatroyd21

Contact them right away, advise your partner has moved in and on what date. They will end the single claim and issue a new pack if there's an ongoing entitlement. When you send back the completed pack you should attach a note asking for the joint claim to start from the day after the single claim ended, so if you say your partner moved back on 1st September, ask for the joint claim to run from 2nd September. It can take a little while for payments to be restored, but they aim to get it up and running within 3 weeks of receiving the pack back if no problems and all details provided.

If there was an overpayment from the single claim, you would need to repay this direct, it can't be taken from the new joint claim, and it would usually be calculated at the end of the tax year. You will need to complete a renewal form for each claim in the current tax year, so if you had a joint claim from 06-04-2010 until the single claim started, then back to a joint claim again, you would have 3 separate forms to complete.

mia1830

Thank you very much, I know my payments will have a big drop as we both work so I will keep an eye on any over payments as it will be a big difference. I was getting WTC & CTC but now will only be entiteled to CTC. We are only in the process of him moving back in so I will contact them A.S.A.P. Do you know what details I will need to hand if I phone them? Just so I'm not running about looking for stuff. Thanks again

Murgatroyd21

Just the date he moved back in, figures for last year for both of you and estimates for this year if they need to do a calculation (with age and info for any children) as all they will do is end the single claim and send a new pack.