Tax credits urgent advice needed!!

pinknfluffy29

OMG - i am in almost same boat as you smiley - i split from my husband and moved into a rented property on 11th august and phoned WTC on the 13th to change claim - i still have not heard anything, no letters or phone calls, im phoning them every other day and often end up in tears of frustration. apparently there is no problem with claim and they cant see that they need any further info its just waiting to go to payment. i work 26 hours a week but my monthly wages have been paying the rent (£850) and i put off applying for HB thinking i would need a WTC award letter.

i applied for HB last week and have been told it should take 10 days and just to hand award letter in when i get it which is a hopeful bonus but as it is i am absolutely skint - my sons birthday was last wekk and i had to borrow money on top of money ive already borrowed for food, petrol etc..... my regular DD bills have all bounced cos i had to pay rent to keep roof over our heads

WTC just say there is no one they can put me through to that it is just a matter of waiting !!!!!!??????? i work and rely on this money to help feed and clothe my kids and so far i owe 6 weeks dinner monies and im just at my wits end!!!!!

am glad to know im not the only one though - i do have a dreaded fear they are not going to pay though i cant plan anything for christmas yet cos i have no idea if we will have money or not

sammie383

I am still waiting too!

So glad to hear you got what you were owed Smiley, but 11 weeks is absolutely ridiculous!!

I hope to god I don't have to wait that long, been 4 weeks now, and I have borrowed money now to pay the childminder.

I am going to call them end of this week, as I was told an escalation manager would call me within 5-10 working days, well Friday of this week is the last day......

smiley:_3-2

Ah pinknfluffy & Sammie I totally understand what you are going through and im sure you will both get what you are owed too as no reason why not! It is just a waiting game with them! i rang practically every day made no difference! keep me posted hope you get sorted very soon!

FBaby

daftdad, others correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can only claim tax credits if you claim child benefit. So if your ex is currently is getting tax credits, it means she is getting child benefit. You will need to have her to agree to transfer the child benefit to you before you can even consider applying to tax credits. I know it is a nightmare, but unfortunately, that's how it is.

for the OP, pleased that you got the back money. Just one advice if you don't mind, be careful that they might not transfer back to the joint claim right away, hence you continuing to recieve single allocation, but then having to pay some money back, possibly at the end of the year. If that is the case, make sure you put the extra money aside.

sammie383

Hey Smiley,

Just called them again as today is the 10th working day after my case was sent to escalations ( I was told 5-10 working days before someone from there called me ) anyway the person I got today was teh same as all the rest, very unhelpful. Told me they'd done all they could, it had been sent away, I'd been offered the hardship payment of £50 ( no good to me when I owe my CM £200 still ). I was told to wait.....

I asked if I could speak to someone at escalations - she said no they dont have a number for them.
She couldnt get me off the phone quick enough - so I asked for the address to make a formal complaint.

Did you keep getting fobbed off? I asked about a complaince officer and she said I could only speak to one of those if someone from there had written to me.

Today is the 10th working day, so I should have heard something by now! I am so so frustrated by them.

"Just wait" is not good enough IMO - I know they are busy but !!!!!!!!

Rant Over......for now lol

sammie383

She also sounded quite hacked off that I was phoning AGAIN - But I have been good and not called them for 9 days! lol :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Kittygalore

Hi I haven't read the above posts so pleasse forgive me if I am quoting something someone else has already said.

This happened to me in June this year. I split from my husband, we decided to be honest and tell them immediately, I didn't receive a payment and during that time thankfully we sorted out our difference. In the end after 5 weeks of no tax credits payment, I went to the local inland revenue office, I was given a same day appt and had to take 2 forms of ID. My husband also came with me as by the point we had put in a new joint claim via post. When I went to my appointment the lady took some info, looked through my SINGLE claim to find out why it was being held up (it had simply got stuck in the system for some reason). She then emailed a big head person to get the claim unstuck so I would get the monies I was owed within the next week, as it turned out I went in on the Wednesday and by the Saturday I had all the money owed to me. She also fast tracked our joint claim for us and gave us a handwritten giro for the equivelent of 2 weeks money, she said this would go on our claim as an overpayment as our joint claim would be backdated to when we got back together and there is nothing they can do to stop 2 weeks monies coming to us but the hardship payment as they call it would tide us over until our joint claim went into payment.

They were very very helpful and polite so my advice would be that if you are having no joy with the call centre and it has been a good couple of weeks then go to your local HMRC office, it has to have been a couple of weeks though as they do not take any general enquiries ie change of circumstances etc.

Kittygalore

sammie383 wrote: »

Hey Smiley,

Just called them again as today is the 10th working day after my case was sent to escalations ( I was told 5-10 working days before someone from there called me ) anyway the person I got today was teh same as all the rest, very unhelpful. Told me they'd done all they could, it had been sent away, I'd been offered the hardship payment of £50 ( no good to me when I owe my CM £200 still ). I was told to wait.....

I asked if I could speak to someone at escalations - she said no they dont have a number for them.
She couldnt get me off the phone quick enough - so I asked for the address to make a formal complaint.

Did you keep getting fobbed off? I asked about a complaince officer and she said I could only speak to one of those if someone from there had written to me.

Today is the 10th working day, so I should have heard something by now! I am so so frustrated by them.

"Just wait" is not good enough IMO - I know they are busy but !!!!!!!!

Rant Over......for now lol

They also told us we would get a £50 hardship payment but when we went in they actually gave us the equivelent of 2 weeks payment

smiley:_3-2

Sorry not logged on for a few days computer was down. Have u had any joy yet Sammie? I hope so by now!

System

daftdad wrote: »

Just reading the above posts have really worried me to death!!

My wife left me almost 4 weeks ago leaving me with our child. She receives the CTC and WTC. She is presently responsible for paying some of the major direct debits on my household such as Gas/electricity and on my single low income, I can't afford to pay them.

I was going to ring CTC today and advise them of the change in circumstances, by my calculations I would be entitled to a greater payment but here is the problem - I understand that they will stop all payments whilst they change the joint claim into a single claim and I could manage if thats going to take 3/4 weeks but if it's going to take 7/8 weeks how do I pay these other bills because I can't see my former partner continuing to pay these bills if she isn't getting this benefit.

What should I do? I have already missed one mortgage and water rates payment because I simply didn't have funds to pay them (I am able to recommence these payments when I get paid in just over a weeks time)

I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but it could take longer for your new single claim especially if your wife has not ceased her claim. They will not pay 2 claimants for the same child and although they will suspend her payments whilst they ascertain who they should be paying the money to they will write out to both of you to clarify who has responsibility for the child and they will give both of you time to reply.

If the split is acrimonious and she hasn't given up her claim then you should try to get proof by way of court documents confirming that you have custody of the child, letter from school proving you are first point of contact etc

HTH