general benefit advise please?

Jazziboo

Hello

Please can you give me some helpful benefit advise?

Im a single parent (in my late 20s) i have one child - who is 18 months old, we are currently living at my parents home but will be moving into our own home in about a month (rented).

I work 21 hours a week (take home pay after tax £770 and childcare is £530 a month) I get child & working tax credits.

So my question really is my rent will around £370 a month - i think i'll get part housing benefit, but on average when your entitled to only part HB how much do you receive (as a % please)?

And if i worked an additional 7 hours would that affect my tax credits dramatically as in the amount i receieve (i would tell them)?

Would i be entitled to anything else?

Im just a bit worried so i'm trying to work out how much money i'll have left when i start paying my household bills.

thank you

Jowo_2

I doubt anyone can calculate your LHA entitlements as a percentage.

You find find out the maximum LHA payable for a 2 bedroom property in that area on the LHA Direct website. Have a good read about how the proposed changes to LHA could affect it (change from 50th to 30th percentile to calculate LHA rates which means that there is a proposal to move the rate from being the average of local rents to the bottom third).

http://www.voa.gov.uk/lhadirect/lha-emergency-budget-news-2010.htm

Then you can model the scenarios you propose into the Turn2us online benefit calculator. This could identify your CT reductions as well as your LHA.