Housing benefit as Mature Student

areyousure

Hi, I start uni as a mature student later this month. I am married with 3 children. My wife works and we currently receive HB. I am aware I need to tell the council when I recieve my student loan/grant but was wondering as these are paid in 3 installments over the year, do I tell them as and when I receive them or do I tell them the whole amount up front (even though I haven't actually received it yet)

Any advice on this is greatly appreciated. For example does anyone have any experience of what they take into account when re-evaluating the HB, ie, just the loan, just the grant or both and whether they take the whole amount into consideration.

Sorry for rambling..

Cheers in advance.

JOBEN

Hi
I work in benefits for my sins :rotfl:

You need to take you student finance award letter in, the assessor will then add this to your claim minus books/travel etc divided by the year which i think is about 42 weeks.

always make sure you report any changes as you only have to pay it back if not
Jo

snackjack

I'm a mature student who is also a mum. I was advised by housing benefit that the maintenance loan and child tax credit were considered as income, but the special support grant, parent learning allowance and child benefit were disregarded. I have to add that I am a lone parent, and that may make a difference.

unicornblue72

Dont forget too that in after ufinished uni next yr hb take the sch yr as up to first of aug i coulnt claim income support etc untill then and changed hb its a nightmare any changes must be told asap and in tge second yr the hb and any other benfits strat from first of sept not from ur start date which i was told and coulnt find anywhere on dwp site i was always in debt with hb as ur circutances change so often sending hugs to mature students just try not to stress over it asu will be stressted enough i got the t shirt i gratuted last yr xx

swifthorn

unicornblue72 wrote: »

Dont forget too that in after ufinished uni next yr hb take the sch yr as up to first of aug i coulnt claim income support etc untill then and changed hb its a nightmare any changes must be told asap and in tge second yr the hb and any other benfits strat from first of sept not from ur start date which i was told and coulnt find anywhere on dwp site i was always in debt with hb as ur circutances change so often sending hugs to mature students just try not to stress over it asu will be stressted enough i got the t shirt i gratuted last yr xx

For saying you've graduated your writing is worse than my 7 year old cousin.

podperson

My partner is a mature student and we had to take in the letter from Student Finance with his entitlement for the year. They then worked it out per week for the period of the 'university year' and took that off our housing benefit allowance. When you break up for summer you can ask them to reassess on the basis of you having no income (unless you find summer work obviously) and the allowance should go until you go back again.

areyousure

Thank you all for your replies..