Benefits help..

whattodo02

My oh left his job around a month ago for a number of reasons. we now realise that he should have found another job before leaving, but though we'd be alright as we would live on on our small amount of savings until he finds a job.

Finding a job has been harder than we thought (unless he wants a few hours a week cleaning, which he is happy to do as every little helps), we didn't want to go down the route of claiming benefits as my oh has always worked.

We now have realised we cannot afford for him not to be working unless we claim benefits.

We also have a mortgage, but cannot carry on with the repayments, so have decided to put our house on the market and go into a private rented house before things get out of hand.

So i entered our details into the calculator through Martins advice here and it says we're entitled to income support, child benefit, child tax credit, council tax benefit and housing benefit.

we have two primary school age children
we are in our early 30's
my husbands wages when he gets this new job will be around £100 a week

does this sound right that we'll be entitled to those benefits as if we are i think we'll be alright until he finds a new full time job.

Reading this back, i'm not really sure why i posted here, just for reasurrance really i think..

Any advice would be much appreciated..

Fiver29

I don't think you'll be entitled to income support. IS is only for people on a low income. You should get child tax credits.

Are you looking for work too?

whattodo02

Thank you for replying..
What is classed as a low income?
I am not looking for work at the moment
My husband will be earning around £5000 per year?

wannabehermit

You will get JSA on a couples claim if your youngest is under 7 so only one of you will be required to look for work.

If your youngest is over 7 then it will be a joint claim where you both have to sign on.

Depending on his NI contributions to date he will be on contribution based for the first 6 months of a claim and then change to income based after that. If his contributions aren't high enough then he will be on income based, but only if it's approved as he left the job. That all depends on the circumstances of why he left the job in the first place.

Don't forget you will only get the HB once you have sold your house and have moved into rented accommodation. You will also have to jump through hoops to prove where the money went from selling the house (if there is any equity in the house of course).

Are you able to look for work? There are plenty of p/t jobs about (although from personal experience I know it's not easy especially if you've been at home with children for some years) so if he is unable to find f/t work atm, could you both have a p/t job? Then your income will be similar to if you have 1 f/t job between you and that way you will still be able to pay your mortgage.

Caz3121

Do you have any equity in your property - if over £16k then this will rule out means tested benefits such as housing benefit and council tax. Child benefit and child tax credits will continue.
Do you work?

Fiver29

whattodo02 wrote: »

Thank you for replying..
What is classed as a low income?
I am not looking for work at the moment
My husband will be earning around £5000 per year?

Sorry I was thinking as a lone parent, and thinking that the amount your OH will be earning is over the IS amount. It is slightly under, but only by £5, so with the £5 disregard, you might get about £10 a week

whattodo02

I have done the calculator for when we have moved into the rented house and oh is working and earning around £5000 per year?
The small amount coming from the sale of our house i owe to my mum from borrowing..

whattodo02

Fiver29 wrote: »

Sorry I was thinking as a lone parent, and thinking that the amount your OH will be earning is over the IS amount. It is slightly under, but only by £5, so with the £5 disregard, you might get about £10 a week

Thanks, what is the IS cut off?

whattodo02

children only part time school at the moment, so have based our claim on oh working part time and me not working at the moment..

wannabehermit

whattodo02 wrote: »

Thanks, what is the IS cut off?

With means tested benefits you are 'allowed to keep' the first £10. So IS/JSA will be something like £102 per week, so if you earn £50 a week for example you keep the first £10 then the rest comes off of the benefit, so in this example you would get £50 wages and £62 benefit. So you would get this benefit if you are earning less than £10 more than the total of the benefit. Does that make sense?

FBaby

Why can't you work if your children are in school at least some of the time and your OH is only going to be working part-time? Be careful before you do anything in case the job centre penalises your OH for having given up his employment willingly.