help needed asap! advice on no job and benefits

mumof2:D

Hi all,

Basically i quit my job today,as I have been off sick for the last 2 months due to things happening at work.

My plan was to go self employed, but I just cant justify not having any money coming in atall.

I currently receive WTC which will end with 4 week run on as that pays for my daughters child care, CTC and CB.

I have no wage coming in atall,so is it possible for me to claim IS and HB on the 4 week WTC run on as I cannot solely live on that amount.

I now have rent arrears,luckily my housing assoc are being understanding and have told me to make a claim for HB.CTB but how will that help if I wont get it for 4 weeks?

I will ge going self employed next year but untill then I need help as 2 small children and no money is getting a but tough going.

Any help would be great before I ring up all agencies I need to speak to.

Thanks

Fiver29

It sounds like you are a single parent? How old are your children? Their age will be a factor in whether you are entitled to IS.

mumof2:D

Hi yes I am a single parent. My son is 5 and daughter 3 nearly 4 in Feb.

Fiver29

You would be entitled to IS eventually then. I'm not sure if there would be any sanctions for voluntarily leaving your job though.

If there were no sanctions your wouldn't be able to claim IS until the 4 week run on has finished.

mumof2:D

I hope there wouldnt be any sactions as It wasnt a choice I wanted to make. I loved my job but not the people I worked with. I was being bullied by a male member off staff,unfortunatley I hadnt been working their for 12 months so cant go for constructive dismissal but I will have thr backing of one of the managers their to say what was happening so hopefully that will help me out.

So what will happen then? Will I have my 4 week run on for wtc and then have IS. Or am I not allowed to claim for IS and HB untill the 4 week run on has ended. Otherwise I am going to be in a bit of a pickle.

I really wanted to go SE,have all the products needed etc but was just worried as I have to get my clients first. I know I wont really make anything in the 1st year etc but I cant afford not to pay rent etc due to not making any money?

What road do I go down? I dont want to lose my property by rent arrears but I really want to get things off the ground.

Sorry for all the questions,I just need to get things clear in my head and thought this site was the best place.

Thanks

Fiver29

AFAIA you can claim HB and CTB now. You might be able to start the claim for IS, it takes a few weeks anyway.

If you are planning on spending more than 16 hours working SE, you'll be able to claim WTC just as you did when you were employed, and you'll be able to continue your HB claim, you'll just need to give estimated accounts. I overestimated mine to be on the safe side.

OwenGriff

Hi

You will receive a sanction called Left voluntarily on your JSA claim. Possibly from 1-6 months depending on reason for walking out on your job. You can also ask for NEA allowance a help for S/E people who go through the mentoring for S/E. these are credits for 6 months they work out as 13 weeks at £67 a week and 13 weeks at £33 a week and start when you ready to sign off jsa in to s/e

Lady_gaga

You won't get a sanction if your claiming IS as you have children under the age of 7

Fiver29

OwenGriff wrote: »

Hi

You will receive a sanction called Left voluntarily on your JSA claim. Possibly from 1-6 months depending on reason for walking out on your job. You can also ask for NEA allowance a help for S/E people who go through the mentoring for S/E. these are credits for 6 months they work out as 13 weeks at £67 a week and 13 weeks at £33 a week and start when you ready to sign off jsa in to s/e

The OP isn't asking about JSA, she's asking about IS.

Singledad_2

Fiver29 wrote: »

You would be entitled to IS eventually then. I'm not sure if there would be any sanctions for voluntarily leaving your job though.

If there were no sanctions your wouldn't be able to claim IS until the 4 week run on has finished.

I had to give up my job last year to look after my daughter who was not school aged and school nursery was only 3 hours a day, and travelling to and from work each day was a minimum of 1 hour.

I applied for income support, child benefit and child tax credits, as well as housing and council tax benefit, I was able to arrange them all with in my first week of leaving my job. However it will take time for these to be sorted out.

Child benefit you should already be getting and will not have any changes.

Child tax credits if you are unsure what your final wages will be for the tax year over estimate! It will take a few weeks to get sorted to the revised amount. However will get back dated to when you made the claim.

Housing and Council tax benefits again will take a few weeks to sort out again will be back dated to when you made the claim (provided the date you wish to claim from after your employment had been terminated).

Income Support you can apply for now, however it will not start until after your final payment of Working Tax Credits, for example week 4 you will receive WTC, week 5 you will receive IS if you are entitled to it.

A couple of notes of caution is that you may not be able to still claim for childcare element of CTC as claiming Income Support means you can not be "forced" (by the job centre) to look for employment, so the other side of that is that you have no requirement for childcare when you will have ability to look after your children on your own.

The other most recent change which may affect you is that on IS you used to have to visit the job centre every 6 months for review, this changed on the 31st of October and it is now every 3 months for review. The reason for this change is to do with a up coming change in the rules for receiving IS. Currently you can claim IS until your youngest child is 7, my advisor unformed me they do not have all the details yet, at my next review in January she hopes she will have all the information, however she is under the impression that the youngest child age for receiving IS will be lowered to 4 and this should take effect from April (however none of this is confirmed as far as I am aware).

pmlindyloo

Singledad wrote: »

I had to give up my job last year to look after my daughter who was not school aged and school nursery was only 3 hours a day, and travelling to and from work each day was a minimum of 1 hour.

I applied for income support, child benefit and child tax credits, as well as housing and council tax benefit, I was able to arrange them all with in my first week of leaving my job. However it will take time for these to be sorted out.

Child benefit you should already be getting and will not have any changes.

Child tax credits if you are unsure what your final wages will be for the tax year over estimate! It will take a few weeks to get sorted to the revised amount. However will get back dated to when you made the claim.

Housing and Council tax benefits again will take a few weeks to sort out again will be back dated to when you made the claim (provided the date you wish to claim from after your employment had been terminated).

Income Support you can apply for now, however it will not start until after your final payment of Working Tax Credits, for example week 4 you will receive WTC, week 5 you will receive IS if you are entitled to it.

A couple of notes of caution is that you may not be able to still claim for childcare element of CTC as claiming Income Support means you can not be "forced" (by the job centre) to look for employment, so the other side of that is that you have no requirement for childcare when you will have ability to look after your children on your own.

The other most recent change which may affect you is that on IS you used to have to visit the job centre every 6 months for review, this changed on the 31st of October and it is now every 3 months for review. The reason for this change is to do with a up coming change in the rules for receiving IS. Currently you can claim IS until your youngest child is 7, my advisor unformed me they do not have all the details yet, at my next review in January she hopes she will have all the information, however she is under the impression that the youngest child age for receiving IS will be lowered to 4 and this should take effect from April (however none of this is confirmed as far as I am aware).

A very useful post for the OP. Just wanted to clarify the highlighted part as I believe this is slightly wrong.

The rules regarding IS for lone parents changed in October 2011 and for new claimants you will only be allowed to claim IS if your child is under school age (had this confirmed by Benefit Specialist that the age is 5 years).

For people already receiving IS this rule will take effect in April 2012.

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