confused and after some help pls jsa and housing

sadwithoutmynelson

Hi
I was wondering if yiu can help me. A very good friend of mine is out of work for a good while now. He went to try and claim jsa. He was the asked to fill a form about his housing. He has a mortgage on his house but no rooms are rented. He has not missed any mortgage payments yet as i have been helping him out. But his JSA has stopped (he only got 1 payment) until he fills teh housing form out. He doesnt ahve any savings or any money and is in a very depressed way. Back in 2009, he did rent a room out and although he was broke, he wasnt given any jsa. Now he is alone in the house and upset he wont be entitled to anything as he has the house on his name even though i h=am helping with the payment which really cant go on.
What i wanted to know is will he still get JSA even though the house is in his name and he still owes 100% of teh motgage back, as he is only paying interest?
How should he best fill teh form out? im very worried for him but the jobcentre is so unhelpful and he is penniless. I am paying for his food etc as he has been thorugh some very bad times. Can somebodu please advise me? Im also worried that teh jobcentre may start to question how the mortage is being paid and i am only helping on a loan basis. he himself is unable to afford to pay but i dont want him to have his house repossed after all he has been through. he wants to work hes just getting nothing and is very depressed. Shoudl i stop the mortagge payments? dont knwo what to do for the best and if me paying the mortagge in the meantime is helping or causing more problems thankyou

RAS

Hi

There are two types of JSA - contribution based and income based.

It sounds as if in 2009, he was refused income based JSA because of the rent money coming in.

Can your friend put his details into www.turn2us.org.uk

BigAunty

Your friend is not helping himself by not cooperating with a fairly simple form.

The best way to assist your friend is to get him to look at the Shelter website which has information for struggling home owners, how to deal with mortgage arrears, the various govt schemes available to help owners pay the interest part of the mortgage, how to avoid repossession.

He should be negotiating with his lender rather than putting the risk onto a friend, for starters.

He needs to take ownership of his problems and take proactive steps rather than pass them onto you for resolution!

He should look into whether there are food banks operating in his local area if he's short of groceries.

Get him to book an appointment with the local Citizens Advice Bureau.

pmlindyloo

If your friend has no other income or savings then he will be entitled to income based JS. This will then passport him to full CTB and after 13 weeks he will get the interest paid on his mortgage. (at a fixed rate - can't remember what it is)

They are asking him to fill in the form so that he can get this interest rate paid after 13 weeks and to check whether he has any lodgers.

If your friend hasn't any lodgers then there will not be any problems.

If you are giving him money for his mortgage and it is going into his bank account then they may query this and want to know where this money comes from.

It would be best if you could go with your friend to the council with the form and explain what has been happening.

You should stop paying your friend's mortgage because this is going to cause complications if they see the money going into his bank account every month.

Your friend should contact his mortgage company and explain what is happening. They will probably allow him some breathing space if they know that the interest will be paid in 13 weeks. (Take the above poster's advice and look on Shelter's website about this.)

However, perhaps the most important thing is that your friend gets back on his feet financially and this means getting some work. it has probably done him no favours with your supporting him. As regards this money being a loan, how on earth will he ever get this paid back if he doesn't find work?

Sometimes you need a bit of tough love. If he is very depressed then he needs to see a doctor. How long has he been unemployed?

None of this is meant to be brutal just looking at it from an outsider's point of view.