help - am new to all this

valish

can anyone help me please. I live in a rented 3 bedroom house (due to divorce, i had to find suitable accommodation for me and the kids as per court order), now my ex has full custody of daughter. I work part time 15 hours a week and want to know what benefits i can get. My take home pay is approx £109 per week and i have to pay £80 a week towards my rent, leaving me with £29 for council tax, bills and food etc. What can i claim?

pmlindyloo

valish wrote: »

can anyone help me please. I live in a rented 3 bedroom house (due to divorce, i had to find suitable accommodation for me and the kids as per court order), now my ex has full custody of daughter. I work part time 15 hours a week and want to know what benefits i can get. My take home pay is approx £109 per week and i have to pay £80 a week towards my rent, leaving me with £29 for council tax, bills and food etc. What can i claim?

Presuming you have no savings.

If you have children living with you then you can claim Child Benefit and Child Tax credit.

In order to claim Working Tax Credit you need to be working for at least 16 hours a week.

You can claim Housing Benefit (you need to check your entitlement by looking at your local council website) and Council Tax benefit.

karenx

Do you only have 1 child and they are now living with your ex?
If so you won't get any child related benefits and you will only be entitled to the shared room rate for LHA

valish

apparently even if i work 16 hours a week because i am single i cannot claim working tax credit. They say i need to work 30 hours, annoying thing is, if i worked 30 hours a week i wouldn;t need to claim working tax credit.

BigAunty

How old are you and do you have any children living with you?

HappyMJ

valish wrote: »

apparently even if i work 16 hours a week because i am single i cannot claim working tax credit. They say i need to work 30 hours, annoying thing is, if i worked 30 hours a week i wouldn;t need to claim working tax credit.

It doesn't make a huge difference. You can claim housing benefit and council tax benefit and if you got working tax credits they deduct 85% of that from your housing and council tax benefit anyway so if you rent and work enough hours to reach your personal allowance figure of usually £71 per week plus £5 disregard then working tax credits make little difference.