Self-employment start-up and housing benefits

markBailey

Long complicated story with no solution or just misunderstanding?

Me and my partner are not english, we came to work in Uk in 2010, we are from Italy.
Since then we've been employed and paid taxes and NI.
At the end of June we decided to quit the job to start up a self employed small business.
We asked for the housing benefits while we were still organizing the business so we declared our status as unemployed with saving less than £6000, been employed for more than 2 years, european. We didn't ask for any Job Seekers because at the moment of the claim we weren't looking for a job but we were working on the start up of our business. (small publishing house, no income until the books are out on the market). At the same time we didn't register the business yet.
After several meeting with different member of the Council staff and several phone calls regarding the requirements to claim for the housing benefits, they refuse our claim.
The Housing Officer based the decision on the information we provided but misspell the date of arrival in Uk. Instead of considering the year we arrived as 2010 she wrote 2012. Based on this misunderstanding we didn't meet the "qualified right to reside" rules because we weren't self employed, working or job seekers. As I understood, this "right to reside" concerns someone just arrived in UK, not someone who lives permanently in UK.

I made an appeal, asking for a revision of my claim. I asked advices again and I've been given different answers.
Someone said we didn't meet the requirements because we weren't asking for the job seeker allowance and we weren't self employed. Someone else said because we didn't live in UK for at least 5 years and we don't have enough saving to live so we are Economically Inactive.

The day after my appeal we registered as self employed. We informed the Housing Service Council.

Now, my questions are:
Could it be did they refuse the first claim because of the mistaken date?
Is it normal that a benefit revision is handled by the same person who refused it in first place ?

Is there a minimum expected profit for a new business to get some help with housing benefit ? Since the project is in start-up we probably will end with a loss or 0 income for the first few months. I know that with the Universal Credits it will be an issue, but I want to make sure now it's still fine.

Since I'm requesting housing benefits, In the profit-loss self-assessment form do I have to take into account the rent among the expenses?

Thanks in advance.

pmlindyloo

I'm afraid that I can't answer all your questions but I wonder if this might help:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/benefits_e/benefits_coming_from_abroad_and_claiming_benefits_hrt/proving_your_immigration_status_and_intention_to_settle_in_the_uk_hrt.htm

Did they know that you had previously worked? Did you show them your P60s?

There might have been a problem because you weren't registered as self employed at the time of the first application or/and because you had quit your jobs.

To be honest I am not sure.

If you are not successful with your next application then I would google for your nearest CAB for some help.

The fact that you quit your job would have meant that you would probably have been sanctioned anyway if you had tried to claim JSA.

fishybusiness

If you are self employed you can only estimate your income until you have a few months worth of figures.

The council should ask you for estimated income in order to progress a housing benefit claim.

If you expect no income or low income for a while, you should be able to estimate minimum wage for say 2 or 3 days a week, 8 hrs a day. Of course, depending on your estimates, you may or may not be able to to claim Working Tax Credits.

Following on from that, the council will be able to issue your benefit.

They will request self employment profit/loss fairly regularly to ensure you are not overpaid - every 6 months where I live.

I'm sure that at some point you will need to show you are earning enough to pay minimum wage - perhaps HMRC will ask?

Here is the catch...if your business is slow to grow, and you need your earned money to invest in your business, you may find it difficult. As you earn more, the council will lower your housing benefit, leaving you with less spare cash to play with.

A way around it is at some point swap over to a limited company. Pay your wages weekly from your company funds, leaving money in the company bank to build your business. It does at least give you a fighting chance of survival.

markBailey

Thanks ,
From what I've heard you must be working more than 30 hours to get Working Tax Credits, and it's unlikely I can make 2 minimum wages for 30 hours .. anyway, it's not clear to me if in the self-assessment form I have to count in or off the rent, it's a big difference in the final outcome: if I don't count it I will still have some profit, but if I have to pay the rent I may go in loss. Since I'm asking for HB I'm not sure about how to the fill form

markBailey

pmlindyloo wrote: »

Did they know that you had previously worked? Did you show them your P60s?

There might have been a problem because you weren't registered as self employed at the time of the first application or/and because you had quit your jobs.

To be honest I am not sure.

If you are not successful with your next application then I would google for your nearest CAB for some help.

The fact that you quit your job would have meant that you would probably have been sanctioned anyway if you had tried to claim JSA.

I didn't want to ask JSA because I was setting my business up, but I had to rush things to become self employed cause otherwise they won't even consider a HB request, even after 3 years of full-time work. They did know I previously worked and yes they have the P60s. The problem appears to be that being born in another country I need to have medical insurance and enough savings (so they said) in order to get HB without asking for JSA (I was not self-employed yet). The whole thing sounds weird

sweetietot

You cannot put the whole amount of your house rent as an expense for the self-employment. It may be worth posting a question on the Cutting Tax section of the forum for guidance on expenses you may be able to claim against your profit.