First time claiming benefits advice needed please

angelina1205

Hi hope someone could help me out here its the first time I'm claiming benefits so not entirely sure about my entitlements and what options do I have , just a little bit of info about our situation me and my husband we were working for the same company and I used to live with family and paying them rent until last year when we had our baby and I went on maternity leave and DH kept working full time so the only benefits we claimed was CB and CTC we were paying £500 rent for a studio flat then due to the arrival of our baby we had to move out and rent a bigger place we moved in last month our rent is now £950 + £115 council tax unfortunately we both have been made redundant last week so we are out of work with all these expenses which we can't afford anyway , my husband is looking for another job now but we don't know where to start do we claim for jobseeker allowance or income support and also we have around £17000 saving do we have to spend all that before we make a claim i would be very grateful if someone could enlighten me here thanks

rogerblack

You cannot claim IS as a couple.
You need to both claim JSA.
Assuming you were 'properly' employed, and have been in tax years 2009/10 and 2010/11, you will each be entitled to contributory JSA for 6 months.
(around a total of 140 a week for both of you)
Once this ends, you should be entitled to income-based JSA, but this will drop to a total of 111/week.

You will not be entitled to council tax benefit, or HB, initially at all, as I understand it, but may make a claim once your savings fall past 16K.
Spending money on non-essentials risks you being seen as still having it.

It depends where you live, and your circumstances, but it is quite likely that HB will not cover your entire rent.
How many bedrooms does your new place have, and where is it?
What ages are you?

angelina1205

rogerblack wrote: »

You cannot claim IS as a couple.
You need to both claim JSA.
Assuming you were 'properly' employed, and have been in tax years 2009/10 and 2010/11, you will each be entitled to contributory JSA for 6 months.
(around a total of 140 a week for both of you)
Once this ends, you should be entitled to income-based JSA, but this will drop to a total of 111/week.

You will not be entitled to council tax benefit, or HB, initially at all, as I understand it, but may make a claim once your savings fall past 16K.
Spending money on non-essentials risks you being seen as still having it.

It depends where you live, and your circumstances, but it is quite likely that HB will not cover your entire rent.
How many bedrooms does your new place have, and where is it?
What ages are you?

thanks for the reply this is for a 2 bedroom flat in Isleworth , I'm 33 and my husband is 34 , so do we need to pay the rent from our savings until we quality ? Please correct me if I'm wrong thanks

pmlindyloo

As rogerblack has said you both need to put in a joint claim for contribution based JSA which you will get for 26 weeks if you meet the NI contributions criteria.

HB and CTB is means tested and you will not be eligible until you fall below the £16000 savings.

You will be entitled to HB and CTB after this but for any savings between £6000 and £16000 both benefits are operated on a sliding scale.

Also as you are privately renting you need to look at your housing allowance for your area (google housing allowance and where you live) This will tell you how much the maximum housing allowance for a 2 bed place is.

Even if you become entitled to the full HB when your savings go below £6000 you will be expected to make up the shortfall in rent yourselves.

You need to inform tax credits that your circumstances have changed. You may be entitled to some more child tax credit.

You can put your details into the benefit calculator on www.turn2us .org.uk (click on benefits on the banner first and you will see the calculator)

You can put different scenarios into this (eg when your savings go down) to give you an idea of your entitlements. Don't forget to put the rent as the maximum you are allowed for your area.

Hopefully your savings will see you through until you can find jobs.

Good luck!