Will we be "intentionally homeless"?

HappyMJ

mark86 wrote: »

Keep in mind we need to take off Travel expenses to get to work, bus tickets, Car insurance, petrol, gas & electric bill, phone bill, food bill, nappies, wipes, a tonne of soya milk (Our daughter is lactose intolerant) Not to mention clothes.

That's on a good month.

Also my partner doesn't get sick days, so if she has to take a day off due to ill health or if we have hospital appointments for our girl, she loses a days pay.

Keep in mind....so does everyone else.:) As long as your disposable income for all those expenses exceeds what someone would get by not working at all then you are doing well.

notanewuser

The SOA is a good idea, as is one of you working full time.

mark86

Yeah I know, I just meant that disposable income is just that, money left lover after food and bills etc, to waste on whatever. :P

mark86

notanewuser wrote: »

The SOA is a good idea, as is one of you working full time.

She works 4 days a week, I work 3 a week, we chose to do this so have one day a week that we can spend together as a family, and not have to put our daughter into a ridiculously overpriced nursery. I know the government can give you some money towards it, but not all, so in the end, it's not worth it.

If either of us go full time, our girl would need 2/3 days nursery a week, £120 a week for nursery and we'd lose our tax credit. Or keep doing what we are doing. If I went full time I'd make another £200 max. Going back to full time means I'd get hammered with a lot more tax than I am now on part time.

It's a rubbish situation, I'd like to go back to work full time, but there isn't any point when I'd be earning less than what we have now.

pmlindyloo

Yes, go over to the DebtfreeWannabe forum (not just for those in debt) and post a SOA.

Very helpful people over there who will help you.

Basically you either have to decrease your expenditure or increase your income. Sorry to say, that's the bottom line.

Moving into the mother's 2 bed council house is not a good idea. As already said you would probably be found as intentionally homeless as you could continue to live where you were and hadn't received a court order to evict you.

BigAunty

See the Shelter Scotland website. Intentional homelessness is decided on a case by case basis and no-one here can really guide you. They have a section on how a council processes a homelessness application, including a definition of intentionality.

Yes, the basic principle is that if you leave a property when you did not need to, the council has no obligation to assist, so too, if you get served notice from your landlord for rent arrears if you had the income to pay but did not.

You also need to see if your mother is breaching her social housing tenancy agreement by taking you in as that could cause problems for her. You also need to check how your overcrowding would be considered. I'm not sure how a social housing landlord will treat an applicant who has moved from an adequately sized property into a tiny one - see the GHA guide to understand if you will or won't be treated as a priority if you move in with your mum or whether they have rules in place to try and disincentivise people from deliberate overcrowding.

Have you thought of applying for GHA properties anyhow while you are in your current property? They have choice based letting.

I'm with the other posters - it looks like a bit of debt is causing a disproportionate effect on an otherwise good income that should mean your rent is affordable. See the Debt management section of the Direct gov website and go to the Debt free wanabee board.

It's no good saying 'oh, there's travel, nappies,phone, etc'. Download the MSE budget planner, fill it in, work through the site and identify how to slash your spending - cheapest energy/phone/broadband/insurance tariffs and packages, cheap recipes, etc. You need to find out where your money is going and take control of it rather than being surprised at the end of each month that there's nowt left. It's controlling you.

Why is your council tax £200 a month? Do you have an underpayment,arrears that you are paying back?

Foxn86

Hi i know you came on asking for help about housing not how to spend your money and debt free boards these forums never fail to confuse me. So to answer your actual question no in Scotland you would not be classed as homeless because you actually have somewhere to go. The way to approach is either give your notice and advise council you have no where to go, they will put you in temp accommodation until they can sort you out, this make take a few weeks or months and you may not be put in the nicest of places. But if you can handle that you should have a council or housing association property at the end. The other option is go to your mother in laws and hang tight and be classed as statutorily overcrowded which will give you high points but nothing to say you will sit for months and months waiting. Get registered with all hosuing associations at your bit as well. Good luck

Foxn86

BigAunty wrote: »

See the Shelter Scotland website. Intentional homelessness is decided on a case by case basis and no-one here can really guide you. They have a section on how a council processes a homelessness application, including a definition of intentionality.

Yes, the basic principle is that if you leave a property when you did not need to, the council has no obligation to assist, so too, if you get served notice from your landlord for rent arrears if you had the income to pay but did not.

You also need to see if your mother is breaching her social housing tenancy agreement by taking you in as that could cause problems for her. You also need to check how your overcrowding would be considered. I'm not sure how a social housing landlord will treat an applicant who has moved from an adequately sized property into a tiny one - see the GHA guide to understand if you will or won't be treated as a priority if you move in with your mum or whether they have rules in place to try and disincentivise people from deliberate overcrowding.

Have you thought of applying for GHA properties anyhow while you are in your current property? They have choice based letting.

I'm with the other posters - it looks like a bit of debt is causing a disproportionate effect on an otherwise good income that should mean your rent is affordable. See the Debt management section of the Direct gov website and go to the Debt free wanabee board.

It's no good saying 'oh, there's travel, nappies,phone, etc'. Download the MSE budget planner, fill it in, work through the site and identify how to slash your spending - cheapest energy/phone/broadband/insurance tariffs and packages, cheap recipes, etc. You need to find out where your money is going and take control of it rather than being surprised at the end of each month that there's nowt left. It's controlling you.

Why is your council tax £200 a month? Do you have an underpayment,arrears that you are paying back?

My council tax for myself and husband is £189.67 per month so perhaps he has rounded that up. Not unheard of at all my sister in law is £205 per month and no arrears no.

mark86

notanewuser wrote: »

Hammered on tax? You'll keep 70% of what you earn!!!!

You've made a lifestyle choice to work part time, which incidentally the state is supporting via tax credits (which doesn't appear to have been included in your income figures). You still have a huge amount of money left over, but want a nice cheap council house to boot?

I'm calling troll.

I'd hardly call it a lifestyle choice when one option is to earn less than the other. I chose the choice which gave me more money, and more time to spend with my girl as she grows up. Not a hard choice to make is it?

For doing 24 a week i get around £680 a month. I work every Sunday now. So time and a half for 4 shifts a month makes that higher than it would be for a 24 hour contract.

On a 5/7 day 39 hour contract I wouldn't always work Sundays. But my pay would be anywhere between £850/900 after tax/nat insurance.

mark86

BigAunty wrote: »

Why is your council tax £200 a month? Do you have an underpayment,arrears that you are paying back?

Not sure why it's so high. It's band E I believe.

It's £196 to be exact.