Will we be "intentionally homeless"?

dktreesea

mark86 wrote: »

Private let's in my area are never below £450 at best. They maybe show up every few months or so? Plus it would have to be unfurnished. Essentially, we've been looking for a new flat since before Christmas, but nothing has came up in our price range. Plenty of £500+ but thats not what we want.

We'll have to look over our spending and see if there is indeed anyway to cut back..

With that kind of income in Glasgow, you may not qualify for help with the housing or council tax. But what you should be getting on those kinds of incomes is working tax credit. Have you applied for this?

Have you tried using the benefits adviser on the Directgov site? The latest "edition" of this site is at https://www.gov.uk/
If you scroll down to the bottom of the home page, click on benefits, the benefits entitlement, then benefits adviser, the "start now", this will take you to the benefits calculator. Since you have all the data you need to do this, choose "get a benefits estimate now".

I think you'll find, with that kind of income, you should be getting WTC, though possibly not housing or council tax benefit somewhere like Glasgow (the LHA is quite low there).

dktreesea

mark86 wrote: »

Boy this place is bad with flame wars.

To clear this up, I work 3 days a week, 24 hours. My partner works 4 days a week, 32 hours, Standard 8 hour shifts. I am slightly above minimum, by 30p i think, partner is.. a pound or two so above minimum, I think, not sure though. So she's more better off than me.

Kind of spiralled out of control with the topic at hand didn't it? If the council deems us Intentionally homeless then so be it, I just wanted to know where we stood, and if anyone had any experience with it, instead I get bashed about by the rich users with not much better to do because I claim child tax credits and child benefit, which i add, we are kinda paying back in with our tax from our jobs, so yeah..

Thanks for the help from some of you, thanks for the insults from others.

Irrespective of what people are telling you on this board, why aren't you claiming working tax credit?

And I don't see what's wrong with the hours you both work. Your wee one is only 16 months old, from what you said earlier. I wouldn't have put either of my children in a nursery at 16th months old either. We worked opposite hours so that there was always someone with the children when they were younger. I know a lot of parents who work like that.

Mojisola

Dunroamin wrote: »

You're right, but how many people on NMW and living in the private sector can afford to do this?

I don't know how many people do it but this thread is about Mark and his partner. If they can cut their outgoings so that it is possible for them to continue until their little one starts nursery or school, good luck to them. It will mean doing without a lot of material things but that's how many of us grew up.

shedboy94

mark86 wrote: »

At the moment we are only entitled to the basic £80 Child Benefit a month, and About £100 Child tax credit a month.

But we did a credit calculator on the government website (think it was the gov website, not the actual hmrc one though) a few weeks and by the end of it, it said we were entitled to something like £60 a week child tax credit and £90 a week working tax credits. Based on our current income.

So a big difference in what we get now.. But we can't do anything about it until the renewal, which is like 6 months away.

Based upon your joint income being well in excess of £20000, you will not get any WTC.

shedboy94

dktreesea wrote: »

Irrespective of what people are telling you on this board, why aren't you claiming working tax credit?

Because their income is too high to receive WTC

BigAunty

The OP and his partner earn £410 per week for their part time employment (don't know if this is net), with another £40 in child benefit and tax credits. That's potentially £450 per week. If they both worked full time, this would increase their income by approx another third but would result in the loss of their CB/CTC and perhaps face child care costs.

However, their main expense of rent (£115) and council tax (£38) costs them £153 per week. Spending a third of their disposable income on their main highest expenses is not a good ratio but it shouldn't be one that should plunge them into debt and homelessness if they got a grip on their household budget.

somethingcorporate

BigAunty wrote: »

The OP and his partner earn £410 per week for their part time employment (don't know if this is net), with another £40 in child benefit and tax credits. That's potentially £450 per week. If they both worked full time, this would increase their income by approx another third but would result in the loss of their CB/CTC and perhaps face child care costs.

However, their main expense of rent (£115) and council tax (£38) costs them £153 per week. Spending a third of their disposable income on their main highest expenses is not a good ratio but it shouldn't be one that should plunge them into debt and homelessness if they got a grip on their household budget.

25% on rent is absolutely fine and a perfectly normal ratio for most people. If the income figure is net then this % is actually quite a bit lower and more than acceptable.