benefits available if own home outright

halia

Hi all,
I have a question, it is possible that I will be seperating (amicably) from my husband. The arrangement financially would be as follows:
Sell family home
use profit to pay of mortgage on family home and on rental property
Me and our son move into (currently rental) property (which is in my name only) so I would own it outright
husband takes share of profit left from sale to equal equity I now own
whatever remaining profit there is we split 50:50

If that doens't make sense here it is with made up numbers
Sell family house an have 100k left after paying mortgage etc
pay off mortgage on property b at 20k
leaves 80k
property b worth 50k so husband takes 50k
leaves 30k
split 30k evenly so we each get 15k

end result, DH has 65k (and would possibly buy a smaller house nearby) and I have a house worth 50k plus 15k cash.

I have main custody of our son, his dad has him saturday pm - tuesday am 3 weeks of the month. (Its about a 70/30 split in terms of custody)

Husband continues working f/t

I work p/t (averaging 10 hrs a week) earning £85/week.

Obviuosly I have no mortgage to pay.

DS is 2 so we would have nursery fees to pay for.

I have been studying p/t but if we split up i dont' want to ask exH to pay for nursery fees for me to study so we'd probably split nursery half and half. That would mean me paying £45/week nursery.

So I reckon:
income = 85 wages + 17 Child benefit
expenditure = 45 nursery; leaves 57

Is there any additional benefits/ tax credits I could get? will either of us get help with nursery fees?

I know WTC only kicks in if you are working more than 16 hrs, some weeks I would be but it would average out at less than that. Can you claim WTC for a period of time? ie if i get a contract which means I am working 16hrs+ can I claim WTC for those months?

would I be better off trying to up my hours to 16 on average and increasing nursery days?

Zara33

With £15k cash in the bank?

Elle00

Firstly, let me just say that a year ago I was where you are now and I still don't fully understand the benefits system - though I'm sure as heck learning fast.

Okay first up, if you stay in the situation you are in now I think you will struggle a little. You are ineligible for Income Support because you are earning more than the set payment (was £57.45 but probably gone up this tax year by 50p or £1). Persons working under 16hrs a week are ineligible for assistance with childcare so the figure you will be calculated on is £85 not the £40 you are left with after paying it. Your savings are also over the entitlement allowance.

Child Benefit is actually £18.10 now and you are entitled to Child Tax Credits of around £44 per week too.

You can claim a 25% single person discount for council tax but with your property and £15k capital I doubt you would get any benefit which would mean you'd need to find around £70 - £90 a month to pay them with. You absolutely must ask your local council though because I'm not certain on that one and am quite possibly wrong.

The problem with your situation is that I sincerely doubt you will afford to live like this in the long run. If you ex pays child maintenance then it might help your situation but you will pay out big time in other ways. For example unless you claim either Income Support or Working Tax Credits you will not be entitled to free food tokens, free dentistry and eye tests and prescriptions; all of which are expensive luxuries in this day and age!

Even though it is possible to scrape by on this income I think you'd quickly become depressed trying to struggle through every time you got a large water bill or your child needs new shoes and trust me when I say your savings will soon disappear!

In your situation, as you are mortgage free, you would probably benefit greatly from working 16hrs a week and as your child is already settled into childcare there's no reason why you shouldn't.

Working 10hrs a week you'd get £85 wages, £18.10 CB, £44 CTC. You'd have to pay out £45 childcare and around £15 council tax for starters which would leave you with £87.10 per week to live on to buy all your food, clothes, toiletries and pay your electric, water rates and phone bill with.

Working 16hrs a week, if you didn't have savings of £15k, you'd get £136 a week wages, £18.10 CB, £44 CTC and somewhere around £65 WTC (including the lone parent element). You would have to pay out around £25 in childcare (only an estimate based on paying 30% of your own childcare) plus around £15 a week council tax. This would leave you with £223.10. The reason it seems a lot is that people in your situation would usually be paying out around £40 a week of that money for their own rent - which you don't have to pay. On top of this you would receive free dentistry, eye tests and prescriptions. You have to find out for yourself how your savings would affect any claim. There's a possibility that you will have to live off your savings for a year before you can make any WTC claim but I do NOT know this for certain.

Note that yes you would have to work 16hrs every week to be eligible for WTC, not just some weeks.

Please appreciate that I am not a benefits advisor, I am just a single Mother like yourself who has been on both Income Support and Working Tax Credits. I do know for certain that you are ineligible for Income Support as your savings are over £6k so either you have to work as you are and suppliment your income with your divorce settlement until it runs dry or you need to work more to claim WTC if you are eligible.

For a calculation you can try https://www.entitledto.com but as you've never claimed benefits before you may find this confusing right now (I know I did for the first six months!). It also may well be really quite inaccurate as your property and £15k savings will greatly affect some claims whilst not affecting others.

For further information you can contact the tax credits office, your local CAB or your nearest Job Centre Plus. I hate to bring everybody down here but personally I can't recommend any of them! Still, they're there if you want some "help".

Best wishes to you.

healy

If you have capital which, in total, comes to over £16,000, you will not be able to get Income Support. If the total is over £6,000 up to £16,000, this will affect how much Income Support you can get. The same figures apply to Council Tax Benefit.

If you have any sort of income, it will normally be taken into account when your Income Support is worked out. Some types of income can be ignored, either in full or up to a certain amount.

Morglin

Try this:

http://www.entitledto.co.uk/

Lin

halia

morglin and elle thanks for the link and info- thats starting to give me some idea.

btw the figures were only as an illustration as I said!!!! "If that doens't make sense here it is with made up numbers"

Its more likely I would have about 3k maximum 'cash' at the end of the split and that would immediatly go towards paying of the debt I'd have mounted up while we were trying to sell/move and needing to pay 2 lots of housing costs.

So assuming I DON'T have savings (wish I hadn't added that bit now! it was only intended to make it clear that we would have split all our assets equally)

It sounds like is I was earning £85/week for 10 hrs I wouldn't get anything additional to Child benefit. So i'd be on 85+18.10 - 45 so £121/week


IF I up my hours (somehow) to 16 on average I would get:
earnings = £137
Child benefit = £18.10
Tax credits = £145.17
thats about £290 after tax/NI

childcare costs would go up to £60/week

So I'd have £230 a week or 11-12k a year after childcare.

It is worthwhile me making sure I up my hours then, even if the tax credits aren't as high as that site suggests it still looks like I will be better off due to the WTC element.

Rikki

Quick question:
Why does hubby get property b's full value and then you split the amount left?

seven-day-weekend

Because (as I understand), she is living in mortgage-free property b which is in her sole name.

She has the house, he has the cash.

He has to live somewhere too.

misswig

Hi
As a divorced single mum of a 2 1/2 year old i understand your confusion re benefits etc. As the resident parent you may be entitled to more than 50% of the equity in the house which you are selling leaving you with more capital in which to set up home yourself.

My advise is too see a solicitor/CAB to find out what you are entitled too even if the split is amicable.

I made the mistake of trying to be fair and amicable and ended up scrimping and saving whilst the exH lived the high life.

All the best

Vxx