Complicated situation - advice appreciated.

Cate1976

I've got several questions here so hoping that someone will be able to follow it all.

Basic details are that my husband & have 2 children (twins born 01/12/2009) with another due 28th August (unplanned and total surprise as we needed fertility treatment to have the girls and we were told that we wouldn't conceive naturally). My husband currently works 20 hours a week as a cleaner in one of the local schools.

1) Due to school being closed over summer, he's not going to be working 20 hours a week and only has 10 days holiday accrued which is being split so he gets 2 days holiday pay each week (gets paid every 4 weeks). His line manager has hinted that there maybe a few hours work each week for my husband. The original plan was that I would claim Income Support to help meet some of the shortfall but not sure how this will work as in past experience DWP can't cope with varying part time hours.

2) My husband is meant to be doing 24 hours work during the week baby is due, his paternity leave is 2 weeks unpaid. I know that Income Support only allows maximum 24 hours a week for partners. How would it work if baby is late and my husband works the 4 days of week 27th - 30th? Does Income Support allow for rapid reclaims?

3) The company my husband will be employed by is changing on 1st September and instead of being paid every 4 weeks will be paid monthly on 19th, he doesn't know what the payroll cut off date is (I'm thinking it could be 12th), it would help me from budgeting viewpoint if he could find out.

4) Due to a variety of genuine health issues, my husband realistically can only cope with part time hours. I would be able to cope with full time work quite easily and due to various circumstances, it is more likely that I would be able to get a full time job. If he gave up his job, would I be able to claim JSA couple rate with me being the registered jobseeker and my husband being excused due to being the primary carer for the children? I've been told by a friend that this wouldn't work as we'd still be sanctioned for benefits. Last time I checked, we wouldn't be sanctioned. I would rather he stay in work until I can get a full time job. To make it clear, we're not scroungers but are trying to do what works for us. The ideal for me would be for him to be working part time and me working full time, we'd work out child care if my hours clashed with my husbands). Do Child Care rules allow child care element in this scenario?

5) My husband has recently put in a claim for DLA, it is likely that he'll get it at Low Mobility & Low Care (looking at descriptors bordeline for Middle). If he gets the DLA, he'll get Working Tax Credits who've told us that it'd be backdated to when his hours dropped from 30 week to 20 week (he couldn't physically cope with 30 despite his best effort and understanding line manager adjusting his hours). Since he went down to 20 hours, most of our rent has been covered by HB. My concern is that if he gets the DLA, then it'll mean us having to pay back all the HB we've received and we'll get a civil penalty. If my husband gets the DLA, the backdated part of the WTC will be put in our savings a/c so we will be able to pay back the overpayment promptly.

6) If we do apply for Income Support from 27/07/2013 to help cover some of the shortfall in my husband's wages and he is awarded DLA, would we be hit with overpayment & civil penalty or would we be able to end Income Support claim from when we get notification of DLA?

7) My husband also does some voluntary work, he works in 2 different places total is 5 1/2 hours week. My Dad has heard somewhere that voluntary work counts towards hours worked each week for WTC. This would mean that even if my husband doesn't get DLA, we could claim WTC. I thought that only paid work counted for WTC.

8) One of our girls does have Global Developmental delay and does need 1-1 as much as possible. We've got a form for DLA for her which is being sent off next week. We're not applying for DLA from financial viewpoint but more for the help we'll be able to get as a result, one example being that if she's on DLA, it helps increase likelihood of her getting 1-1 support at school. The only financial aspect would be that if school say she's benefitting from using a particular piece of equipment, we would be able to buy it straight away to use at home. The DLA for her would be put into savings a/c and only used for things which will benefit her, same for disability element of CTC.

We're not scroungers and don't want to break any rules or exploit any loopholes (if any of our plans are making use of loopholes, it's unintentional). We're trying to do what's best for us not just financially but also from getting work/family balance right. I worked out rough estimate of what our potential 'income' will be if both DLA applications are successful and I was surprised. For me it's caused me to understand why families with 2 people on DLA are so often tarred with the scrounger brush. It upsets me that even genuine people on benefits get tarred with the scrounger brush and it's got worse in recent years.

Thanks to anyone who can answer any of my questions (especially whether to claim Income Support over the summer.

Icequeen99

I can answer the tax credit parts. No, the voluntary hours don't count towards tax credits.

If your husband gets DLA then he will qualify for WTC at 16 hours.

Childcare element would cater for the scenario you mention (full time and him part time). You would also get the childcare element if only you worked because your partner, if he got DLA, would be counted as 'incapacitated' which relaxes the requirements for the childcare element of Working Tax Credit.

IQ

Cate1976

Thanks IQ, thought you'd know the answers to tax credits question re voluntary work. Good to know that if he gets the DLA, childcare can be claimed for hours I work, unlikely we would do this as girls will be in nursery class in the afternoons and for the mornings either he could cope or my parents could help out.