Business owner, Maternity Allowance pay help

BritneyD

Hello.

I am a pregnant, self employed, sole trader of a business.
My 'earnings' are extremely low, less than 4k.
My partner is self employed engineer who earns roughly 17k.
We are 'due' in the summer.

I am leaving my business this year, no date has been decided yet, someone I know is completely taking over the business and I won't even be working there afterwards.

I am wondering what the score is with Maternity Allowance and wondering if anybody knew or could help or anything?

From what I gather, as i HAVE been paying my class 2 NI payments for the past 3 years, and will continue to do so until I leave the business, I will be entitled to the full rate of £125 ish p/w Maternity Allowance.
Is this correct?

Next thing, I will probably be leaving the business when I start claiming, a couple of weeks before I'm due, so, as I will then, no longer be 'self employed' or a 'sole trader' and obviously, no longer be paying class 2 NI contributions , will I still be entitled to the Maternity Allowance?

I THINK, that I will be, as, as long as I've paid the class 2 NI payments for, something like, 26 weeks before I claim, I am entitled??

My partner will be continuing to work as normal as he does now, no change with his earnings.
After my 39 weeks are up with Maternity Allowance, I will be going back to work, as an employed person (won't go into details but have a job waiting for when im ready).

Please, if anyone knows any differently to what I've said, or knows that I'm wrong anywhere, or anything, let me know? ALSO, if anyone knows of a reason for me to be giving the business up sooner that would benefit me... please let me know. OR if anyone has ANYthing else to contribute, please do.

AND, would it be the job center I need to go to, to discuss all this and to put the claim in?
First pregnancy and am totally lost. Never claimed anything in my life, don;t know where to start :-(

Thank you!