Separated but living in the same house

bargainbird

Advice wanted - having decided to separate/divorce I'm in a quandary.
Hubby wants to stay here because of kids but can I claim HB/CTB for my half ??

TIA

bargainbird

Urm I do work Alex but not 40hrs a week as I have 3 children to sort out but thanks for your suggestion.

Heffi1

Deleted......

pmlindyloo

bargainbird wrote: »

Advice wanted - having decided to separate/divorce I'm in a quandary.
Hubby wants to stay here because of kids but can I claim HB/CTB for my half ??

TIA

Few more details needed please.

Rented house? Joint tenancy?

How are you living? Separate bedrooms? Sharing meals? Sharing bank accounts/

It is very difficult to prove that you are not living as man and wife in these circumstances.

In a joint tenancy there is no such thing as your half. You are both liable for all of the rent.

It must be extremely difficult to live in these circumstances. Is there any reason why he can't move out and you share custody of children?

greeneggs_2

So he's going to stay put but contribute less to the household than he currently is? That doesn't seem at all reasonable.

When two people separate they generally have to run two houses and so money is tighter and sometimes the state has to help out but in this case surely he's going to just have more spending money because he's contributing less than he was before?

redcard

greeneggs wrote: »

So he's going to stay put but contribute less to the household than he currently is? That doesn't seem at all reasonable.

I think it's perfectly reasonable he contributes 50% max. Not sure how you can argue anything else.

greeneggs_2

redcard wrote: »

I think it's perfectly reasonable he contributes 50% max. Not sure how you can argue anything else.

Really?

I would argue that if he's staying for the kids he should be putting a roof over their head rather than the state doing so. It sounds to me like he wants to have his cake and eat it.

redcard

greeneggs wrote: »

Really?

I would argue that if he's staying for the kids he should be putting a roof over their head rather than the state doing so. It sounds to me like he wants to have his cake and eat it.

You're missing the point.

greeneggs_2

You're missing the point

Why? They're not housemates, he's not a lodger, he's the father of the children. If he moved out he'd be significantly worse off so it seems to me he's getting a great deal.

It's not a deal I would agree to personally. I very much doubt that the OP is going to be able to get any benefits on this basis because it would be very difficult to prove they aren't still together. So she's likely to be worse off than if he was living elsewhere and he's going to be significantly better off.

redruby

Hi Bargainbird,


Sorry to hear about you and DH, I really don't know anything about any help you can get, but I would imagine it would be extremely difficult to live with an 'ex' no matter how well you get on. At some point you will start to argue and resent each other and wont have any space of your own, also (and it will happen) when one of you finds a new partner what will happen then ?


Is there not another way you could both handle this ?


Hope you manage to sort something out xx

C_Mababejive

I'm not clear how this would work. If you approach the BA and say hey weve split but he still lives here, wont they just take the view that you havent really split ? Even so , he still has liabilities for housing and feeding his children. Is the house rented or mortgaged?