Will myself and my girlfriend by entitld to housing benefit?

tg21

Hi,

I currently live with my girlfriend in a private rented house. My girlfriend works part time and I currently work full. I cover the rent and bills with a fulltime minimum wage job and we use my girlfriends extra money for savings and spending.

I am hoping to soon go into fulltime education at a local college to enable me to move on to university.

If my girlfriend is working part time and I am in fulltime education will we be helped by housing benifit?
Ideally due to my wages being stopped they would have to cover the entire rent. My girlfriend makes £400.00 pcm.

Now would I be better working part time also or would they not cover any rent at all then?

I don't think I will have the hours in the day to work fulltime and even if I did it would be very difficult to find a job around the college hours. It will be to find just a part time job I would imagine.

Basically I am trying to see if it is realistic for me to go into fulltime education whilst me and my girflriend can still live comfortably.

I visited the citizens advice but they prooved useless in answering my questions. Any help would be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

Taylor

BoJangles_2

Can your girlfriend not work f/t?

pmlindyloo

Basically full time students are not eligible for housing benefit except for special circumstances.

Read this:

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Full-time-students-and-benefits/Who-is-a-full-time-student-for-benefit-purposes

Your girl friend might be eligible for Housing benefit and CT support based on her low income so she could apply.

Any means tested benefits are based on both your incomes/savings when you live together as and and wife, regardless of how you split your finances. Because of this any grants /loans that you receive will be taken into account (there are some disregards for certain things)

You would be eligible for a 25% reduction on your council tax as you, as a student, would be exempt.

So, you need to find out what grants/loans are available for your course. Your place of education should have a department (welfare?) which would probably be able to help with your girl friend's claim for HB and CT support.

Working part time is an option for you (would be counted as income regards HB and CT support)

Your girlfriend could seek full time work (is there any reason why she isn't working full time? Disability perhaps - this may make a difference to any benefits help)

The amount of rent that the council pay is based on your local housing allowance. You can look this up on your local council website. This is the maximum they would pay and of course, as said, income/savings will reduce it.

No one will be able to tell you the exact figures as the local housing allowance is based on where you live. Also we do not know what grants/loans you may be eligible for.

Another option is to try to do a part time/OU course which will give you the qualifications you need without having to rely on benefits.

BigAunty

tg21 wrote: »

I don't think I will have the hours in the day to work fulltime and even if I did it would be very difficult to find a job around the college hours.

Is it a particularly intensive course? Reason I ask is that the college courses I have taken tended to only have around 20 something hours of attendance each week and very light homework. I had something like 2.5 full days off each week.

I chose not to work but plenty of people on my course did - Saturday job, fast food, betting shop and so on. When I was doing my A'levels which had similar attendance but much higher homework, I managed to work 2 eves a week and every Sat/Sun for most of it in a fast food place.

In my city there are plenty of call centre and data processing type of jobs in the evening.

Are there any good apprenticeships in your intended line of work - earn while you learn?

Can you do your subject via evening class or distance learning so that you can still work full time?

My college offered some of their qualifications over a much longer time span 1 to 2 days per week attendence. Does yours?