Unemployed but paying full council tax

Mulvaney

Hi all, I'm not sure if there's anything to be done, but if not, it's good to rant.

After 18 years in the same job, I've been unemployed since 2014, except for a 3 week job in early 2015 - so, just over a year officially. I was unable to find any work where I lived in the midlands, partly due to my eyesight meaning I can't drive, so I moved out of my (owned / mortgaged) flat to live with a friend in Brighton in order to try to find a job. She's not charging me rent or other bills, to help me out while I look for work. She has to pay full council tax because I live there (apparently some years ago she would have been entitled to a discount if an unemployed person was living at the property, but they changed that a while back). I'm still paying my mortgage / service charge / ground rent on my flat in the midlands out of my JSA.

I've just been informed that as my flat is a "second property" I'm no longer entitled to the 25% single occupancy discount, or the full unemployed person's discount. So I'm looking at an £800 a year council tax bill, instead of £600 a year if I was working full time and living there, or £160 a year if I moved back there. I've just had over £160 taken out of my account, putting it near the edge of my overdraft.

My flat's going on the market this week, but it's got to the point where it would be cheaper for me to live in my flat in the midlands, look for work in Brighton online and travel the 5 hours by train to any interviews. The job centre in the midlands have told me that they no longer pay interview travel costs (I had a few train tickets to Brighton paid for by them for interviews in the past). The Brighton job centre was OK with paying for my travel to an interview in London a couple of months ago.

My friend would get 25% off her council tax and I'd pay £16 a month for mine, if I moved back. It might be cheaper for two people to live together than separately, but when she's footing the entire bill, she's clearly better off without me.

There doesn't seem to be much incentive to travel in order to find work. I've also been told that I won't get any help with my mortgage (which I've continued to pay in full since I was made redundant in 2014 + while I had a job for 3 weeks in 2015 + since that job finished and my unemployment restarted) because I've remortgaged it to pay for improvements - it was a repossessed drugs den, complete with dirty needles, when I bought it. I sent a completed form about it, which was lost by my mortgage company and I've filled in another since I've moved, but it seems that, if anything, it counts as an asset and I could actually be penalised for owning it, at least until it's on the market.

Other than moving back to the midlands, I don't suppose there's anything I can do? I'm relying on my friend to help me out until my flat's sold, but she'd be better off without me, at least until I get a job. My redundancy has gone and the JSA isn't enough to cover my mortgage and service charge, never mind anything else.

If I move back, the midland council's going to end up gaining another unemployed person and paying my JSA plus the majority of my council tax and Brighton council will lose 25% of my friend's council tax bill. My friend can't help me out indefinitely. As it is, a chunk of any profit from the sale will be going to her to pay her back, as well as money owed to a couple of family members.

I haven't asked the council for anything towards rent in Brighton, as my friend would have to have a landlord mortgage to charge me rent and I'm fairly sure that the council wouldn't pay it anyway, as I own a property elsewhere that I should be living in, even though there's no work there and I can't afford to keep paying the mortgage. A friend in the midlands has his mortgage interest paid and his mortgage provider doesn't ask for anything on top of that. My mortgage provider expect the full payment every month. There are many people in Brighton who get their rent paid plus JSA and are better off than me. I appreciate that I'm lucky to have a property at all these days (and - so far - no credit card bills, as the bulk of my redundancy went to paying them off), but my asset feels like a liability at the moment.

agrinnall

I'm not really sure whether you have a specific question or not, but what you write seems to me to be very much in line with what councils do these days, where there is discretion on offering discounts very few of them actually do that as it's an extra source of income for them. The answer really is to get the flat sold as soon as possible so that you're not paying the mortgage or CT any more.

PasturesNew

You might be better off going home, as you say, and looking for work from afar, then when you get an interview, travel down and stay with your friend for 3-5 days at a time, just as a visitor.

Mortgage help is limited to "first mortgage" and not where you've remortgaged for further reasons.

Your friend wouldn't need a landlord mortgage to have you living there as her lodger - but you're right you'd not get benefits to pay for it as you've got a flat elsewhere.