single mum unemployed and owning a house

Agis

Thank you for all comments. I will need to sort out my house anyway as my consent to let is going to expire in 2 months time. Not sure how my bank (and my lender) is going to talk to me...
When called the money advice service number (shared by CBS) they were literally useless.
Need to look for help by asking correct questions on forums and rely on people up there otherwise I am hitting my head against the wall.
I will approach some banks asking what they do in this kind of situation as I have no knowledge...
Please respect myself as I respect you. I have not done anything wrong, did I? Everybody needs help and especially young families and other vulnerable people. I still have a 3 year old at home and being a single mother without any family or friends nearby is tricky. I am strong though and again thank you for your kind advice. It is all I have + my house :-)
Will keep you updates as other people in similar situation can find it useful...

Kayalana99

Agis wrote: »

Thank you for all comments. I will need to sort out my house anyway as my consent to let is going to expire in 2 months time. Not sure how my bank (and my lender) is going to talk to me...
When called the money advice service number (shared by CBS) they were literally useless.
Need to look for help by asking correct questions on forums and rely on people up there otherwise I am hitting my head against the wall.
I will approach some banks asking what they do in this kind of situation as I have no knowledge...
Please respect myself as I respect you. I have not done anything wrong, did I? Everybody needs help and especially young families and other vulnerable people. I still have a 3 year old at home and being a single mother without any family or friends nearby is tricky. I am strong though and again thank you for your kind advice. It is all I have + my house :-)
Will keep you updates as other people in similar situation can find it useful...

I'm not sure a bank would help you, please don't take us trying to cause you any disrespect but we are only explaining you the truth and options you have.

Banks tend to lend money out when you can prove you can afford the repayments, if you go in there and say I'm unemployed can I have a loan? They are most likely going to send you packing. At most, you *may* get an overdraft or a credit card - but now you are unemployed they most likely will come with high interest rates.

The bottom line is there are no benefits for someone in your situation who has that sort of capital tied up, so your best bet is the suggestions above.

Full_Circle

Good Luck To you

Agis

I am back again after over 6 months. Now being re-employed yup-iii I would like to give you some feedback what has happened in the meantime...
I did not get any benefits, even the council tax exemption. I made a big mistake by applying for an income support benefit (I have one child under 5) and cancelling my JSA (contribution-based) - could not apply for both and made a bad choice (advice from fiance support group in Cardiff library). In short - owning the house I don't live in (although I relocated for a new job) disqualified me from this benefit and giving me the answer after 2 months left me me with over 2 month missing payment I would normally have. I applied for the JSA backdating as the following step - again - they decided I am not entitled due to lack of proves I was actively searching a job - I had no other option (apparently no formal complaints are possible) but prove them by providing 50 pages of my 2 month-long emails exchange and interviews arranged. I guess nobody was impressed by that and I lost the battle even for 10 week JSA payments which I would normally get if not cancelling my primary application.
Living basically on my savings for 3 months and not getting any relevant job offers locally I have accepted a new job offer in Southampton. Children and myself relocated there over the summer. We are settled down although my oldest struggles a bit with his new school/ teacher.
It was very sad move leaving Wales, leaving their dad living close by and leaving my welsh boyfriend.
We have the income now - but not an easy access to people we miss. It is a life experience.
Conclusions - don't buy houses - live on government expense. And be close to people you love. Easy!

OhWow

Agis wrote: »

I did not get any benefits, even the council tax exemption. I made a big mistake by applying for an income support benefit (I have one child under 5) and cancelling my JSA (contribution-based) - could not apply for both and made a bad choice (advice from fiance support group in Cardiff library). In short - owning the house I don't live in (although I relocated for a new job) disqualified me from this benefit and giving me the answer after 2 months left me me with over 2 month missing payment I would normally have.

You were told before to claim contribution based benefits as your investments (the house you own but don't live in) are over 16k - too much to have low income based benefits too. You also have a business of letting a property.

Agis wrote: »

It was very sad move leaving Wales, leaving their dad living close by and leaving my welsh boyfriend.
We have the income now - but not an easy access to people we miss. It is a life experience.
Conclusions - don't buy houses - live on government expense. And be close to people you love. Easy!

The conclusion is to make sure you learn from this and take out insurance for lose of a job or for being too sick to work. Benefits are not "government expense": benefits are paid for by the taxpayers who don't take any benefits.

If you want to live near your Welsh boyfriend, then either he will have to move to where you are, or you could sell your investment property and release your 100k to use as a large deposit to buy a house to live near him. That way you could work for a lower wage as you won't have rent to pay and your mortgage payment will be low.

Agis

Definitely a lesson to learn from - not only me but hopefully other people thinking about buying houses and changing jobs with relocation. Saying that before I was made redundant after 8 months from starting my job other employed had either reduced hours or 1 person was made redundant. When I saw that 2 months after joining this unstable company (10 years on the market) staright away I enquired about the insurance you are talking about - unsurprisingly they made me aware that in my case I would not benefit from paying £100/month for this insurance for 2 reasons:
- I was still on trial period (6 months)
- There were redundancies going on so it meant it was predictable I could lose my job and I would be not covered.
I am still thinking that I was a) extremely unlucky doing the right thing by relocating for a job very specialised where there is a very limited number of candidates able to do this kind of job b) shocked by a lack of any help from the organisation called government which should support people like me - I am not talking about years of help as I am a qualified professional and it can take 3-6 months to find a specific position for me but I was in need and I received nothing. Shame for this system, I have no good words for it, saying that not only from my experience.

FBaby

Agis, I agree with you. Saying that, 'all' you've lost is 10 weeks worth of JSA, which is frustrating of course, but is not the cause of what has happened to you and even then, that's because you've opted to go for IS, probably because it was 'easier', avoiding the scrutiny of the job centre.

It is hard to be a professional single parent where the life you provide for your children rely almost entirely on your job and income. You couldn't have predicted that you'd be made redundant so quickly and that was the worse case scenario, which unfortunately fell on you.

I know it is hard to put your children through the change of a move, but indirectly, your children will grow stronger and more resilient from it. I moved so many different schools when I was a kid because of my mum's job and I cried every time as it always happened when I'd finally settled, but looking back, it's made me the confident adult I am when faced with change. My DS also had to adjust for the first time to a new school when he was 8, and being quite a shy introverted boy, the first months were hard and it broke my heart, but as he started to make new friends, I saw his confidence sore and when he moved to secondary school where he knew almost no-one, he wasn't phased at all.

As for the advice on selling your house, don't do it if you can avoid it. It might become your future pension, as it would be no surprise if by the time you retire, you'll be entitled to no state pension, getting nothing back from your NI contributions, state pensions only going to those who never bothered to protect themselves/invest in their future.

Agis

Dear FBaby, thank you for your supportive post :j. I agree 100% with you regarding the whole conent but especially the advice to not sell the house. I wanted to avoid it and although I was in need to sell it I managed to find a job and now slowly planning the next property investment step.
Any quick advice on that? I think I have seen somewhere you are not the big fan of this kind of moves... :beer: