Housing benefit refused...

McKneff

I have trouble understanding the benefit system to be honest when you can claim benefits on on that much money and then we have homeless people who have literally nothing but a bag of clothes and cant even get a roof over their hea

It makes no sense to me.

redflame_2

Hi P1ngu,
From what you have said is on the council's notification letter you have not been awarded the child premium for your three younger children.
Where it says children under 11 yrs x 3 £0, this figure should be £200.70 (66.90 x 3).
As the Housing Benefit Officer has previously stated, the regulations surrounding the amount of allowances included for children were restricted to a 2 child limit from April 2017, however this does not apply to claimants whose child tax credit is based on more than 2 children.
Therefore, my opinion is this, if your tax credit award is based on all 5 of your children and includes allowances for them, then yes you need to get back in touch with the housing benefit office and ask them to reconsider their decision.
Yes, your maintenance is disregarded income, along with child benefit, but this is included in the disregarded income figure of £148.76.
You also need to tell them to check the Carer's Allowance again as this is also being included in the "other income" figure (currently £62.70 per week) as well as the additional premium.
I hope this has helped you and good luck

p1ngu

Thank you redflame! I will get in touch with them and see what they say. We may well be entitled to nothing but if we are it will be a welcome help Raising 5 children is not cheap, we don't have expensive holidays and designer clothes (as hard as that may be for some people to believe!).

p1ngu

Yes, from a self employed job which was dangerous but high earnings. Work colleague & friend was lost which caused emotional upheaval. He is not going back to doing that same job again and work here is scarce. He is always looking for something else but no luck thus far. This is why he took a job with lower earnings as it's better than being unemployed. And people are more employable when they already work.

As I said before, I don't work as realistically it won't work for us. We don't have family nearby to help with childcare.

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

Morglin

p1ngu wrote: »

Yes, from a self employed job which was dangerous but high earnings. Work colleague & friend was lost which caused emotional upheaval. He is not going back to doing that same job again and work here is scarce. He is always looking for something else but no luck thus far. This is why he took a job with lower earnings as it's better than being unemployed. And people are more employable when they already work.

As I said before, I don't work as realistically it won't work for us. We don't have family nearby to help with childcare.

I can see I may as well delete this thread as it's just turned into a lets all blame this lady for everything that's wrong with the benefits system in the UK! That's not what I came on here for.

Housing benefit claims are often calculated incorrectly, so you need to check what you are actually receiving in benefits, tax credits and earnings, and if they have the amounts/details down incorrectly, go down to the office, with all your paperwork, and they will have to recalculate it.

Many people have to go through this palaver, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

Often councils use outsourcing for HB claims, and one firm (who I won't name!) are notorious for getting it wrong.
Lin