Help either universal credit or housing benefit

Thewaldron5

Seeking help. My husband is self employed and i work 20 hours a week due to mental health ( ie i cant work too many hours because of low energy levels cos of meds).
We have 2 children under 16. My husband broke is heel bone in half this week and has been " signed off " for 6 weeks minimum. We claim working and child tax credits.. but want to claim housing and council tax benefit, however they are rolling out universal credit in our area. When i do a search online with a benefits calculator its says were not entitled to anything because i earn £560 ever 4 weeks.. im really worried that we wont be able to claim housing and council tax benefit

Ames

If you're in a universal credit area you'd have to come off tax credits and go on UC. You wouldn't be able to go back on tax credits when you no longer need help with housing. If the calculator has said that your earnings are too high for UC then it's probably not worth claiming, especially as you'd have to wait five weeks for payment anyway.

Council tax support is separate to UC, you should be able to apply for that through your council. I don't know if you'd be entitled to any.

Have you put your details into https://www.entitledto.org ? That's the best place to start to find out what your situation is.

Craig1981

the decision is not just based on your £560 4 weekly wage - will take tax credits into account as well.

if you are in a FULL SERVICE AREA for UC, then you need to apply through there. if it is still LIVE ONLY AREA, you may still be able to claim HB.

will you be entitled? as a rough idea only:
work out ALL income from tax credits and wages (not child benefit) into a weekly figure
subtract £260 (rough applicable amount)
you need to pay 65% towards your rent and 20% towards council tax.

so if you weekly income is £300, your figure would be 300 - 260 = 40. £8 paid to council tax and £26 paid to rent. If your rent is more than this amount, then you should be able to claim

again, this is a ROUGH calculation and wont take into effect DLA, PIP childcare, under occupation, LHA or HB either

best to use the https://www.entitledto.org calculator for more information
pop your post code into https://universalcreditinfo.net/ to see the service of UC in your area