Poised and nervous

StealingCPspcs

Hi all,
So I'm almost ready to click the button and I know from reading as much as I can within the forum that most things can be figured out with the OR but I wanted to check a couple of bit to see if anyone has any ideas.
My income is benefits including ESA and Pip and an additional sum every month for child maintenance. when filling out the BR forms online it asks about council tax which I get a reduction on and only pay around £25pm but under benefits it says 'Council Tax Reduction or Council Tax Support' so do I add in the reduction I get as a benefit? then in expenditure do I put the whole amount without reduction? so: Before reduction the bill is £1311.60 then the reduction is (made of two separate headings) £967.31 leaving £344.29 to pay.
I'm not in arrears at all with this.
I also wanted to check that when I say there is however much in my bank account will they allow for things like rent that needs to come out of it? At the moment despite my income being almost all benefits its saying |I will probably need to make monthly payments for the three years. If I get it wrong on the form are they going to be understanding of the fact I just got confused or is it all set in stone? I'm doing this on my own as in support and its a little scary. The debt I have found is around £110000.00 but I think there is more out there (unfortunately I wasn't as on the ball with my marital finances as I though I was).
Thanks in advance and I'm grateful for any advice

StealingCPspcs

Also... Will they take Child maintenance as a reliable income? it changes often and could just stop next month

Minkym00

Try and relax. The OR is not there to catch you out and if you get it wrong on the application you can just explain. With council tax your assumption is right. Include the support as income and include the full amount as an expense.

As for your bank account, they won’t be looking to claim it unless you have a LOT in there. If it’s just benefits income and living expenses then you’ll be fine. They’ll write to your bank and ask them to release it to you. Although that doesn’t necessarily need the bank will, some are worse then others. But if you have a basic bank account with no credit facility you should be ok, fingers crossed. Even if the bank does close / freeze your account they should release the funds on the say so if the OR. Unless they are a creditor, as they can claim it to offset their loss.

Good luck x

Minkym00

Just explain it’s not guaranteed. Have you done a statement of affairs on here yet? It’s a good idea to.

StealingCPspcs

Thanks for getting back to me.
I dont have any debt with the bank and it doesnt have any credit facilities on it so I'm super hopeful I can keep the account. Thank you for putting my mind at ease about the OR, I do have a tendancy to over think sometimes :-D

StealingCPspcs

I think I've missed that... Ill have a search