JSA whilst working notice

pc2020

I was made redundant on 7th April 2020 from a company that went into liquidation. Because of these circumstances, I did not have to work my 12 weeks notice so once my 12 weeks are up, 7th July I will hopefully get my back-pay. So even though effectively I am getting paid from 7th April, can I still claim JSA ( Or whatever it is now called) at the moment back-dating from 7th April or does me being paid my 12 weeks notice pay, stop me from claiming anything. 

epm-84

I think it's from the date on your P45 that you can claim benefits so if you're still going to be paid next month you won't be able to, unless the pay amount is very low e.g. £50 a week. You can't backdate a benefits claim except in exceptional circumstances - not knowing you could claim out-of-work benefits isn't one of them.

Do you have savings of over £6000?  If not you'll be best off claiming Universal Credit based on your Income.  If you have savings of over £6000 the amount of UC you can get is reduced and over £16,000 you don't get anything, so you may be better off claiming JSA based on your NI contributions - presuming you were working for all of the 17/18 and 18/19 tax years.  A JSA claim runs out after 26 weeks and once it's run out you can't claim again for at least 12 weeks.  

pc2020

I did think this, that I couldn't claim JSA ( It would be contribution based as I have savings over 13K and a redundancy payment to come over 7K) if I am in effect still being paid even though I will not get the payment until my notice period of 12 weeks is up. I know a couple of people who are getting contribution JSA even though they are getting their notice pay. How this has happened I do not know as surely the relevant authorities must check all the info they have at their disposal. It's all a bit confusing.

epm-84

pc2020 said:

I did think this, that I couldn't claim JSA ( It would be contribution based as I have savings over 13K and a redundancy payment to come over 7K) if I am in effect still being paid even though I will not get the payment until my notice period of 12 weeks is up. I know a couple of people who are getting contribution JSA even though they are getting their notice pay. How this has happened I do not know as surely the relevant authorities must check all the info they have at their disposal. It's all a bit confusing.

Their circumstances may be different to yours e.g. they may have got their notice pay in advance, been taken off the payroll system and been issued with a P45.  In those circumstances if you apply straight away you do have to declare that you've received an additional payment from your employer and if it's large they may delay your benefit start date but then it maybe if you're available to start work straight away they'll let you have the benefit as soon as they can.