Advice on what I can claim

nzmegs

No longer required - thankyou

mitchaa

The £167 weekly payment would be if you were to rent privately from a landlord. You could not use this to pay your mortgage.

If you stay in your own home you will receive absoloutly no help at all in regards to housing. You cant claim HB/LHA to help pay your mortgage.

Im not even so sure if you will receive LHA as you will still have equity/money tied up in your mortgaged home so i dont think you would be eligible.

You get WTC when your hubby earns between £1500-£2000pm + your £9300 salary? I would have thought with that amount of income you would not be entitled to WTC.

Oldernotwiser

How much do you think your husband would pay as maintenance for the children or would you expect to do this through the CSA? How old are your children? Is there enough equity in your house to enable you both to have deposits to buy smaller flats. Could your husband afford to buy you out and carry on living in the house? When will your debts be paid off and would there be enough equity in your house to do this? Sorry for all the questions; there are always options.

Elle00

Hi nzmegs, I really feel for your situation, no-one wants to feel they have to stay in an unhappy marriage.

Your housing situation will be the biggest problem, you're quite right.

I think the only way you could do this is if your husband agrees to a divorce and you stay in the marital home until it is sold or your husband agrees to buy you out. When you've got your share of the joint assets (this will only be paid once the joint debts are cleared and the divorce finalised) then you can take your share and go and rent somewhere.

You can start claiming benefits as a single parent as soon as you file for divorce though this means you and your husband will have to lead financially seperate lives from that point on.

A trial seperation is NOT an option in your financial situation, you would have to file for either a divorce or a seperation agreement (the latter can be disolved within two years if you decide to reunite). Think about it, there'd be benefit fraud all over the place otherwise.

On your salary, you would be able to claim working tax credits though how much I wouldn't be able to accurately tell you. You'd also get child tax credits for each child at a higher rate than you are now as well as the child benefit. You would have to claim tax credits as a single person remember and make sure the child benefit is in your name and directed to a personal bank account - you'd have to shut the joint account down.

Your husband would have to pay maintenance and you could arrange this privately or get the CSA involved, who would allocate you 20% of your husband's income. The CSA are notoriously useless and time-wasting though.

If I was in your working situation, with my 1 child plus maintenance, I would be receiving about £260pw to live on so that should give you an idea (usually you have about another £40 - £70pw for a second child). Because I wasn't voluntarily homeless, in that situation I would also get a small amount of housing benefit but probably no council tax relief. All single adult occupants can get 25% off their council tax bill though.

Although you will have money from the divorce to help initially, remember it won't be forever. So don't rent somewhere that you can't afford in the long run.

One of the things those on low incomes are now being forced to consider is smalling-down accommodation wise. Ie, single Mums of one or two in private rentals are increasingly having to live in one bed or studio flats as they can't get enough assistance to afford anything bigger. This is regardless of whether you work or are on benefits as the extra you get for working tends to get spent back on doing so (commuting, work clothes, lunches etc).

What I'm trying to say is - be realistic. Have a think about which is better; living in a nice house and trying to fix your marriage or living in a one bed flat sleeping on a sofa bed having eaten beans on toast again for dinner! I'm not for one minute suggesting you stay in your unhappy marriage, I'm just suggesting you consider which is going to be the lesser of two evils.

I stayed with my husband through being hit on five different occassions and even after he nearly dropped the baby while punching me one I still tried to make the situation work. He just didn't see that he was in the wrong though and of course, you can't stay with someone who's hit you in front of your child if they can't see that they're in the wrong. So obviously I knew I had to file for divorce but I never really wanted to - I wanted my husband to stop hitting me; it's different.

Two years on I would still have rather found a way to be happy in that marriage than be a single parent.