Housing Benefit

Hi guys,

This is more of a query than anything else. So I’ve been unemployed for 5 months, (Not like me to be out of work for so long, but I have been applying left right and centre and can’t seem to be successfully.

I didn’t want to apply for housing benefit as I had remembered what it was like to sign on when I was in my teens and didn’t want to go through the same painstaking process again.

Suffice to say it got to a point where I needed financial help. I applied for UVC, went through the motions and seem to have hit a roadblock with my housing benefit.

Backstory
(My ex partner and I have a child of 8 whom I see weekly, we have been split up for five months now, but she agreed to help me pay my rent until I got back into work (we are on good terms) so I could see my son in a safe and secure environment. Other bills I’ve received help from family. Anyways, she insisted that I signed on to get help, she understood how I felt about it and knew why I didn’t want to do it. It has gotten to a point where I don’t want to rely on her for help anymore, so I applied.

Now the house I live in is a two bedroom house, privately rented. Here’s the complicated part. The house is owned by my mothers employer, she is listed as the tenant (this is to give me the 20% discount on rent) and I am listed as the occupant.

I provided the tenancy agreement required which has my mothers name as the tenant, my name as the occupant. They said this wasn’t enough and that they weren’t sure how to handle this situation. They requested that I got a letter from my landlord stating that my mother is the tenant and that she doesn’t live here and that I am fully liable for the rent. Which was fine, got it and gave it in. They next ask for my bank statements asking to prove that I paid the rent. Obviously I cannot do that which I told them the situation about my ex partner helping me out (I did tell them that I owed her all this money back) they weren’t sure where to go from there so they entered all the evidence I provided and sent it off to the decision maker.

Now I was meant to get my first UVC payment on the 19th October (JSA only as I am to understand it whilst the decision maker inevitably made a decision on whether or not I qualified for housing benefit or not) payment never came, spoke to someone about it and they said a payment blocker was put in place due to the housing benefit situation. They said they would escalate it and it should be resolved by the end of the day. So I thought ok, I had a couple of job interviews to go to that afternoon so by the time I got back it should have gone through. Never happened.

What I’m wanting to know is

- The likelihood of my HB claim being accepted
- Why/How they can block my JSA counterpart of my UVC
- When this is likely to get resolved (I put dozens of messages in Munich journal for my workcoach and the payment category only to get a !!!!!! response from my work coach telling me he doesn’t deal with Payments (which I already knew but thought he might be able to help a little bit)

Last time I signed on was when I was 17 so a lot has changed and I’m not sure where to go from here. Starting to panic because if my HB is refused whilst i am job searching. I’m screwed.

For any questions I am anticipating here’s the answer
(Yes the landlord would evict me if I couldn’t pay rent, there is no special relationship there. The only benefit of my mother working for my landlord is the discount and that’s it.