Universal credit is confusing me, £0 payment?

[SneakyGremlin]

I'll try and bullet point this to be brief.

• Lost my job on the 7th of January and applied for universal credit on the 10th.

• Received my last pay on the 25th of January, after rent, bills, credit card bills, food, and prescriptions that has now gone. Just me and the cat so no childcare costs or anything like that.

• Universal credit says my assessment period is from the 18th of January to the 18th of February.

• Universal credit also says my next payment is £0.

So if I'm reading it right, I'm getting "paid" fuck all on Friday - and presumably nothing else for four weeks until the 25th of March. If that's true - where the hell do I get March's rent from? Are they seriously going to leave me with nothing at all for four weeks???

Am I being punished for getting my last pay and having to spend it? Trust me I would MUCH RATHER still be employed.

Anyone who has experience with UC please help me make sense of this - I've heard about people getting an advance but how do you get an advance of £0?

Help much appreciated

That is unfortunately how it works on uc. It's best to start your claim the day after you receive your final wage.
You should be able to apply for an advance, if they won't allow that you can try applying for a hardship payment. These do have to be paid back and your future uc payments will be reduced until you've paid it back.
I hope you are able to find a new job soon, I was made redundant and had to apply for uc. Good luck.

Thankyou, I'm more than happy to pay anything back they give me as an advance, but surely somewhere someone could look at this scenario and not think someone being unable to pay rent for a month is fine? Or is it all decided by a machine I really appreciate your response, I'm going to go to the job centre in the morning and ask

No need to go in person (if it's some distance away or causing transport costs) You can call UC and apply for the advance/hardship over the phone, or make a request via your journal.

True, I've just always had better luck in life turning up. They can't hang up/brush me off in person

They definitely can brush you off in person. At my local job centre you won't get past the security guard on the front door without an appointment. The uc helpline is pretty good usually so I'd try calling them first.

I was just about to say the same as @sotired1234, they absolutely would brush you off sadly and probably won’t let you in the door without an appointment. I used to work in housing benefit and had to work with the job centre quite often and they would never see people just trying up (unfortunately!). If I was you I’d call, the helpline is really good, it’ll be quicker than attending the job centre. Good luck OP, it’s a horrible time

The jobcentre won't help you with a universal credit advance payment. It's really not that hard, just call them and apply.
UC is a tricky system but yes unfortunately you'll get nothing for the January period because you got paid.

They did the same to me years ago OP, and my son was 3 at the time. Had my wage in the assessment period before my first payment from UC and I ended up with £172 only.

it was a hard month but I had to apply for an advance. They won’t change the payment amount because of your wages on the 25th unfortunately. Can you apply for an advance?

I'll give them a call this morning then and ask for an advance.

Thankyou for the responses!

So I just had a call from UC, They've given me an advance which will cover either rent and my phone bill, or all my bills, food and medicine for a month but not my rent. Guy on the phone just said "Sorry that's all you're getting" When I said the advance wouldn't be enough for everything - I'm going to call back, hope I get someone different and ask about the hardship fund.

It might be worth applying for new style jsa and seeing if it can be backdated? It is deducted from uc but it’s not affected by your previous earnings as far as I know so you might get something? Might be worth speaking to citizens advice first though?

Also, contact council about a discretionary housing payment to help with rent, council tax help, and any other support such as the household support fund.

You won’t get more than your maximum entitlement so it doesn’t matter who answers the phone.

so for example your rent you will only be entitled to an amount for a 1bed they won’t pay a penny more for rent. So here a 3bed house would get you a maximum of £695 but would cost at least £900 to rent basically so it’s never going to cover every everything.

Council tax is a separate one to apply
for but it’s a free month next month anyway.

They won't give you more than a month's payment as your advance. UC is a pitiful sum and rent allowances are capped well below market rates for rent. I'm sorry but you'll have this problem every month if your payment won't cover rent and bills. You could explore discretionary housing payments but I'm not sure if they exist these days.

The other issue is you are single and childless so it's a pitiful amount anyway

It's not a free month. If you pay over 10 months then it's pre-paid but if you're entitled to council tax benefit then you'll get a refund on what you've paid for Feb/March. Claim the refund immediately or they'll roll the credit forward to the new bills due out for April.

OP, call or visit your local Citizens Advice. They will be able to help apply for Discretionary Housing Payment if it applies. Or you can look on your local authority website for information. CA might also have access other local support for help with Foodbanks and / or food and fuelbank vouchers depending on your situation.

I'm really sorry your in this situation but as the advance you will have been given is the same as a months payment, it doesn't look like you are going to be able to fund your current lifestyle on uc. Are you likely to be able to find more work soon? If so you might be able to hang on for a couple of months, but if not you will need to make some quite drastic changes.

Are you in a position to move to cheaper accommodation? 1 bed flat maybe, but it might have to be house share or bedsit (look up allowance for 1 in your area and see what you can afford)

Ring all your bills, explain the situation and see if there's any wriggle room on payments. If your lucky you might be in credit on some, or able to switch to a cheaper package on stuff like phone, TV or Internet.

Cancel anything you can like amazon, Netflix, gym.

Look up prescription exemption for your meds, I think they're free if your on uc and below a certain income.

Look for food banks that might help you through the month.

Sell anything you can

Check if you have any points/ bonus cards you can spend (clubcard/nectar)

Really hope thing improve for you soon

New style jsa may be payable - look into that