I’m not missing something here am I? Universal credit, renting and saving for a deposit.

[tiredconfusedhungry]

Keeping it a bit vague. I’m separated, STBXH and I were looking at figures last night and we’re not going to come out with much to put towards a deposit. We’re looking at around £15k each, I’d need a deposit of around £60k - £70k and that’s to buy a 2 bed house.

We’re in the South East and house prices here are high, rent is high. We’re already in the ‘cheaper’ part, moving further away from where we are puts us in prime commuting land and would be more expensive.

Anyway, it’s likely I will end up renting and saving for a bigger deposit. I did a calculation on entitled to (based on no savings) and I could get some help with rent, which is great. It means I could save some money each month and then hopefully buy after about 4 years.

But now I’ve looked into it further, if you have more than £16k in savings you aren’t entitled to any help. Which I do understand, but it then means that after all essential bills and costs are covered, I’d have about £200 left a month. Which doesn’t go far with 2 kids and certainly wouldn’t leave me anything to save.

So essentially I’m never going to be able to save a deposit am I?

37% of people claiming UC are working. So whilst those people may well be on a wage too low to support them and that does need to be addressed, the majority of people claiming UC do not work.

Thats incorrect you can get UC if you have a mortage

How much mortgage would you be approved with your current status?

12 now and buying a holiday let too.

A calculator on the MSE website says between £87000 - £122000.

Would putting the money into a private pension be allowed?

Can you find realistically something for this money ?
A friend of mine have shared ownership but not sure how does it work
Could you move back to your parents?

Op you mentioned your parents are local, would it be possible for you and the 2 dc to move in with them for a couple of years while you continue to save instead of renting your own place?

Can’t you buy a share in a property? That way you’re able to still get UC top up plus if needed I’m sure you able to get some support towards paying the rent part. You’ll have to look into though, were mortgage free on our tiny 2 bed terraced as we could never afford to move anywhere bigger than our starter home & we don’t get UC either, but I’m sure I’ve read somewhere about a share in a property & still being able to get support. If you get support towards a mortgage on UC it’s a loan not housing benefit but the rent part is treated differently I believe. Might be an option then you can keep purchasing a bigger share until you’re 100% bought in

Have a look at the new developments locally, they’re offering shared ownership but I don’t know much about the terms and how they compare to other options.

If she doesn't have enough money to save anything without UC paying her rent then realistically she's not going to be able to get a mortgage. What would happen when mortgage rates increased a bit? Or house maintenance needs doing?
Noone is going to lend to someone with only £200 left after essentials.

Op why cant you buy your husband out instead ?

All those saying "Good grief. No". How many of you would honestly be able to buy a home on your own? I bet many of you are sitting in an ivory tower with a joint income or with family help

Uc provides money for people to survive. Its an average. If the op chooses to save by having say a cheaper basic phone, cooking from scratch, freeview tv, is mindful of her utilities usage etc, then why should she not be able to bank that money? Especially if others in similar circumstances spend theirs less wisely.

I understand benefits are not designed for saving to buy a house, but if the op is frugal enough to get out of the poverty trap in order to buy her own home which avoids her receiving housing allowance forever then imo this should be applauded.

How old are you? My relative saved for a deposit while on benefits and it didn't affect his benefits because it was saved in a private pension. UC doesn't count a pension as savings at all, if you haven't accessed it (which you can't do until age 55+). He withdrew a lump sum at age 55 (tax free) and used it as a deposit on his first home (in London, so quite a high amount). But it does mean you can't access the money until private pension age, which might be too long to wait if you're quite young.

The mortgage where we are now (both combined? Are £1900 a month. I would need to add to that to buy him out. I can’t pay the mortgage on my own, let alone anything else.

30 😳 but thank you for the suggestion anyway!

Have you thought about past rent part buy? There are some places south east that will let you buy only 10% of the property. UC will then help towards the rent and service charge. Then each time you manage to save you could potentially buy a bigger share.

People like you disgust me . You have no shame and despite making all this money you also claim benefits as well. I know that PIP is not means tested but honestly why would you be greedy enough to claim it when you are making thousands a month from 12 rental properties and buying holiday homes. Honestly you have no shame.

Something like this :
https://www.sharetobuy.com/properties/432001/
you can buy a 10% share only , then no deduction if you use all your savings for the deposit. You would get the rent and service charge as an element from UC.

I don’t necessarily think they should but I’m always amazed at the idea people seem totally onboard with the taxpayer paying for rent to a private landlord so they can pay the mortgage on a second home while being so firm that it would be wrong to let someone save or even get help with their own mortgage while receiving benefits.

Ohh it's a hard one!

Nothing against anyone who claims UC but it's supposed to be there to help you live. To get by. Not save.

It must be so hard to get out of the benefit system - I can imagine. Some family members of mine have never been able to.

But... the other side is it took me over 10 years working hard and saving hard to afford a deposit for my home. I've never claimed any benefits but I would be pretty miffed If I knew people that were claiming benefits were still getting them with £10k+ in the bank to be honest.

So... as much as I do sympathise that it's frustrating for you I have gotta say I think its only fair they stop after a certain amount of savings. You technically don't need what it's there for - to live, pay the bills and eat - anymore.

To echo what others have said, there are so many careers that you could switch to without a degree, and have a much higher earning potential. I am in a similar position thinking of a career change, I want to WFH. I'm considering applying for fraud investigator for a credit card company (salary is 27k, entry level job) and then to segway into the governance, risk and compliance side of cyber security (not very technical). Being a case worker you must have many transferrable skills, use chat gpt for a list and ideas! Maybe have a look into project management or HR

Why not just stay married?

No, I agree with you. But it just seems backwards to have to use savings to live on, until I qualify for help, to stay renting for the foreseeable future (potentially). When a smaller amount of help in the medium term, would mean people wouldn’t have to be on UC indefinitely.

What an odd suggestion. Erm… because my ex husband has a problem with staying faithful and I’m not here for that. Fuck that.