mum on benefits can afford to keep her dds 2 horses

[jugofwildflowers]

This is a lovely mum by the way. She has never married but been with the same partner for 25 years and they have 3 dc. He works and has another home but stays in family home often, although because she is 'single' and on benefits, she gets everything paid for and her dc have free school meals. I assumed that as the mum was on benefits, she wouldn't have much money.

They have 2 horses and she spends a lot of the time with them. We have a mortgage and after all the bills are paid we don't have enough to keep one let alone 2 horses! Comes across as sour grapes, doesn't it? Sorry but

We don't know she is paying for the horses ffs!

The reason maintenance was removed from income when calculating benefits is because for the vast majority of single mothers, maintenance is either unreliable or unforthcoming.

There are 2.5 million single parent families. The CSA is responsible for making 861,700 of them pay. That's 34.4%.

Of the remainder, outisde of the CSa, 60% of non-resident parents pay nothing.

Of the 861,700 parents paying through the CSA, nearly half (47.3%) are only paying £5 per week regardless of how many children they have, and some are paying £0 because they are self-employed.

IT doesn't matter if the CSA says you are entitled to £1000 a month (which is rare anyway), if you don't actually get it in your hands. When maintenance was counted as income, thousands of women and children were suffering real hardship because on paper they had lots of money but the reality was very different.

What would be better is if maintenance was included as income but paid via tax credits, and the maintenance bill was deducted as a tax from the father's income. All you'd have to do is marry up the CSA with the HMRC databases.

She's a benefit cheat. Why would the be crucified for stating the facts?
Report her, op.

As I said it's a bit naive to assume that no benefit money is being used to pay for them. According to op she is claiming as single, when she is not, she has a partner with his own home who lives at hers most of the time. It's cheating plain and simple!

Can I have her benefits, but not the horses?
Me and DD recently moved back to the UK. Despite spending 20 years paying tax and NI contributions before we left England, I am eligible for bugger all.
I can have family allowance, but, since DD was born overseas and despite me sending her GB birth cert and passport to the office that deals with it, I was told on Friday that it will be January before I am likely to see any money.
I can't even afford to sponsor a goat, let alone buy one outright.

What a lovely and apt name you have Flogging.

The thing to remember instead of defending her, the ladies cheating means that someone who really needs it is missing out!

What is 'sheath doing'?

I've recently started loaning a horse; will i have to do his sheath? What does it mean? Please someone tell me.

both sides of this are as bonkers as the other.

On the one hand you have the "It ain't fair, she has horses and is cheating blah blah" right up to the "bring back the workhouse" end of the spectrum.

On the other (and just as inane) you have the "how very dare you ever suggest that people on benefits aren't angelic misbegotten souls doing their very best on nothing more than dust and good will" right up to the "you want us all euthanised" bonkerism.

In reality there are many shades of grey. Some people do cheat, you're naive to expect otherwise, some people do struggle, some don't. Some people work hard, some don't. Theres nothing wrong with reporting blatant obvious fraud, even if it isn't much compared to rich peoples tax avoidance. Surely most of us just do our best, and can all admit to occasional envy when we see others have more than us.

I imagine this will be ignored though, being calm and measured with no frothing.

What is "sheath doing?" oh, read on! Not for those of a delicate disposition.
Mr Hand

OP, are you a Daily Mail journalist?!

To be fair though she is keeping a farrier, the vets, the farmer that produces the hay and straw etc in business. His house in the UK so he is using services in this country. It's not like the money isn't going back into the economy is it.
What would happen if he stayed half the week because his house was in Scotland. Is that still fraud or is the fact that he lives far away mitigation - they obviously have reasons for living apart.

at Lucy's link.

FFS Lucy, I should have taken more notice of your disclaimer. who actually does that sort of thing?

Lucy - OMG Gross!! When I was a kid I had a mare so I never knew about this.

The horse I'm loaning does look like he has a dirty willy - it usually hangs out when I'm grooming him. Does horse willy smell as bad as a man's willy would if it was that dirty?

To be fair, I don't do that sort of thing. I just wallop a bit of vet lube on my boys' bits when they drop them, and hope that everything will sort of get loosened up and fall off. It does seem to. [grin}
It's the thought of poking a hose up there...

PMSl at Neuromantic. great post but so true. FWIW I don't think its a big deal to report someone so that people who actually know what they're doing can investigate. Apparently 6/10 claims in the UK are thought to be fraudulent (as per panorma last week, but how they got that data i have no idea) so let those in the know find out. I'm sure they'd rather investigate 5 cases and find one fraud than noone call in about any of them.

How is the woman the OP is talking about committing benefit fraud?

He doesn't live with the mother of his DC, he has a home of his own, which I imagine he pays the council tax on, and is registered as living there.

To all intents and purposes, she is not living with this man as if they were husband and wife, therefore why are so many posters saying this is benefit fraud.

From the information given so far, it is not.

nothing not sure- I know BIL is only home 2 days a week due to work but they don't claim as singletons, may be personal moralilty or some legal caveat

Littlemiss depends on how much time he stays over

6/10 claims? really? I know with DLA it's set at a presumed 0.5% on Government estimates so goodness where they got that figure!

Peachy my husband also works away 5/7 nights, sometimes more. I don't claim as I would be saying I am a single parent and I'm not, we are husband and wife not only in the sense of being partners, but of sharing a family and expenses, which happens to include two places to live (as he pays for somewhere cheap to work a job that gets more money than if he lived in our household).

I think it goes off shared bills, shared shopping, if he pays into the household and not strictly off a number of nights, although it would be very hard to claim you were living separately if he were there two nights a week regularly and buying food whilst he was there. It's not just personal morality, you would have to be very very separate to meet that definition and most people wouldn't want to live like that with their full partner of 25 years.

She is comitting benefit freud she is not single, has a partner who lives with them for most of the time. You don't have to be married just living with someone. They are keeping 2 horses which cost a lot of money. So yes in the governments eyes she is cheating. You hav to specify on forms you have a partner and according to the op she is claiming as single which she is not. Therefore taking off someone who reall needs it

No and I can;t imagine sister would at all, it's a response to a redundancy- BIL tried commuting but it was too far and he was falling asleep at the wheel.

I don't think they'd want to try though even if they could, to claim I man, marriage IS so much more than just a house share.

well, I have my doubts (since how can you know how many people do something when you don't knwo they're doing it? its like the stats about the number of illegal immigrants) but that was quoted on Panorama, and i'd expect they would have half decent info (although not adverse to a touch of the DMs themselves)

actually it doesn't depend on how much he stays over, thats an urban myth. Its an individual decision by an officer who looks at your circumstances. If you have been together for 25 years and have 2 children and are a committed couple, you are a couple, its highly unlikely a benefits officer would deem you to be any kind of single parent, even if he rarely stayed the night.

Common sense really, if you're not single, how can you be a single parent?