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

thats not relevant when it comes to parenting. You don't need to technically live together to not be a single parent.

And I am intimately knowledgeable of benefit officers decision making, I can assure you.

I did not deliberately ignore your post.

What makes you think I know nothing about social housing?

Since you are clearly far more knowledgeable than me on the subject of social housing, perhaps you can explain why so many people actually bought their council houses, if they are, as you say, social housing is ugly 99% of the time.

Would you also clarify how many new builds are allocated to social housing and whether they are in fact, structurally different to the private houses for sale on the same development?

Dad could visit his kids regularly, help out, spend time with them. It still doesn't make them a couple.

Many many years ago I came under investigation suspected to be claiming as a single parent (I wasn't by the way).

My partner at the time (who lived in their own rented property, NEVER stayed over) I had just started a relationship with, not a serious long term one etc. and while we went on 'dates' we had completely seperate home lifes.

They did eventually decide that I was a single parent but they asked questions such as: does X cook any meals in the home, does X stay at the home without you there etc.

It is definately more complicated than how many nights a week someone stays over, after all my brother has been known to stay at my home a couple of nights a week, does that mean we are a couple now?

This was 6-7 years ago by the way, before anyone jumps on me saying i'm not a single parent, they would be correct I am not anymore.

FWIW I have no clue how someone on benefits could have a horse, it really isn't that much to live on! I strongly suspect that the horses are being paid for by someone else, most likely the father of the children.

SacreLao, when XP and I first split he used to come to my house and care for the children while I was at work, so he was there while I was out (he had a key) and he used to prepare meals (for the children). We occasionally ate as a family or went out for the day together with the kids too. Does that mean if I'd been investigated they would still have considered us a couple? (he didn't contribute financially, he had no income and anyway, I felt the money he saved in childcare offset the need for maintenance iyswim).

The problem is you are unlikely to know the full details of someones circustances. Added to that even lawyers say the benefit system in very
complex. suppose the complexity puts some people off cliaming and saves the system money.)

There are an awful lot of unknowns in relation to this situation.

However, if the information about the living arrangements is accurate then it does not sound as though she is committing benefit fraud as she is not living as part of a couple.

I think that the system really should take into consideration the amount of maintenance/contribution paid by a partner or ex-partner when deciding benefits entitlement as there are no doubt people claiming who are receiving a high level of income from elsewhere. However, a shortcoming in the system does not equal benefit fraud by someone who makes use of that shortcoming.

But of course no-one here knows the ins and outs of this woman's life. Perhaps her partner is a controlling arsehole who will only pay for his children's horses and nothing else. Or perhaps he pays very sporadically. Perhaps she lets him stay over to keep him happy and make sure he contributes something. Perhaps they aren't really in a relationship anymore and he sleeps in the spare room. Perhaps the horses are paid for by his parents or her parents. Perhaps they don't have livery bills because she helps out in the stables. Perhaps the horses are owned by the father and he lets the daughters have use of them.

It is a bit difficult to see someone who appears to have the trappings of an affluent lifestyle while claiming benefits, when there are so many people struggling to get what they are entitled to, but there really is no way of knowing exactly what is going on. Access to horses does not necessarily mean that someone has access to all the other high-cost lifestyle trappings that sometimes go hand in hand with the "horsy" lifestyle.

I think that the system really should take into consideration the amount of maintenance/contribution paid by a partner or ex-partner when deciding benefits entitlement as there are no doubt people claiming who are receiving a high level of income from elsewhere.

kungfupanda, I think it's only in recent years that maintenance payments have been disregarded. I'm not sure why it was changed. I thought one of the reasons for the CSA was to make absent fathers financially responsible for the children and so reducing the benefits paid.

Thisisextremely I have no idea, they didn't tell me what the criteria was I just know from the questions they asked me it is a lot more than just how many nights someone sleeps over.

I suspect they may have done however as I was told I was on shakey ground by staying over at my partner's house.

Bear in mind this was someone I had known for a month and being a responsible parent I was keeping my children out of the relationship until it was actually going somewhere and so they NEVER came to my house, contributed etc. and yet it still went to investigation.

Totem Is maintenance not counted then?

I am sure I had a deduction from my benefits due to the maintenance I recieved, although this was years ago so may have changed.

Does seem wrong, a friend of mine is paid hundreds of pounds every week by her children's father (his choice) and I would be shocked if she recieved full benefits on top of this.

Re maintenance, I'll post again (for the benefit of those who don't want to read every single post on this very long thread).

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 covers only 34.4% (861,700) of them.

Of the remainder, outside 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.

Totempole - I am assuming one of the reasons is probably to try to avoid situations where a non-working parent is effectively held hostage by a working parent who is his/her sole source of income. Not sure what the answer to it is really.

x-posted

That makes perfect sense Sunshine thank you for explaining.

If you suspect fraud, OP, report it. Her circumstances will be investigated and if she's not guilty of it then she has nothing to fear. The benefits system isn't set up for a free ride, it's for people who genuinely need the money to live on. I really dislike people who work around the system fradulently.

Yes, that does make sense sunshine. Thanks from me as well.

You're welcome.

Maybe someone in the family is paying for the horses? Have you actually seen her bank statements or are you just being a tosser?

Also 'the taxpayers' (of whom I have been one) pay for much worse things than horses, so no it isn't 'their' business.

Also the only benefit that should be affected by maintenance is child tax credit- income support and housing benefit etc are paid to the mother TO SUPPORT HERSELF while she is working looking after children. Maintenance is entirely for the children and many fathers kick up a huge fuss if they suspect mothers are spending it on themselves. As wages go, income support+ housing benefit for a job which entails responsibility for other human beings is very low paid already. Yes, allowing maintenance to go unincluded means some kids are better off than others- but that's also the case in dual-parent families and I don't see 'the taxpayer' going off on one about that, if anything you all love it.

Oh and I am on benefits at the moment, having paid tax most of my adult life, and I can't afford horses or a Wii or a huge telly or a car or any of the other things people on benefits get people wanking off about, and I'm still not resentful of someone else's child having horses, so get the fuck over yourselves.

Yabu. You don't know who pays for the horses
You mention she spends a lot of time there so I assume they are not on livery.

Not everyone vaccinates or insures their horses
Maybe they live on hay/grass

Housing benefit for a house big enough to house an adult plus 3 children is surely partly to cover the cost of housing the children?
And what about free school meals, if plenty of maintenance is provided by a high earning father?

I don't think anyone resents the horses per se. It is that the horses seem to represent a very high affordable expenditure by one or other of the parents, while the state pays for school dinners and housing costs.