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

The living elsewhere father may well be paying for the horses upkeep, in fact would need to be.

However, if he is the father of all 3 dc, and is in a relationship with the woman, presumably he is also responsible for the financial upkeep of his 3 dc, and the state should not be picking up the bill for that if he has enough money to be paying for horses!

I don't see why everyone should be obliged to live in a traditional nuclear family set up, but whatever living arrangements they have, he should be making coinsiderable contibutions to the living costs of his children before the state has to pay for their lunches.

Personally, I don't know that I could / would shop a person who was a friend, but if they were a friend I might say 'look, your dc talk very regularly about their dad staying, and given that there is a crack down on benefit claims you might want to be very sure that their father shouldn't be paying for the children's maintenance', or something less inflammatory!

But if he is their father, he should be paying for the children rather then her claiming. And if he then pays for horses, well, lucky children.

My sister's mate knows a person whose sister was given a free goat by the social.
Now they are selling the milk and not declaring the profits or paying taxes

I am not sure but I think the goat is off that motorbility thing.

Makes you sick dont it?

jajas is he all lovely and horsey smelling?

Does he make that snuffly noise?

Can you lean on him?

' but it's a hell of a lot better than what would happen to them if there were no state benefits.
Perhaps slaveto, although the focussing on forms / being mistrusted every step of the way (I have 2 disabled boys) certainly played a part in me having what was in effect a nervous breakdown recently, it's hard enough having the boy's needs without having to focus on them continually on forms and beg for help; looks like it will all start again as LEA wants ds3 to try mainstream school and that ain't happening! (not because he's OK with it but they just have no service to offer).

I've certainly on occasion sat on the stairs with a form thinking it would be easier to just jump except then poor Dh might be landed with 3 forms if I got the angles wrong and I could not do that to him; I work in the caring / disability field and am far from alone with that notion. there's nobody to help either- ds1 hospitalised ds3 with a head injury (luckily was OK): not first time yet social services not even bothered when i contacted them.

yes check and check regularly; but try to find a less intimidating way! ATOS are pretty evil in the way they deal with people, forced an old soldier friend of mine to get in and out of bed repeatedly despite him crying out in pain each time. What the fuck is that about? And don;t even get me started on the new criteria that someone must ahve a PD to get help after 16 and the fact my severely impaired but clinically atyipical ds3 will be left without any input, financial or otherwise, when he hits that birthday

Indie There is nothing illegal about the father of the DC paying the mother on benefits as much as he chooses to and the mother is still eligible to claim all the benefits she would have claimed, had she not been receiving maintenance.

It's great isn't it!!

Oh OP............................

I would agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

OhDo dh has our goat wired for ligt and sound so we can parade him around the village causing environmental stress to all the naice people who have earned their quiet and don't get so much as a chicken for free.

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=christmas+lights+goat&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=891&tbm=isch&tbnid=Dp4Nl4ov0spa7M:&imgrefurl=wiki.noljads.com/Frank&docid=cF7aMKAYBnoNDM&imgurl=wiki.noljads.com/images/f/fa/Goat-lights.gif&w=110&h=101&ei=58W3TtDLA4mu8gOs0a2iBA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=349&sig=116823520595991504397&page=1&tbnh=80&tbnw=88&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:19,s:0&tx=63&ty=57" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here is our prototype, we are thinking a 90 decibel rendition of slap my bitch up to distract the householers, no?

OMG benefit people do not exist according to prescribed way of living that is RIGHT for a benefits claimant.

I want them all to start taking their hat off to me in the street tbh. I don't feel thanked enough for subsidising this wondrous lifestyle what they have.

Even so bluddy one would have to feed a got surely. I think that goat has a duty to contribute. Nothing in, nothing out!

I think its the tip of the iceberg. Ferel, feckless goats all over the land. Its a little known fact that 60% of the summer rioters were goats under the age of 24 who have never worked

You can take your hat off yto my goat.

Fecking cheek of it!

Or maybe my goat will take his hat off

<a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=christmas+goat+hat&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=891&tbm=isch&tbnid=oquHCicYP5Q8LM:&imgrefurl=www.thevirtualzone.co.uk/xmas.html&docid=ohV2DRIgiHlPQM&imgurl=www.thevirtualzone.co.uk/images/goat.png&w=449&h=338&ei=hca3TszQJtSs8QPDyL2NBQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=447&sig=116823520595991504397&page=1&tbnh=164&tbnw=215&start=0&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:16,s:0&tx=125&ty=102" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this one do you?

Although he's not chuffed and is writing a complaint as I type <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=christmas+goat+hat&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=891&tbm=isch&tbnid=vUt_fE-mo-EvcM:&imgrefurl=smartgoat.com/blog/&docid=zTW2hg_1gMf1gM&imgurl=www.smartgoat.com/images/santagoat.jpg&w=260&h=344&ei=hca3TszQJtSs8QPDyL2NBQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=277&sig=116823520595991504397&page=3&tbnh=175&tbnw=131&start=47&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:47&tx=88&ty=103" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here

It is others business when it's most likely the taxpayers are subsidising this. She is claiming to be single and receiving benefits as such when she has a partner who is part living with her. Cats and dogs and flat screen tv cost much less than 2 horses. She is cheating the system.

(am rather takne by those goat hats on the site; if only I could knit LMFAO)

My niece has a horse, she pays for it herself she earns a good salary but finds it tough moneywise. I grew up with horses and it is very expensive how ever cheaply you try to do it.

I'm a single working mother and i am finding the small dog i own an expense i could do without but since i had the dog before my split with ex theres not alot i can do.

As for this living apart but being a couple thing, i find that very confusing and although i'm sure you can have someone to stay over 2/3 nights a week the woman surely must benefit from her partners income in some ways?

Piglet

yes, assuming she pays for horses (couldn't Dad?)

doesn't mean everyone else on benefits is the same though

Am glad Dh graduates this year or he would be workless. Well no, doing exactly same job he does now but after April that isn't counted enough as 18 hours won't count. Because he could manage to help me with boys and work part time and study full time, natch.

How come people define benefit claimants as mothers who smoke and swear at their children?

Some of us have no other option but to go on benefits and get help with paying our rent and council tax.

Ok, I know this is extremely tangential - but £645 every six weeks for shoeing? How do you get to be a blacksmith?

Thanks Tilly for the costs of horse owning (handy to print out next time DD whines "But why can't we have a pony..."
I am reckoning the numbers here suggest a min. spend per year of 2.5k/horse (assuming free livery & not top notch care rest of the time).

Someone compared the costs to owning a car, but many folk I know claim to spend less money than that on their car per annum, certainly we spend less than that on our car each year (not counting depreciation), and our car is a lemon always needing repairs!

I think the problem is that the benefit system seems to encourage ownership of women. If a woman meets a man and wishes to have a relationship with a man, under the current system the woman is considered the property of the man and the man has no choice but to financially support the woman and any children she may have. In many cases the man is unable to support the woman and the loss of her benefits would put them in financial hardship so they exploit the system by living apart and continuing to claim benefits, sometimes they even go onto have children together. I can't blame people for doing this, the system is a sham. I was raised in a similar set-up and I was ashamed as I knew that my mother was committing benefit fraud but I understood her reasons.

If the system stopped assuming that women are the property of men and modernised the system there would be less abuse of the system. I would be in favour of a system that allowed the woman to retain her single parent benefits when she cohabits with a partner but to have a deduction made to account for the contribution that her partner will make towards the household bills.

MenopausalHaze-I think claiming you're single when you're not to the government to get benefits is fraud. I think the only people that would disagree are scummers that do the same or similar (fiddling the system as it were).
jugofwildflowers has posted the 'facts' of the lady in question.

Spugglers, I don't know how to reconcile what you wrote with Xenia's posts on MN about how her ex-husband fleeced her, if for nothing else I think she kept the kids so he wouldn't get even more dosh off her. Not sure it's woman-man thing, just that men tend to be the higher earning partners.

LittleMisssarcastic - oh, really? Well that is madness. But that suggests that there is more to this than sheer benefit fraud, as if they are doing the separate homes simply as a way for her to get single parent / unemployed benefits it would be a bloody expensive way to go about it - his rent or mortgage, his bills, council tax etc.

So children get free school meals even if a non-resident parent pays £100s and £100s a month in voluntary upkeep for them? Wow.

Yes Indie.

For example...if the XP pays £1000 a week in maintenance, the mother of his children will still be eligible to claim full housing benefit, full council tax benefit, income support/JSA, child tax credit, child benefit, free school meals, free dental care, free prescriptions, free eye care, milk tokens (if her DC are under the age of 5) and anything else that single parents with no maintenance can currently claim.
This is not benefit fraud but is perfectly legal!