First time UC claim help!

[Tisfortired]

I resigned from a FT job whilst on maternity leave - my last maternity payment was end of September and my last day of being employed was 27th October. We made a UC claim and today was the day we find out what we will be entitled to, however it has come up as £0? Any calculators we have done have come out at being entitled to around £600/£700 a month.

I don’t understand, I haven’t been paid from work since end of October which was just some accrued annual leave and that was my last salary payment. My partner works FT earning £30,000.

Can anybody help? I’m panicking now. I kept aside some of my last salary payment for this months bills but after that nothing.

Hi op didn't want to read and run.

It seems as though UC have worked out that you would be entitled to nothing this month. However as you jave made a joint application with your OH, it seems as tho he is making more then enough to settle bills/look after the family home.
.

Couple of questions - do you own or rent? Do you have savings? Was the £600 element including childcare?

*estimate

Maybe children have been missed of the claim ( this often happens). But if you only have one child and have a mortgage maybe you just don't qualify ?
Can you tell me a bit more about your circumstances, i can do a rough calculation. How many kids, exact net pay of husband, whether you pay rent.
Presumably you can see your statement that sys zero - is your child / children on there?

Also did you wait until a few days after your last salary was paid before applying? is there any way your last wages could have been included in the calculation?

What is your assessment period? As universal credit is paid in arrears it could be that your last payment from your employer has been deducted. Any deductions are listed on your statement though so it should tell you what you're entitled to then show you what was deducted and why.

Feel free to post your statement op ( anonymized) if you want people to have a look to see if it correct.

The statement will show how much was taken into account as earnings for each of you. Also check that any rent has been included. It's probably using your last pay.

What day did you receive your last pay, and had you already applied for UC by then? Often when you finish mid month, you still get paid at month end.

If you resign from a job I think there's a period of time that UC won't pay you for because you're seen as having made yourself intentionally unemployed. It's about 6 weeks I think? Not sure if that might apply for you?

That wouldn't apply to op. She has a young baby so no work commitments.

Did the statement include both your wages or just his for that assessment period? The online calculators are really quite unreliable.

Not true. No work commitments until they are three.

Ah sorry OP, please ignore my comment, as others have corrected me that it wouldn't apply to you :)

OP if you’ve been working for a few years and you’re not entitled to UC as a family, you should be able to claim new style JSA in your own right. This doesn’t take your partners income or any savings you have into account as it’s based on your national insurance contributions.

Is this your first/only child and are you a stay at home Mum?

As already noted the thing most likely to make a difference is housing. If you pay rent then UC should include a Housing Cost Element towards that. If you own your home and pay a mortgage you don't get anything, or at least not as part of your main award and without a wait.

Based on your OH earning around £30k, one child any no other income I think UC would be <£20/month - maybe more if OH pays into a workplace pension. It wouldn't need much in unpaid leave etc to reduce that to nil in this month if the money was paid after you claimed UC.

As already noted, if you can give us a bit more about circumstances and/or an anonymised copy of the UC statement then we can fill in the gaps.

Have you also got savings OP? Are they above £6k?

If you started your UC claim after you resigned on 24th October then had your 4 week assessment period 24/10/23-23/11/23 - and got paid within that time it will have reduced your UC. The UC is paid around a week after the assessment period so your next UC in Dec will not include any wages from you so should be what you expect.

I am a benefits adviser top tip for claiming UC is claim the day after your final salary is paid. I am sorry op.

You could look into contribution based benefits New Style JSA/ ESA they are based on your NI contributions and are not means tested and can be backdated so worth applying.

www.gov.uk/guidance/new-style-employment-and-support-allowance

Maternity action is a helpful resource for new parents lots of good advice.
maternityaction.org.uk/

Op would need to be actively looking for a job though to claim this ? Maybe sounds like if she has recently resigned from her previous post she doesn't plan to.

Hi everyone thank you so much for the help just logging back on now.

To answer a few questions, we rent in the NW, this is £640 (soon to be £690 from December) We have two children. We only have a couple thousand in savings. OH is a shift worker, earning around £29k.

I resigned from my previous role (FT, had been there 10 years) as we have no family help with childcare, and couldn’t afford to have one child in FT nursery and one in FT wrap around school care. I am planning on looking for a PT role in the new year.

I really appreciate the help/advice, thank you for being so kind.

Looking at the statement, the assessment period is 25/10 - 24/11. My last day of employment was 27/10
and my final salary payment was on 31/10 - this was £1971 (I have been on mat leave since January so this was made up of accrued AL.) It looks like this has been taken into account in the assessment period which would make sense, it makes it look like we earn almost £4K a month.

Luckily I kept half of that back just incase so can cover bills this month. Would it be right then that the next assessment period 26/11 - 27/12 I assume? I wouldn’t have any earnings so we would be entitled to some money?

OK. If your October pay was recived after you claimed and fell in AP#1 then I think 0 is right.

Income from you and DP after Work Allowance and Taper is more than Max UC - the amount of Money the law says you need to live on.

Next month your Max UC should be as follows:

1. Standard Allowance £578.82
2. Child Element £539.16
3. Housing Costs £640*

Total £1757.97.

Partner's earnings after Work Allowance and Taper c£905
UC payable c£850

*If you rent privately then HC may be less due to Local Housing Allowance. If it's Social Housing and you've got 'too many' bedrooms then that may also get you a reduction.

@Bromptotoo this is so helpful thank you. We do rent privately and have ‘too many’ bedrooms I think but that’s fine - being on UC is very much hopefully a stop gap for us. I was panicking that we just wouldn’t be entitled to anything! If it is just this month that’s fine as we have enough for now but this time next month will be a different story!

You can get a bit screwed over for the first month - I did when my now husband moved in. They took his whole months damaged into account even though he was only living here for 2 days of the qualifying period.

it’ll sort itself out next month.