Advice for friend on separating but not married - rights?

[CreamTeaTotty]

Posting for a dear friend (not me - I'm well documented in other threads!).

So my friend has two children, 9 & 4, has lived with her partner for 10 years. They are not married. She is basically trapped. He own the house (mortgaged), which is in a terrible state. She can't afford to leave him.

What are her rights?

Can she claim Tax Credits and Housing Benefit?

She's not on here, so I will pas info on.

Ta everso.

Can't type well this eve soz

Is this the event she moves out?
Is she working?

She's only doing minimal stuff like selling on eBay, but I think she could open an etsy shop and qualify for 16 hours SE a week.

She wants to leave him ideally yes, but can't work out how.

IF SHE LEAVES: If she is only doing minimal hours, she would qualify for Income Support/Universal Credit as a lone parent with a child under five.
If she is actually working over 16 hours a week then she would qualify for Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, yes. She needs to have Child Benefit in her name to get Tax Credits for the children.
She should talk it all through with Citizens Advice before making any decisions.
If she was able to move in with friends/family while her tax credits got sorted she would still be classed as a single parent.

Ace!

And presumably Child Support?

Good advice from PP. if your friend may want to claim working tax credits or universal credit based on self employment then she is goingto need to start keeping records to hours worked and activities she has been doing as evidence that she is working. The government will want the evidence. For example this is a link regarding universal credit (also she can use this citizens advice website to look generally at benefits).

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/universal-credit/before-you-apply/self-employed/

Also she can look at gingerbread. They are a single parent organisation with lots of advice available on their website etc

Singasong makes a good point about evidence of the 16 hours worked. I'm an accountant and I know that HMRC are pretty hot on checking up on crafters/sellers who claim to be working 16h per week. If they investigate her, they will want to know precisely how the hours are spent and they will want hard evidence of materials purchased, sales, marketing, items posted etc. If she can't provide this she will need to repay the tax credits she's received, and once DWP find out, any benefits they will have paid on the basis of 16h too. I've done some voluntary work with low-income single mums who've been caught like this. HMRC's compliance department is being beefed up, managers have targets, and I think that self-employed hours are one of the things they're focused upon.