How to understand entitlements

[Flittingaboutagain]

How does it all work? I would have savings that I'd put into a mortgage, but wouldn't actually have enough to house myself and the two little ones on a mortgage. I can't work out what I'd be entitled to on the turn to us website. It's all hypothetical - I don't know how much maintenance I'd get, whether I'd have to increase my hours and therefore pay childcare for my baby and toddler etc...

Anyone lay out what I need to be inputting please?

Child maintenance is not included in income when applying for benefits.

It also depends on how much savings you have regarding receiving UC.

You need to think about what you will potentially have in regard to salary and savings and go from there.

It is difficult when it is at the hypothetical stage to guess.

Thank you. So ideally I'd put all but a tiny amount of my savings into a new mortgage. But I'm struggling to see if I'd even get a mortgage. Can you get a mortgage on benefits? I think I'd have enough a month to pay 2/3 of a mortgage. So can benefits be used to top up?

On Universal credit ( which is the benefit you'd need to claim) there is no specific help with mortgage payments as there is with rent. However if you have kids you do have a higher work allowance, meaning a higher amount of your earnings is disregarded before earnings reduce your whole Universal credit award so people on UC who have a mortgage rather than pay rent do benefit a little in that respect. Some mortgage companies will take child maintenance payments and benefits into account but neither can be 100% relied on so it would depend on the lender.

Speak to a mortgage advisor to see what you could possibly borrow. Some do take maintenance into account but it needs to have been paid regularly for a number of months.
With regards to savings, if you intend to use it for a house deposit, you can get a temporary exemption for UC. I was paid a sizeable lump sum payment as part of my divorce but because I needed that for a deposit, it was excluded from my total savings for UC for 6 months. I had to go into our local job center and show them the divorce settlement. Was pretty straight forward.

Thank you for the information.

It's my understanding you can't get a portion of benefits relating to housing when you have a mortgage - you are effectively using the tax payer to buy you a house - I looked in to this a lot during covid when both husband and I were facing redundancy.

You won't get a mortgage if you can only cover 2/3 of it without the help of benefits

You'd be better off renting

But if op has to rent and she has savings over 16k she would get no Universal credit at all until her savings were below 16k, so if there is any way she can get on the property ladder, it may benefit her to do so. As stated previously, whilst UC claimants with a mortgage don't specifically get an element of Uc to help with mortgage payments, they do get a higher work allowance ( if they have kids). so they do get a bit more Uc that way.