do i stay in my damp cold expensive house or lie through my teeth so my kids can have a nice home??

[bellarose2011]

just looking for some advice really, i am a single mother to 2 DD, 10 months and 2yrs.
we currently live in a 3 bed semi detatched house, it has an old back boiler which makes the gas bills huge yet we are still always freezing. the garden is a vertical hill (literally!) there is mold growing on the kids bedroom wall. the double glazing doesn't work and there is puddles of water on all the windowsills every morning. i hate it!!
in the area i live there is a shortage of social housing and my name is on all council/housing association lists. my only hope is a house from an estate agents. but of course they won't accept DSS.
now i get my housing benefit paid to me so there is no reason i need to disclose this other than it being dishonest. but i know i would be a great tenant, i have never not paid my rent, i'm a clean freak and have no pets.
i have found a perfect house that i can afford and have the application form in front of me, i know i won't get it if i tell the truth. i have a friend who runs her own business and would say i worked for her. i just don't know what to do??
the eatate agents use MARAS, will my bank tell them where my funds come from?

Chandon, tbh - think we are going to hear the father is a waste of space, she had two children with him but didnt really know him at all even after 6 yrs. So we have to fund this terrible mistake she made, we also need to fund her choice to stay at home, her choice to want an easy house to live in despite living in a 3 bed house already.

And of course he wont pay anything - there is no need - we are doing it all!

I'd grass you because it's wrong to do that to someone, even if it as a landlord.

Bitter, hey, label away. I've seen the worst that can ever happen to a person, very little effects me now.

I am really insulted to be honest. I have a stressful job but it funds the house, the holidays and the school fees. Do I wish sometimes I could stay and home smug in the knowledge that someone else was funding my choices. Yes I do but not in a million years could it provide everything that I want so I work.

The OP doesnt want to work. Thats fine but please dont trash mothers that do (and fathers). We are funding your choice. Be thankful for that.

After thinking about this, Iv'e come to the conclusion that the OP couldn't possibly be real and she is probably a paid tory and is on the scare monger stories winding us all up at her entitled and rude ways so we don't vote labour.

I am quite sure this goes on a lot to.

I think you should be honest as well. It's just too much of a risk if you get caught. It won't blight your future as a tenant forever (you could always just say you were staying at your mum's for the 'gap' caused by not using that LL as a reference) but you could find yourself kicked out and especially in a small rural area with curtain-twitchers who presumably know the landlord as he used to live in the house ... I wouldn't do it.

If you go onto the Land Registry online site you can look up the details of who owns the property including their address for paying something like £2. I would do this, and then write him a letter saying that you are a good tenant, that you have a guarantor and a reference from your current landlord and crucially offer him two or three months' rent in advance. Borrow it off whoever you need to.

I should have said 500 sq foot. Not 500 sq metres. 500 sq foot is two very large rooms. More than enough for somebody who needs to keep their children warm, safe, fed, and can't pay to do so themselves. As I said it is entirely adequate.

What makes you think you should have more than that OP if you chose not to contribute an iota?

I would like to understand your point of view but I simply cannot. I worked from the age of 20 very very hard until I was 34 and had my first baby. I went back to work the minute my youngest was 5 and settled into reception.

When we had children it was a choice made because we had worked to have a home, some savings and the things we wanted to provide for them. They had a lot when they arrived and still do but only becuase their father and I worked and sacrificed many selfish things to provide it.

The OP has already said that she has spent most of her adult life working and there's nothing in her posts that have suggested that she won't work and pay taxes again. Give her a break. You are hardly 'achiever of the year' if you didn't work until your youngest was in school. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you seem to be using it as a stick to beat her with when you yourself were economically inactive for a number of years.

Well I have never claimed a benefit Wallison and that is rather more than the OP has achieved. I stayed at home and was economically inactive because DH and I could provide for our family without state intervention. If that had not been the case I would have had to go to work because I was not brought up to expect others to bankroll me.

I went back to work when the kids were 6 months. However I dont want to get into a competition about who went back early and who contributed what apart from to say that maybe we should be thinking about what people contribute. On a lot of posts we hear people say 'I have paid my taxes'. what exactly does that mean, for 1 year, 20 years, and how much? We will never really know.

It wasnt there 30 years ago but there has been a sharp change in some people's view. Make bad choices, fine someone will pick up the pieces, smoke and drink your benefits, fine, we wont let your children go without and people are given chance after chance.

Someone correct me if I am wrong but if you have children spaced correctly apart and of different sexes you are also 'entilted' to a 3 bed + house depending on how many children you have. Is that true? How does that work if you fund your own lifestyle choices and buy your own house? Oh - sorry I have forgotten it doesnt make any difference and you are on your own (as you should be!)

Except your dh marriedinwhite? What if he had walked out? OP's situation isn't that rare and tbh not every single mother is the feckless girl the government would have us believe. Shit happens and it can happen to anyone. Your tone on this thread is shameful and tbh is trypical 'send them to the poorhouse' Tory shite. Big Society folks.

Like I said, give her a break. Her youngest is only 10 months old and by the sounds of it wasn't in a particularly happy household when the parents were together. I personally do not mind one jot 'bankrolling' someone to stay with their very young child in the aftermath of a nasty break-up. It's hardly as though she's sat around on benefits all her life and she probably won't do it forever on into the future either.

Odd that you think that never claiming a benefit is an 'achievement' - aim high, eh?

"how could you possibly get up every day and leave a baby with strangers? its not an option to me."

yes it is. you are just refusing to do it.

i have come back because quite honestly i cant believe after all the GOOD advice you have been given here you are still insisting that you have a right to do what you are intending.

you have choice that do not involve lying to anyone and wont make your dcs vulnerable.

1. AND I RECOMMEND YOU DO THIS REGARDLESS OF WHAT ELSE YOU DO
   go to CAB and get advice on how to get your LL to fix the property

2. become self employed and work from home allowing you to care for your dcs yourself

3. start job searching for a job that will enable you to pay for this other house without lying about HB

4)move back in with your mum til you have found a job (would your mum look after your dcs?)

5. start visting nurseries and local CMers. ask around for recommendations. meet them and get a feel for what sort of service they offer and who 'feel's right for yor family

bella you need to wake up. gone are the days when choosing to be at home whilst on benefits is an option. it isn't. the benefit system is being overhauled and in as little as 6 months you could be forced to work for FREE in order to receive your benefits. what are you going to do with your dcs then? get ahead of the game. dont bury your head in the sand and avoid putting and steps in place to enable you to work. you will be forced to do it if you dont do it voluntarily and you will not get to choose the hours, the days, the pay, the location. you need to accept that this will happen. dont let it happen. get yourself into the game now, get looking for work, get childcare lined up. your baby is 10 months old, how long did you expect to stay at home for without independant income? the benefits you are getting now will go down and down, beleive me. you cannot afford to do nothing. make life easier for yourself and be pro-active before you are forced into a situation where you have no choice over anything. in your shoes (and i said earlier, i pretty much am in your shoes and thsi is what i have done) i would be exhausting all avenues to try and get myself earning my own money and be as independent from benefits as possible.

And when it happens - when you make foolish choices with men does the 'government' pick up the pieces every time. I agree an adequate flat until they get back on their feet but not to fund a lifestyle choice and to sneer at others who are funding that choice by working. What makes her so different?

Who on earth does she think is funding these choices

Honestly Dude - I think you are wasting your time. This government is looking at all situations over the coming months. Living in a 3 bed house being funded by the tax payer, refusing to work, looking down at people who do work. Hopefully that will all stop and she will need to put something back to a society she is now planning to defraud due to a very strange sense of entitlement

and i have left both my dcs in a mix of nurseries and CMers. they are both fine. really they are. they both loved the people who cared for them, they experienced things they wouldn't get at home and they are all the better for it. i cried when i had to take my youngest ds out of his last creche as he loved it so much and all the staff were like family members to him. it's also a great introduction to school life and having to mix with their peers and take instruction from other adults.

And if my DH had walked out I would have been left with the £350k I put into the house in 1991 as a result of my career and that would have been entirely non negotiable due to the signed and sealed pre-nup.

OP - have you taken note of how this could affect the landlord? Are you factoring this into your decision?

?How could you possibly get up every day and leave a baby with strangers? its not an option to me.?

? I am only stating that i couldn't leave MY baby.?

?You all really need to get out more into the real world.?

In MY world, I have had to work, put my children in child care, there is certainly no funds made available to me so that I can opt out of work and paying my own home. Not working is not an option!

This is really shocking. Bellarose, I think people with two children should be more mature and have more responsibility and awareness of the world around them.

Lots of benefit bashing on this thread, so let me get this straight, if you are on benefits you are only allowed 2 rooms, and baisc furniture like beds and chairs. So that will be no flat screen telly then? And am i right in thinking that you are only allowed to be a SAHM to a baby if you were lucky enough to have benefitted from the property bubble, or are fortunate to be in a job that paid enough to allow you to save up or have a partner to support you. OP i would rather people were encouraged/had financial support to be a SAHP if this is what they choose, especially for very young children and babies. And for the most part i think this is the case until your children are 5, although the financial support is the bare minimum. As for people telling you to get a job in a nursery, or anywhere for that matter, i think thats fucking out of order considering that your child is only 10 months old. Had you a 14 year old, id be the first to tell you to get off yer arse, but atm no, i think you are entitled to stay at home.

She is entitled to stay at home but not in a three bed semi. She is entitled to stay at home and be given that which is adequate not what many many people aspire to as the result of very hard work.

Haven't read whole thread, am guessing it's descended into benefit bashing though

I have no bones with the morality of it, other than do what's best for your children - the state won't lose in any way!

BUT I have read on here that the reason landlords won't accept HB is to do with insurance, so look into that.

Good luck

Tell you what, marriedinwhite, why don't you swap lives with her if you think she's getting such an easy ride. You'd have to ditch your husband and live in a damp cold house with your kids, but she's on easy street, isn't she? As opposed to someone who owns a house worth over quarter of a million pounds.

titty I think it's fucking out of order what she said to expat after expat explained why she had to go through so much shit to claim anything when her dd was dying.

And I was trying to help the op look at all my posts I started off defending her, she will be utterly fucked when UC is rolled out everywhere, it's more then just a pilot scheme and the OP will end up starving if she's paying the 14% extra on her HB (which will be happening very soon) and all that heat.

MIW, personally I couldn't give a flying fuck how big a house she had, as long as the rent was within the prescribed amount for her needs (i.e if she is allowed £70 a week for rent, then if she gets a 10 bedroom for that price or pays the extra then good for her if thats what worked best for her.)