New Housing Benefit child maintenance rule?

[glitteryb6]

Did the right thing (or so i thought!) and stopped claiming housing/council tax benefit a few months ago when my then boyfriend started staying over more than the "allowed" 3 nights a week, unfortunately it didnt work out, split last night, quite amicably thankfully, and i now will have to reapply.

I notice that from the 27th October ALL child maintenance is disregarded whereas before it was only £15.
My sons father currently pays £80 a week so this new rule would make quite a difference to my finances.

My question is does anyone know if i need to wait till after 27th October to make the claim for benefit for this rule change to take effect or will it kick in automatically?

thanks

oh thats worth knowing...
do you know how much savings are disregarded.. as my mum puts some into a saving account in my name so i can move in a few years time..

i would wait till the date given

Sorry should have explained myself better
we only used to get partial HB/CTB, we dont get income support as ds is disabled and we get carers allowance too so along with £80 from ex we were better off not claiming IS
i reckon this change should mean we get more HB, we were previously paying half the rent but might be better of with this change?

so you paid half the rent beacuse of income from ex....
but now they wont take that into account so you may get full rent??

is your maintenance done through csa?

partial HB is worked out by how much money you have over the "applicable amount" which includes a family premium, carers premium etc.
you then pay so much towards your rent for every pound you have over this amount, so my thinking is if they are disregarding the child benefit then i wont have as much over the applicable amount so should therefore pay less towards the rent, if that makes sense?

maintenance is not through CSA, ex just pays it to my bank account and i provide a letter from him saying that he is paying me the £80 for child maintenance.