Confused as to how much housing benefit i would receive?

[allgonebellyup]

im going to be selling my house soon..i work 30hrs a week but earn less than 15k. I receive £120 tax credits a week after paying for childcare and i do receive child maintenance from my dd's father.
I went on to the Entitled To site where it told me that, cos my LHA is £218 a week for a 3bed house, i am entitled to £170 HB a week.

This sounds like a lot seeing as my sister only works 20hrs, earns less, and only receives around £50 HB a month???????

Help!!

If selling your house means you end up with more than £16k cash then that will affect your entitlement to HB. Housing Benefit Rules

i have to pay back a 25k loan from the proceeds of the house, and i also have to pay back my mum who lent us 20k for the original deposit on the house. So will be left with nothing!!

Paying off loans in full rather than the original payment method will be seen as deprevation of capital and you will still be treated as having the money and unable to claim benefits for some time - on £45 thats likely to be at least 2 years.

Errrmm- just to put my two- pennorth in paying back a loan is unlikely to be considered deprevation. The Local Authority has to decide if you have deprived yourself of capital in order to claim benefit. They will ask you about it but paying back a loan is unlikely to be considered this. I would be careful about the loan you have to pay your Mum though- do you have any evidence of what you have paid her back so far or what arrangements you had? They may not believe the loan existed in the first place so that bit may be tricky.

allgonebellyup
Have you included your childcare costs on entitled to? Cos they are taken away from your total income before the calc is done for benefit. So, for hb purposes, your income is a lot less than it at first appears.