What am i entitled to on maternity leave?

[messybedhead]

Hello I was wondering if anybody could help me work out for my sister what help they would be entitled to (if anything) if her and her husband have a baby.

I've been on entitled to but I don't know how to do maternity pay and stuff.

I was hoping someone on mumsnet would be more knowledgeable than me.

She currently earns 28,200 and her husband earns 26.,000. Before anyone starts, yes these are good wages and they shouldn't be after benefits but they do live in London with a mortgage on a 2 bed place.

I told her that if they only have her husbands wage then they might be entitled to tax credits, but we don't know how to work it all out.

Their mortgage is about 850 and council tax between 100-150.

If anyone can help us we'd be extremely grateful.

They may be entitled to a tiny amount of tax credits, however the cut-off is now £25k i think so wouldn't be much, if anything! If they go on entitledto.co.uk they should be able to work it out. Minimum she will get on maternity is 6 weeks of 90% salary, then SMP which is about £126 a week, however her employer may offer more. They will get child benefit of about £20 a week. They may be able to take a payment holiday on the mortgage, or switch to interest only for a few months depending on their mortgage terms. Best bet really though is to start saving madly before they start trying to conceive!

I agree with the above that they should start saving in earnest and try to reduce their outgoings e.g. move out of an expensive housing area and commute instead. With a household income above £25k they are going to get very little help financially beyond a small amount of CTC (about £10/week) and Child Benefit (£20/week) . If you're looking at benefits checkers, run the figures as if he is the sole wage-earner, she gets SMP and you'll see the top line.

Maternity arrangements vary from company to company so she needs to ask whoever is responsible for HR what the picture is.

My DH earns about £23k. I probably won't earn anything this tax year, or at least very little, so we will be just below/around £26k in total. Our mortgage was a bit lower but I had to start very mat leave early so our incomes are probably comparable.

We have calculated what people say above - only get min tax credits, which work out at just over £10/week (and then won't get anything from 2012). Plus CB of £20/week. On top of SMP.

We have managed to reduce bills a little, and reduce our mortgage (good timing for once as we have just come off a fixed rate). Making use of all the vouchers/free stuff available, and not getting carried away with buying lots of unnecessary stuff it is totally do-able. Make sure your sister checks her employment contract to see what mat pay she can get and also exactly what it says about holidays as she will still accrue holiday on mat leave. And save now!!

On his salary alone, they would only qualify for £40 a month tax credits but there joint salary in the last year may mean they dont qualify. They will get £80 a month CB as everybody currently gets that.

If they cant survive on his salary alone during maternity then they need to save now and put enough aside to cover the amount of time she wishes to take off. With their joint salary they wont get any assistance with childcare but their employers may do the voucher scheme to save on tax.