First baby due in April - Maternity allowance? Working tax credit for DH? Housing benefit?

[lillamyy1]

Hello all
DH and I are having our first baby in April and are about to move to a new area, where we'll be renting. I don't know if I'll be able to find a job when we've moved, being 26 weeks pregnant, but DH will be working full time. I have no idea about what we should apply for (or how to go about applying!). Any help would be greatly appreciated

Tax credits and housing benefit are determined by household income, what is your husband's salary? Are you working until you move house?

Are you working at the moment? Or have you been working recently? If you will have been working for 26 weeks in the 66 weeks before the baby is due, you'll get MA.

Don't forget child benefit.

The others are all based on household income, I think. How much will DH be earning?

DH will be on something between £21k - £24k. I'm working full time until we move but I was off work with severe morning sickness from week 6 to week 14 of my pregnancy - will that affect MA?

As long as you are employed (off sick counts) for 26 weeks in those 66 weeks, you'll get MA. And as long as you earned more than ~£150 per week in 13 of them, you'll get the highest rate (which is the same as what SMP goes down to after the first six weeks - £140 a week or thereabouts). So if you were earning more than £150 ish per week for six months before you got pregnant, you're sorted. For MA, at least!

You can start mat leave from 29 weeks. You would be better off staying employed and getting SMP from your employer if possible - can you either commute or take 3 weeks holiday from 26-29 weeks? Means you get 6 weeks at 90% salary, plus accrued holiday pay for your maternity leave.

Your income will almost certainly be too high for housing benefit, and is definitely too high for working tax credits. You may get a small amount of child tax credits, the cut-off is £26k. If you return to work you may get some help towards childcare fees. Input your details into turn2us.org.uk and you can play around with a few different scenarios.

Thanks everyone
I can't stay on at my job because we're moving to the other side of the country! I'm on a zero hours contract there anyway, so don't think they'd give me SMP... they dropped me for a couple of months after I'd been off sick - basically I think to make sure they wouldn't have to pay me SMP!

Is be very surprised if you got housing benefit on that salary tbh

Actually, thinking about it, if you are employed in your qualifying week (week 24), you are entitled to SMP not MA, even if you leave employment the week after - but you can't claim the SMP until you are 29 weeks.

If that's right, the earnings that will matter are your average earnings in weeks 16-24 (ish).

When you say "dropped", do you mean given no hours? Or did they stop your employment and rehire you? I doubt the former would have an effect on entitlement to SMP (though it might bring down your average earnings), but the latter would (though it would be fairly blatant discrimination, and very much illegal).

No, they decided not to give me any hours throughout November and December... so my average earnings in weeks 16-24 were non-existent! I've only been back with them since week 25.

Have you got your MATB1? If you were employed in your qualifying week (as in, had a contract of employment, whether or not you did any actual work), you need to take your MATB1 to your employer. Assuming you are not entitled to SMP on the grounds that your average weekly earnings were too little (which is crap, for the record), they will give you back your MATB1, with a form SMP1 on which they will state that they won't pay you SMP. You send those two forms with an MA application form to Jobcentre Plus and they award you MA. Make sure your employer doesn't lose your MATB1!

I was on MA because I started a new job already pregnant, and (unusually for these types of things), the Jobcentre Plus MA helpline was really helpful.

That's really helpful, thank you