Tax credits, what do I do?

[Me916]

My partner of 26 years left in January, that's a whole other story which I won't go into here!
I am now thinking I need to start looking into child tax credit and working tax credit. I haven't done so before because not all of the bills are in my name yet, we are still sorting through the final financial details and I need to have a clear picture of what is coming in and what is going out before I take everything over.
My question is, can I apply for these tax credits even if his name is still on some of the bills? He has a mortgage elsewhere (although his name will still be on this mortgage too)
My other question is about my hours of work. Right now, I don't work 16 hours a week, but next term I will be increasing my hours and so will be. Term ends here in just over a week. Do I apply from then or the start of the new term? I'm thinking (judging on how long it's taken child benefit to go through) that by the time they have sorted it, I will be working the required hours.

You can still claim child tax credits if working less than 16 hours but to get working tax credits and help with childcare costs you would need to be working 16 hours.
It would be the best scenario to separate all your bills and not to have any of his mail coming to your home as HMRC may investigate you if you still have bills in joint names.

If you already separated you can claim from now. So call for a form this can take 2 weeks to arrive.
Then you could apply with your current circumstances then update again on the 24th April or whenever your term starts again.

If you've separated, claim asap.

HMRC compliance officers understand that bills, bank accounts etc take a little while to sort out after a split. They might get suspicious if it goes on for months though - undeclared partners are a huge focus at the moment. So, sort it out as soon as you can - transfer all the bills into your name, remove him from the electoral roll, close joint bank accounts, tell the council tax people that you're single, get him off your car insurance if applicable.

Claim now. I'd put in a covering letter explaining the situation (I was in a similar situation).

Get all the bills switched ASAP - that way if they ask you for proof of bills you'll have something you can send them. Make sure you say you've been separated since January too, you may get back pay but they only do a set amount, so claim as soon as possible.

The form will take two weeks to arrive, and in that time you can get your paperwork and other things together