Am I entitled to any help?!

[Ineedcoffee77]

Ashamed to be asking. Currently on MA. Receiving £145 a week MA and £298 a month UC (lose £115 a month to repayments) plus £82 child benefits and £7 a week from ExP

Baby isn’t here yet.

Unable to claim free school meals, or healthy start vouchers.

Now I’m on MA we are losing nearly £500 a month. DP lost his job 3 weeks ago.

We would appreciate any help/advice.

Do you pay rent? Your Uc will go up when your second child arrives. If the repayments ( I assume an advance) are difficult you could maybe ask for repayments to be deferred for a while ?

Part of the problem is that MA is deducted pound for pound from UC rather than on the taper.

Yes we pay rent. The repayments are a mixture of tax credits and advances. (We owe around £7000 altogether) I didn’t think it was possible to ask them to lower the repayments so haven’t bothered to ask, but it may be worth asking.

definitely worth asking for the tax credits, if you ring debt management they can reduce them.

Council tax relief

In regards to council tax if we paid the full year up front can we request for a refund if we put in an application for council tax support?

Also if you now qualify for council tax relief ask district council whether you can have a discretionary housing payment form, you should be able to apply

Also citizens advise should help with information as to whether you can do a statement of means to get your repayment lowered with UC

Indeed77 - yes as if you applied tonight online and the claim was successful ( which now with dh out of work it should be) it would applie from tomorrow say

So there are 5 months left of the year for council tax - so the relief would apply to the last 5 months and legally any overpayments you have made in tax would need to be returned

But...if your income was to increase during these 5 months - your council tax may also increase depending on how much your income increased

What is a discretionary housing payment?

I’ll call CAB as our closest office is 25 miles away and see if they can help to lower repayments.

www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Discretionary-Housing-Payment/What-is-a-Discretionary-Housing-Payment

And you can get this payment from council where you pay your council tax and even if on UC you can apply

Just been having a look online. I don’t reckon we would get any help with a discretionary housing payment. Our rent is only £270 a month does it cover your rent if you can’t afford it?

Indeed DHP is about how much your rent is but a payment towards rent invtimes of hardship towards housing costs

We’re not in rent arrears, we can technically get away with not paying rent as we rent of DP step Dad and mum. Last Xmas we had money issues and DP step Dad just said not to pay rent until we were back on our feet.