Self employed and scared!

[ILikePaperHats]

I'm a freelance editor with two kids, I co-parent with my ex and claim tax credits and child tax credits. My freelance work is drying up, I'm owed 3k and no guarantee when this will be paid now with the impact of the coronavirus. I don't understand why they are saying you can make a claim for universal credit when it has not been rolled out in my area yet. I don't know what to do. Can anyone offer any advice on this? I know I can take a 3 months' mortgage holiday but my mortgage is pretty low and I don't really want to extend my term which is already 25 years and pay more interest to the banks.

Universal credit is available in all areas if you want it, but most people are better off staying on tax credits. Try a calculation on one of the benefits sites like entitled to.

@AnotherEmma and @Babyroobs are your friends here on this matter, OP.

Universal credit is available in all areas now. The only thing that would stop you claiming is if you have savings over 16K. You can apply online via the Gov.uk site. You need to be aware that as soon as you apply, your working and child tax credits will stop immediately. There are in excess of 90k new applicants for Uc this week, the system is swamped. The government keep saying they will be announcing new measures to help the self employed but details haven't been released yet but it may be wait for announcements before making any decisions to swap to UC.

"most people are better off staying on tax credits"

Not necessarily and not if your WTC stops because you're out of work. The OP will probably be significantly better off on UC now, except that when the £3k comes in it will wipe out entitlement for that month.

As Babyroobs said, though, it's probably worth waiting to see if they announce any support for self employed people. I hope they do.

Rather than phone, some people are saying they can get it confirmed via the online messaging facility on the UC website.

They have just announced help for self employed up to 80% of wage up 2 k2500 per month