Benefits if you were married and have now separated.

[slightlyonedgemum]

My sister is considering leaving my BIL and is concerned that they won't be able to afford two mortgages as she's a stay at home mum apart from a Saturday job so earns very little. My BIL is paid well but still affording the mortgage on their house and somewhere else is impossible. She doesn't really want to move her DD's but realises this is probably the only way to go about things. Would she be entitled to any benefits/help? She knows that as they're married she's currently not, but if that changed (separated not divorced), would she be classed as a single Mum and thus get monetary help with childcare and housing?

Thanks

Ok, yes if she was separated then she would be classed as a single mum. These are the benefits I think she would get...

Child Benefit: £20 a week

Child Tax Credit: You would get about £60 a week on a yearly salary of £19,000 and would go up for less earning

Working Tax Credit: not sure how much it would be but if she is working less tahn 16 hours a week she would qualify

Housing Benefits: you can claim housing benefits towards rent only, not towards a mortage. You may be able to claim for help towards mortgage payments but would need to speak to the welfare rights department of the council

Income Support: probably able to claim this on working such small hours and if claiming this then you have more entitlement to housing benefits

Spousal Maintenance - not too sure what this is but if they have been married a while or he is rich ( ) then she may be able to claim

Child Maintenance - is (I think) 15% of the fathers earnings

Please dont quote me on any of these, this is just what I remember from doing my research as I am in the same situation as your sister. The DWP website has calculators on that you can use to work out eligibility.

Hope that was useful!!!!

I don't know how the saturday job will effect things, but as a single parent without an income she should be entitled to to following:

Income support - around £240 a month

Child tax credit - £250 a month (1 child) £400 (2 children) £550 (3 children)

Child benefit - £60 a month for first child + £40 - for each extra child

Housing benefit - should cover the full cost of rent

Council tax benefit - will cover the full cost of council tax.

She wouldn't get maintenance as this would be dealt with by the CSA. If you are benefits you don't see any of this.

There is a good website called entitled to which will give her a better idea.

Thank you!

I'll print this off and let her now. I had emailed her the entitledto.com address as I knew they were quite handy but wasn't sure if she'd be classed as a couple. Now she needs to work out if she can afford it!

reading your emails were very helpful. can someone please point me in the right direction...... my situation is this:

I am about to start divorce proceeding with my husband, he earns over £5k pm, I run my own small business (about £1k max on average pm). The only asset we have is our house and he has a smallish work pension. we have 1 child (21 months). We will both need a new home and we are going to divorce via collaborative law - any advice on what I could be entitled to anyone have a collaborative divorce lawyer (london based) they can recommend???

HELP....
thanks xx