Has anyone else managed to get anywhere in claiming mortgage interest relief? (sorry, long)

[midnightexpress]

DP has been unemployed since the end of last year. I've been working f/t from home, but can't, in the long term, earn enough to keep the household going. We have had such nightmares with the DSS (or whatever they call themselves these days) and I'm just wondering if it's just us.

First of all we filled in all the forms and sent in all the info for Jobseekers' Allowance, to be rejected because DP was a student 3 years ago for a year and didn't pay NI (having paid it for about 25 years before that, and since). Once the tax year changed, he reapplied and had to submit all the information again, to be rejected again, because they claimed we have more savings than we actually have.

We appealed the decision, more in the hope of getting mortage interest relief than JSA, and they are now asking us to submit once again all the information we have already submitted twice (not counting the two or three times they have lost the information) and in addition are asking for receipts for everything we have spent money on so that they can decide whether we are spending our money on what they consider to be 'allowable'.

It seems like every time we give them something (usually something we've already given them), they ask us for something else.

I am so frustrated I could cry.

Any ideas?

If they are looking at your husbands NI contributions then he may not qualify for mortgage assistance - its only available for those on income based JSA.

If your savings are/were over the limit allowed, then they will check in detail what the money was spent on and if it was a relevant expense - people intentionally spend their savings in order to claim benefits so there are many cheks in place so that sounds standard.

If you are working, then its unlikely your DH will qualify for income based JSA and therefore unlikely to be able to claim mortgage help.

Did you not have a policy in place to cover redundancy for the mortgage payment?

HappyMum - DH is getting the mortgage interest relief - and he started getting it when on contributions based.

However - having just read the OP you're right - he wouldn't get income based if she's working - which means he wouldn't get the mortgage relief.

Thank you for replying - you've managed to explain in one minute what it has taken us the best part of a year to not find out from them. It infuriates me.

Why can't they just tell us that instead of sending us endless letters demanding more and more information???

Who deems what is a 'relevant expense', I wonder? I imagine the next thing they'll be asking is for a breakdown of our bloody Tesco shop to check whether we're spending our money on the 'right' things. Do they have a list of 'suitable' things that we're allowed to spend our money on?

And no, we didn't have a policy in place because DP is a contractor.

Sorry, thank you for your responses. Having a particularly bad day today.