In the summer I had to fill in a form for housing benefits detailing all my self employment earnings/expenses etc.
I cocked up on the form. Where I was meant to put the % that was for household use (or business use, I forget which), I put the opposite, so said I was spending something like £700 for 6 months on gas and electric for the business, whereas the actual % made it about £10.
I realised the error when they said I was earning stupid money as only a certain % is allowed deductable, wrote to them explaining the error.
I heard nothing (they did sort another problem with the claim), but at the time was still v bad with antenatal depression, morning sickness etc and decided that for the sake of a month (before I was planning to fold the business), I couldn't be doing with arguing and we would just have to get by somehow with less payments.
Forward to 9th October. I had written to say that I was no longer self employed, and they wrote to me saying they were stopping all payments until they had x information.
I went down there, very pregnant, gave them all the information about that, and then the woman on the desk started going on about the electric thing, and told me to fill in an appeal form.
So, tired and just wanting to get out of there, I filled in said form (with a copy of my original form so I could even highlight the error), and explained in very clear terms that I had been a moron, what it should be etc.
TODAY they send me another letter, showing me the original calculations again (based on my misfilled form), saying they need copies of the statements, not mentioning my form filling in errors, and that it needs to be back by x date or they will assume I don't want to claim...
So... I am sick of it. I don't care about a month of f*cked up payments, we got through that time.
What I care about now is that they are pissing about sorting out this stuff and I think it is holding up the current claim. By next week we will be onto 2 months we no payments. My mum lent us the money last month, she can't afford it this month. I don't know how I will feed my children without it.
Can I go down and say I don't care about the sodding appeal, just ignore it and sort the current stuff, or will they turn round and say it is in motion now and all needs sorting at once?
I have a 9 day old baby. I have a bleeding nipple. She can't turn her head properly and needs to see a chiropractor or osteopath and I can't pay for one because of all this.
I know there are people much worse off out there, but I am drowning in hormones, milk and it is all just too much.