financial problems - child, tax credits ANY ADVICE IS WELCOME

[syl1985]

Hi ladies,

I'm self employed and now on maternity leave.

I worked full time and my partner is working part time.
We were always able to pay the bills and no problems. I thought we had enough money for this baby.

Unfortunately things went a bit wrong during this pregnancy and we needed extra money. We had a look and found out we were able to claim tax and child tax credits.

I really hope no one is going to think that we planned this pregnancy while we couldn't afford another child. We really are not like that. We just had a bit of bad luck.
I love this baby so much, but at this moment if I had known that we were going to get into this mess. I wouldn't got pregnant at this moment.

We gave the HMRC a ring and the claim pack was going to be send to us.
2 weeks later we got the papers, filled them in and send them back that very same day.

We waited for 3 weeks, but nothing.... No money, no mail, nothing.
We gave them a call and they lost our papers.

A special team was going to have a look if they were able to find them. In a mean time a new claim pack was going to be send to us.

3 weeks later, finally we got the new claim pack.
Filled them in and send them back that very same day. But this time someone would have to sign for it by delivery.

This time we had prove that they received our papers.
What could go wrong?
What are the changes of things going wrong twice???

Apparently they were big enough, because 3 weeks after they received it still nothing.
They lost it again and were going to send another claim pack.

3 weeks later still nothing so we gave them ANOTHER phone call. This time they forgot to send the papers to us.
So again, the 4th time now. They're going to send the claim pack for the tax and the child tax credits to us.

We made an official complaint and they're looking into it. Hopefully that would speed things up.

Is it normal that things take this long?
In total we're now more then 16 weeks busy with getting our tax and child tax credits.

In a mean time we are getting more and more behind with our bills. It's very stressful. I so hope it's going to be solved before the baby arrives.

I'm now 34 weeks, so I don't have that much time anymore.
How I planned the pregnancy it's all fallen into pieces.

I thought that when I was having my maternity leave that I was going to be busy with baby shopping and just enjoying all my free time with the family.

Now I'm busy with looking for all the things that we need all second hand and as cheap as possible.

We are not that far into dept. So no help there from some dept office. But even if it's not that much. The calls and the letters do give me more stress then I need.

We call them from time to time and all that they can say is that they haven't found our papers. They can't do anything for us over the telephone. We can't make an appointment to come over there and solve the situation.

But because of their mistakes we're getting further and further into trouble.

It's now 4 in the morning. I can't sleep at this moment. I'm just to worried. I know I shouldn't be, but I just can't help it.
I don't mind having second hand items for my baby. It's not that. It's just so different from how I had planned this pregnancy.

There's this 500 pound grant you can get, but that's only for your first child. So we can't ask for that.
I've had a quick look in emergency loans. But you can only get them if you're in serious trouble or about to become homeless.

Are they seriously going to wait that long before they're going to help us? I did what I had to do. Work, pay my taxes etc.
I had no idea I was able to claim tax credits until I needed it. So stop messing about now I really need that money so just give me my money!

Anyone any ideas on what we could do?
Calling them like every day?
Instead of waiting for their claim packs send in every week a copy of the claim packs that we already have send to them?

Should I make an appointment with my midwife? I've already told her about our situation. Should I make an extra appointment and tell her of the stress and the problems that we have? Asking her if there isn't anything, anyone can do for us.

This situation isn't good for me or my baby and when he's born he'll need baby things.
Afcourse when things do go bad, they can always go worse.
Our car now needs replacement. At this moment we need a car so another big bill to pay.

Isn't there someone who can help? Surely this is a special situation. Isn't there someone with authority who can kick their buds and tell them to give us our money and quick, because there's a baby coming over here.

Thanks for reading this long post. Any ideas or tips are welcome.

Sylvia

Hi, sorry to hear this is happening you! Cann you fax/email them copies of the documents? For more advice on what to do you could try your local CAB bureaux www.citizensadvice.org.uk or Money Advice Service www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk or even your local Children Centre.... Good luck!

Hi styl1985,

I am a Welfare Rights Officer and I can tell you this is NOT normal. You have been badly dicked about.

If its any consolation- you are doing everything right. You are handling the situation really well by keeping in touch with the Inland Revenue, keeping up the pressure and making a complaint.

I would also suggest contacting your MP. Its amazing how quickly HoC headed paper clears up bureaucratic tangles .

If you haven't already- I would suggest you also claim Maternity Allowance. If you are very skint, you might also qualify for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.

To deal with the bills: I suggest writing to the companies you owe money to and explaining that you have met with some unexpected financial problems, that you are taking steps to address the situation and have made claims for benefits but not received payment yet. Tell them you will contact them with payment when your situation improves and ask them to put a hold on collection action in the meantime. You will find them a lot more sympathetic once they know what is going on.

If you have a mortgage you are worried about- you can ask for a short term payment holiday and for the missed payments to be added to the capital debt, to be paid later.

I know its difficult, but try not to get to wound up about this. At 34 weeks I was (in my own words to the midwife) batshit mental. Everything will seem much worse right now, but this is genuinely quite resolvable. When the payments are finally being made you will be able to live on them quite well. I did my maternity leave on Maternity Allowance, Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and my DH's tiny part time wage and it was very do-able. Things will get better, I promise.

When I have difficulties I find it helps to get some distance on it to pretend I am dealing with it as a work task. So, for example- if I've just sent a letter, I diarise a day for chasing and I try to put it out of my mind until then- just like I would at work! Or could you delegate to DH?

Thanks ladies,

Dashoflime:

Yes, I'm getting my maternity allowance. Everything was easy and quickly done. Except the child and the tax credits.

I know that there're people with 1000's of pounds in dept and we aren't even close to that number. So I guess many will look at our situation and think:
'You think you've got problems'???

But it really feels so uncomfortable that we can't give everyone their money.
Most of them are ok as we keep them all updated about our situation, but unfortunately some of them aren't and most of them still put extra charges on your outstanding bills.

I totally understand them. Our problems are not theirs and they just want their money and if not they just follow the rules.
But it just all feels very uncomfortable. And it just feels so unfair. It's not our fault they keep loosing our papers.

I really hope that they'll do what they say on the telephone:
That when they finally have our papers they'll be giving our money starting from the day that we requested our first child and tax credits claiming pack.

"I would also suggest contacting your MP. Its amazing how quickly HoC headed paper clears up bureaucratic tangles"

Sorry could you explain that please?
We've been living in England for a couple of years now, but sometimes I'm still struggling with the language.
Do you mean my GP or someone else?

I wish I could put it out of my mind, just like you suggest. But I find that very difficult.
I know that I don't solve anything with the stress and not being able to sleep. I probably make the whole situation worse. As I'm moody during the day and that's not nice for my husband and our 3 boys. I don't have that much energy to do the things that I want to do.

Then again that might also be the hormones, but I don't think this stress has got any positive influence on it.

Dabarai:
I haven't thought of contacting our local children center. Thanks for that tip. I'll see what their opening time is and go there as soon as possible. Hopefully they'll be able to do something for us. The others you mention did help us / gave us advice on how to make an official complaint.

Syl1985: Sorry! Just realised I wrote that in confusing acronyms.
I meant you could contact your elected Member of Parliament.
They normally have constituency offices and are very used to writing letter on behalf of people in difficulties. They are particularly useful when its a problem of slowness/disorganisation of bureaucracy.
HoC headed paper= House of Commons headed paper; known to magically speed up bureaucratic processes.

You can find who your MP is here