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At the end of Jan I got a letter stating that my Constribution based JSA had come to an end. So I rang them and this woman told me to fill in the form that came with the letter, there was no form so she sent me one out and told me to get it back to them asap so there would be no gap in my benefit. Well I sent it back and heard nothing so I rang them spoke to a man who said I should never have had the form as my husband was working and I was not entitled. Two days later I got a letter saying I would get £54.19 per week as that is what I needed to live on.
On Friday I had to ring as my benefit hadn't gone into the bank and the woman said it had been delayed due to my changing address, then she asked me if I was living alone and I said no with my Husband and she said exact words "How long have you been living with him?" almost like an accusation so I said 34 years so she said there were no details about my husband on their files she would have to look into this and someone would ring me back.
A lady rang me back an hour later and said I should never have received this benefit as my husband was working but I wouldn't have to pay it back as it was their mistake.
Now the problem is, my husbands hours have been reduced to 24 hours (3day week) and we have been getting working tax credit. Will this now stop if I'm not getting JSA?
It doesn't make sense to me that we got WTC when husband was working full time and I was getting JSA and now we are £130 a week down we don't get any help. Our yearly income is now £11000.
WTC is only payable when the applicant is working 30+ hours.
Unfortunately your husband is working 24 hours and that stops you from receiving JSA (24 hours is the limit but the income would take you over anyway)
Not sure what happened with the JSA in the first place but it sounds like someone wrongly read the screen as you being single. When you claim Contributions based your partner's details are not shown.
When you explained about your partner that changed the possibility of the claim though the second person you spoke to should never say that they shouldn't have sent the form out as that is not their decision to make but yours.
The only advice I can give (which isn't a lot) is
1) The change in income can change housing benefit/council tax amounts and you, if you are paying both or just CT, you should inform your council.
and
2) See if your partner can get six more hours (probably not likely) or (and I do not recommend this although in some cases it can actually make you better off) your partner gives up work. I do not recommend this, just to be clear, it's just the only two options.
That is more or less what I thought. I don't think the way tax credits are worked out is very fair because they are based on the previous year's income which in our case totalled £23,000.
I rang the tax credit helpline yesterday and gave them the details and the guy asked me for our projected income for this year which I told him was £11,000 don't know if that makes a difference will have to wait and see when we get their letter.
Does this mean that next year if my husband is working full time we can claim tax credit based on our low income for this year?
I don't want you to think I'm a benefit scrounger, I am 59 this week and have been working since I was 15 except for 2 years when I had my son.
People who post questions like this are never scroungers, just normal folk who want answers.
WTC can be assessed on either current or previous tax years so that projected income (providing it's reasonably accurate) could help. Post back when you get their reply.
I have now received my letter from WTC and we are now not entitled to claim. We also owe them £663.00 in overpayments.
I rang them and they said (as you did) that it was because OH was only working 24 hours a week. If his hours go back up to 30 we can start claiming again.
Well I filled in the form, didn't hear anything for 2 weeks so I rang them last week, had to go over all details again and tell them that husband is now back on 32 hours. Told to ring back Friday to make sure details had updated, they hadn't so I rang again today. Details updated we will receive £127.96 per month starting on 22 July. Husband is now back on 32 hours and as I don't work, our projected income is £15500 for the year.
Before it all went wrong we were getting £330 per month plus Income based JSA.
I sent the form in on 8th June and we won't get anything till 22nd July and it's almost half what we were getting before.
Income based JSA stopped
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