Universal credit (UC) and other benefits i.e. Housing Benefit (HB) Are you aware that if you have more than 2 children and going to claim UC you may find that you may not get all you think or you might be sent around in circles, please read here for more information. https://tinyurl.com/ycqvnr7y Clarification on how Universal Credit claimants are affected by the two child limit 1. Some claimants are being misdirected to claim the wrong benefit depending upon their personal circumstances. This misdirection results in claimants being sent from Universal Credit to tax credits and Housing Benefit (HB) and, often, back again; resulting in financial difficulties. 2. The information below provides clarity on which benefit claimants living within a Universal Credit area should be signposted to. Claimants with two children or less 3. Claimants can make a new claim to Universal Credit if they have two or less children or qualifying young persons (QYPs); this includes claimants with no children. Claimants with more than two children 4. Claimants with three or more children or QYPs will not be able to make a new claim for Universal Credit, unless the claimant: • has been in receipt of Universal Credit within the previous six month period and is making a re-claim • is making a new claim as a single person within one month of a previous joint claim ending, because they are no longer a member of a couple 5. New Universal Credit claimants with more than two children or QYPs will need to apply for Child Tax Credit and any other benefits they may be entitled to including HB.

my wife may have a compersation win of sevral thousands comeing from a NHS mistratment claim. I claim for her on my ESA but she also recived dla on her own right, as we are both disabled. I am now worring that we may have to give up our had won benifits as it is very lightly it will be over the £6000 limit sevral times, and even have to pay some of them back, even though she is not claiming any benifits in her name exept dla mid range for care. Can anybody stear us right if this is the case.

Hello I am on JSA at present, have been for over a year. My wife works the hours of 30 hrs per week. I have two children 15 and 17 years if age. both still in full time education. Over the past year our tax credit has seen a large drop in payments. I did think this was due to our son leaving school and starting collage and hmrc would readjust the amount back up as he now attends collage and is still in education. 1. is this correct?? The other question is i have been given a sick note by my doctor as regards me being unfit for work. If i claim ESA and stop my cliam for JSA would i get any sick pay? Also how would this affect the tax credits situation. Please any advice would be really helpfully. I can not reliy on the advice given by the job center any more. please help

Hello I am on JSA at present, have been for over a year. My wife works the hours of 21huors per week. I have two children 15 and 17 years if age. both still in full time education. My wife's hrs will be increased to 30 hrs shortly and am wondering how this would affect my claim? I only receive an NI stamp from them. There has been a large drop in our working tax credits also this past year ( will bring this up later thow) please advise. Thank you

Just after some advice on the following and maybe some general fiancial advice rather than full ins and outs of benefits so sorry if I have posted in wrong section and also sorry if it sounds a bit depressing. My mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Hopefully treatable with a 6-9 course of chemo. Anyway. They havent really thought about it yet but sooner or later my mom will go onto half/no pay from work. Mother earns about £1300 a month and father earns a touch less. They have never been much good with money and the majority of their wage goes to paying off debt which totals around the £10.000. Unsurpringly they have no insurances. If she does start to lose any pay then they will struggle to pay the mortgage/debts and with this news my dad is also struggling mentally and also drinking so I also worry about him loosing his job. If it gets to the stage where they have got to worry about money on top of everything else then it may be too much. Knowing nothing about benefits I believe they would be entitled to is carers benefits and free prescriptions. Is this correct? Can they claim for anything else? How much is carers benefit? Posted it in here as I am hoping that I can get involved and help to manage their finances through benefits and entitlements. To keep the cheery theme going they have also talked about wills. They were also talking about signing the house over to another family member just in case they have to go into a home. Can you do this? Dont know how true it is but our neighbour passed their house to their kids to avoid paying care home fees. Seems like to good to be true many thanks

Hello my name is Mandy Im new to this site I joined today in the hope someone can help me. I have been claiming ESA for a year while i went for my medical which they said I was fit for work so I appealed but Iv just been turned down for that aswell. So I rang up to get Jobseekers Allowence to be told I can't claim it due to the fact I wont be activly looking for work because there's no job I can do with my health so now I have to re claim ESA.. The lady on the phone said I will be turned down again because Its the same illness as before but as I tried to tell her my illness is an ongoing problem that will not get better. Please someone help me im so worried and confused i don't know what to do next... Mandy

Hi all - I am new to this forum so hello and hope this post is in the right place..:- . My partner and I are living together with 1 18mth old child. We both work although in the low income bracket. We receive child tax credits which help with nursery fees but nothing else. We own the house we are living in. We are living in birmingham and all our family is in the south. We would like to move closer to our family and our idea is to rent out our property which will just cover the mortgage . We would then rent a property nearer our family and get work in this area and let the house tick over until we were in a position to buy in the south. This may be a very long time. So that is the plan... The question we would like to know is how this rental income would effect child benefits and also means tested JSA if either if us was out of work at any point. Is it classed as income? Or only the amount left once the mortgage is paid? Big difference! Thank you in advance!

Every year I receive a letter from the Job center plus asking for any details with regard to my Occupational Pensions as some of my benefit entailment is means tested and every year as per the letter give them wriiten permission all the details to contact my pension provider which in this case is a Local Government Pension as at the time of the letter I have no knowledge of the annual increase but I do reply with written permission for them to contact my pension provider along with all the information they would need . Last year I received at least 5 letters asking for the same information and this year the same number of requests and I also follow the letter up with a phone to the office dealing with this matter, but I have been called for a interview with the compliance officer at my local Job center as I was unable to attend the appointment on that day given so I contact the compliance person and discovered that they still wanted details of my pension for this year, I explained that they had all the details and if they wanted to they also had the permission to contact my pension provider, to which I was told that it was my job to give them the details, and it was not their job to contact them so why put on all the their letters a space for my permission to contact the pension provider .Apart from P60 and the copy of my annual pay advice and my written permission for contact the pension department what else can I do ,as the increase in my pension this year is the grand sum of £2.00 per month and I wonder how much all this work has cost them or us let alone the stress it has caused me, I am being to think have no ideal what they are doing is there anybody whom I can complain to stop this what is becoming months every year of stress.

Hi Everyone! Just need advise please, 2 years ago my so called Hubby cheated on me so we split, he moved out of the house and let me live in it with the Children, unfortunately I had to claim child benefit, income support and Child tax credits , after 9 months of begging and pleading from him I took him back and stopped claiming benefits, but he's done it again and told me he no longer loves me and loves this other women and has moved out, once again he has agreed to let me live in the house (which I love for the sake of the Children), but I'm worried about having to claim for a 2nd time, what will they say to me?, what happens if the benefit agency wont help me out this time, I'm really scared I will end up with nothing. Please help has anyone been in the same situation? Thank you!