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Found 9 results

  1. Hello all, We've never been in this position before hubby lost his job a few months ago and had to sign on for the first time in his life (he is 60 and so completely destroyed). Finding another job at this age is proving very difficult. We have a mortgage. He is now getting support of £83 a week. I receive incapacity benefit for a progressive illness. It seems that we are entitled to help with the mortgage interest payments but won't get this help for 39 weeks. How do people pay their mortgage in the meantime? That's almost 10 months for us to wait and I'm pretty sure the house will be repossessed after 3 months of non-payment (our mortgage is interest only). We are very confused. Our total income without mortgage help is around £850 a month. Our monthly direct debits total £1000 approx. not including food. We know that we will have to cancel unnecessary things like sky etc. but there is still not enough income. Other people seem to get their rent paid so why are we different or am I missing something? Also, because he is signing on, hubby is expected to attend all sorts of courses and 'activity' days. With just £83 unemployment benefit a week how are we supposed to pay for him to get to these things and look for work, attend interviews etc.? Any help/advice would be appreciated.
  2. Hi People, Is there anyome who could give me some advice as to what benefits i may be entitled to ? I was on longterm sickness for about 10yrs but after one of those Atos medicals i was told i'd have to sign-on at the JobCentre, that was last October. The girl i've been seeing has been very good and put very little pressure on me, she looks after those with a medical problem which makes them have a reduced chance of finding work. I've been on a Computer Course this last month, the second one i've done to improve my job prospects but other than sending me on those things, i've have been Ok. She has said i'll only get this special treatment for 12mths though and come next October i'll be getting transferred to another advisor and they could almost force me into any job; send me to work experience ....... (does she mean working for the £shop for free ? ). Or even sanction me. When i went to sign-on today she told me from next time i'd be seeing a different advisor so should expect he may send me on a Work Programme. I feel i'm quite lucky, i'm 62 and from next May all things being equal i should be able to claim Pension Credit and leave the worry about getting sanctioned behind. In the meantime rather than be forced into unpaid work i wondered could i find something to do Self-Employed. Could i get the New Enterprise Allowance for 26wks ? Could i get Working Tax Credit ? I get the lowest rate of Dla at the moment, so would this allow me to apply for the disability element of Wtc ? Maybe if i was working 30+ hrs i could get the extra Wtc for that. Sorry for the long message, i'm just playing with ideas for what may be. Thanks.
  3. This is driving me around the bend. Following redundancy I registered with the local JobCentrePlus and from December I started claiming JSA (contributions based type) which I thought I had a right to , having been in work for 37 years. They paid the JSA contributions ok, but then Belfast wrote claiming I owed them back two lots of fortnight-payments because my Pension had gone up in April. Odd ! I thought. Yes my NHS pension had gone up but by only £1.90 a month, but where is the right to 6 months payments irrespective of income if they then look at money coming in ? Also I do not think that such an increase would have had that huge impact ! On reflection I remember declaring to the staff of the JobCentrePlus that in March I had started receiving a monthly payment of £300 from the Lyfestyle Protection Policy which I had with the Post Office. Could that money have been taken into consideration and perhaps mistaken as an additional pension or an increase of the original NHS ? I do not know and after two unanswered recorded deliveries to Belfast and two letters from their Debt Recovering office (which are also claiming a fine of £90 from me ) I am getting panicky. I do not want to pay up if then it turns up to be a misinterpretation by the benefits department. MY QUESTION: Can anyone here please confirm to me whether an insurance payment under the ASUS scheme terms can be taken into account for stopping JSA payments ? I really think Belfast might have been mistaking this money for an additional pension or an increase on the originally declared pension. Your advice would be much appreciated as I am running short of time > Thank you Nino
  4. I was going for an administration job and reached the second stage of the recruitment/interview process, when the company suddenly turned around and stated that I would have to undergo a credit check. I have been having a few debt problems on the count of my recent divorce from my ex-partner and had to take out a myriad of loans to keep my family home with 2 young children from going under. The company realised my bad credit score and in the end did not offer me the job because of it. I am struggling to pay my rent on the low income job that I am currently doing which I have been in for the last 5 years.... it's not enough and then when there is a glimmer of hope, it got taken away just like that due to a credit check! So I am desperate to know what other people's experiences with this kind of issue has been and the methods you have taken to move past this. How has this affected you? Because quite frankly, it's affected me and the up keep of my children badly....
  5. I am 37 and left my job in 2009 to do a one year post grad degree. After finishing that course I spent about a year and a half on jobseekers applying for 1000's of jobs (any job going) and then as my health worsened I moved on to ESA in the support group which is where I currently am. Unfortunately my health isn't really better but I have been wondering that if my health did improve would I be able to get any sort of job anyway? Will employers consider a 37 year old woman with a history of chronic health issues and a 5 year employment gap?
  6. Though from the U.S. this is relevant here too: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/16/the-terrible-luck-of-long-term-unemployment/
  7. Here is my situation. I spent some 40 years in the Insurance Industry. Had a Mild Stroke - the company then tried to push me out. I took them to Employment Tribunal and won. Despite this I spent the next two years on Job Seekers Allowance. Now that is just background. I got a job through a Temp agency. The job involved shifts which could be from 8 in the morning to 10 at night. From the beginning I told them repeatedly that I was going to be off (holiday - not working) on 2 specific days - one of which is my 60th Birthday. Despite this I found last weekend that I was on a shift on those 2 days. I complained and they didn't like that. We parted. In a few days time I am 60 and I will start receiving one of my pensions. With the Lump Sum I would have too much to claim benefit and the weekly sum would only be slightly less than what I would get as JSA. Now, I could claim JSA as the job only went on for 11 weeks albeit I left under a cloud BUT the few extra Pounds I would get compared to the grief they give you is not worth it. However, should I register just for the stamp alone? I question this as say I were to restart claiming benefits in 6 - 12 months time, could they seek to sanction me for leaving the job? I tried to Citizens Advice bureau but they don't seem to know what they are doing these days. Certainly not giving advice.
  8. Hello there, I have been just over £500 in debt with Wonga, and I'm about a month in arrears. I wasn't able to pay them back because I had to leave my job and home due to depression and move from Carlisle to Leeds to live with my parents. So I am now on Job Seeker's Allowance. Wonga have stopped interest on my account, and did so when I emailed them really early when I lost my job. I have been trying to email them constantly to arrange a payment plan, unfortunately I can only afford around £20 a month due to a lot of other debts. It's taken them about a month to email back, after lots of emails sent from me, and they just sent a generic email linking me to the Financial Assessment form, which I filled out but they declined my offer of £20 a month and said they can only accept a minimum monthly payment of around £113. Which is way out of what I can afford. I've heard bad things from ringing Payday Loan companies and emailing them has been so slow. Does anybody have any help on what I can do? I need to get this debt sorted, I have organised payment plans for all of my other debt creditors except one other (Three) and I do not want to become subject to depression again. Thank you.
  9. hi there, I wonder if anyone can give us an idea of what to expect when we renew our tax credits... From April to August last year, my partner was working 40 hours a week as a self employed subcontractor. Then the company he was working for folded, but rather than sign on and claim JSA as we were sure we could weather the financial storm without doing so, he continued to look for work and we lived off our small savings (and sold pretty much everything we owned). Our second baby was born in November, so having him at home was a godsend really as I was pretty ill, all in all he was not working for around 5 months. By the beginning of Februuary thanks to the generosity of friends and family we had managed to find him enough tools etc. to set up on his own as a gardener. So he informed HMRC that he was now a sole trader, and at the time I rang tax credits who said that that in itself made no difference as he was already registered self employed. Things are really positive now, he is working 6, sometimes 7 days a week and we are financially back on track. However, now that we have got last year's accounts back from the accountant and it's time to renew our tax credits claim, I realise that the details they have for last year won't be correct, (he DID work 40 hours a week when he was working, but obviously that doesn't apply to the 5 months off). I feel stupid that we didn't tell them about the 5 month period where he was looking for work but not signed on. We continued to receive tax credits for that period, which I assume is fraud as now I've looked into it we should have told them within four weeks if he wasn't working? Being newly self employed last year, we just didn't think as I assumed our award would just be based on income (overall, he still made a profit of £4237 for the year) Will they just ask us to pay it back from future awards? Or will they cut off our award altogether for not disclosing all of the relevant information? I'm making myself sick with worry as this was a genuine oversight as we had so much on our plate. Any advice gratefully received.
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