ARGH! Bloomin benefits!

[AugustMum]

I'm sick and tired of benefits!!!!

I've been receiving housing benefits which pretty much covered my rent. This has been a life saver. I also receive child tax credits and child benefit which come to £75 a week.

I had my student loans aswell so I've had it pretty good for a while. Now however, my housing benefit has been stopped and so has my council tax help. So at the moment, I've got £75 a week coming in. Im way into my overdraft because when I came into this blooming house it costs sooo much in deposit and fees and first months rent it just drained me. Doing those final weeks of uni werent cheap either. I've got over £80 worth of prints downstairs that are just going in the bin.

So now Im trying to see if I can get income support but because of my student loans I doubt Ill get it (this is what happened last summer) but if I cant get it then whats going to happen with my housing benefit. Argh! Im trying to complete the bloomin form on the internet and its not even working and they get annoyed with you at the job center if you dont have an appointment.

Honestly...the benefit system. ARGH! Seems it only works for you if your scamming it.

 

[leanne1b]

Hi mel. How come they stopped your housin benefit? Uv finished Uni now right?
And ur single aren't u?
Phone income support. U r entitled to income support now. And tell them to stop talking crap if they saw you're not.
In your last year, u don't receive as much student finance as they only cover u until the end of the course, so from 39 weeks (I believe it's 39 anyway) after ur start date in September 2010, ur student finance is irrelevant and they can't look at it as income.
Hope this helps hun
X

 

[AugustMum]

Ooo I didnt know that. I rang up today to make my income support claim and have to go in on Monday to just sign the forms and make sure theyre correct.

They stopped my housing benefit because I was no longer a student and not in receipt of any benefits and apparently if you have no income at all, you cant have it. :/ The minf boggles. They said they stopped the payment literally the day I stopped uni to stop over payment. Bollox IMO. They just didnt want me to reclaim because of the hassle.

 

[Baby Bean]

If you are entitled I'm pretty sure they will back pay for a certain amount of time

 

[AugustMum]

Yeah I wondered this, if they'd back date it, because it was them that changed it, not me. So it'd be backdated from May.

I can't get over how much of a faff it is applying for anything. I had this same stress last summer. Its rediculous!

 

[Baby Bean]

Hope u get it sorted hun x

 

[ZMD]

Hope you get it sorted Hun, Im now making a claim for housing benefit for the form is never ending! x

 

[AugustMum]

Luckily there wasnt much on my form that needed to be done so it wasn't too bad but it did take over 6 weeks to get the claim processed and it would of taken longer if I didnt just burst into tears in the council offices. When youve given the form in, just keep going in to check the claim or theyll just fob you off all the time. Good luck with it!

 

[munchkin1982]

Is it only if you are a student with a child/baby that you can get housing benefit help then? I remember trying to apply for housing benefit while I was a student and they wouldn't give me any at all. Simply because I was a student but obviously I wasn't pregnant and didn't have any children at the time... x

 

[AugustMum]

You have to be a single parent to get housing benefits, or both of you need to be a student but if only 1 of you is then you cant get it. Took me ages to figure out whether or not I could get it lol.

 

[ZMD]

They want so much evidence of everything! last 2 month bank statements OHS last 5 pay slips tax credits entitlement, child benefit letter and id oh and the tenancy agreement! were goin away in just over a week and wanted this sorted before then doesn't look likely x

 

[AugustMum]

My tenancy agreement is a photocopy (Ive tried asking for an actual copy grrr) and even though they just photocopy it anyway they still werent happy that that was the copy Id been given and so therefore its my agreement. I had to send off to my estate agents for them to post it and then head off to the council again. Honestly, the amount of times Ive been there Hope once you get your form in its alot easier! I cant believe theyre making you send in 2 of your bank statements. I never had to do that.

 

[FebMum2Be]

Hope they get you sorted Mel, they are the best at f**king up x

 

[leanne1b]

Glad could help mel. I know most of he benefit stuff backwards now when it's linked with being a student. They would mess me around so much that I took to ignorig them, doing the work for them (to the extent of quoting laws lol) so that they couldn't argue and would just get bloody on with it! I was so stressed out that it just wasn't worth listening to them!

Hope they get u sorted soon. And yeah pinky, either single people with kids or a student with kids x

 

[leanne1b]

Zmd that's ridiculous!! Now I understand why they do it... But since not all councils do they r obviously being picky! X