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Hello there,
OK here goes, I've been a single parent now for two years with my now 11 year old daughter. I have a 19 year old daughter as well who lives with her mum. I have been paying for her to attend college and now Uni directly to her in order for her to have a decent enough life away from my safety net. I must mention at this point that my 19 year old I met when she was 5 and is not related by blood, but I class her not as a step daughter but as my own.
As a single dad I havent claimed any relief for living with my child or any maintanance over the two year period as I was earning enough to cover her life and mine without any serious difficulties. This has now changed as I have been without work for some 3-4 months. I need to know what I am entitled to and how I should go abotu claiming. I claim litereally nothing at all, no tax relief, no child payments, I also do not claim any job seekers allowance or similar. I dont intend to be out of employment for long but am starting to struggle now.
Any help would be much appreciated
~g
Hi there and welcome 🙂
I really think you should get yourself down to the jobcentre and get yourself signed on. You will be entitled to jobseekers allowance and child tax credits and benefit. It won't be a huge amount but it will help. When you find a job you just sign off. You have been paying into the system through PAYE, so now it your turn to get a little back! Theres no shame in that!
If the ex is working you would probably be entitled to maintenance, and you should have been in receipt og the child benefit since you became the resident parent. Although you say you didn't need it, you could have paid it into an ISA or savings account for your daughters future.
In the past as you are a resident parent, you weren't required to sign on at all until the child reached the age of 16, but I'm pretty sure that has changed recently, however the job centre will advise you on your entitlements.
You will be entitled to a council tax rebate and also help with any rent you might pay, you local council office will help you with that.. I dont know what the situation is with mortgage payments, they may pay the interest, but check it out.
Get down there ASAP as your entitlement wont start until the day you make the application. It will take a couple of weeks to sort out but if you are really struggling you could ask about a crisis loan.
Good luck with everything.
I agree entirely with nannyjane - you have been paying tax and NI for years and not claiming benefits and maintenance to which you are perfectly entitled - the system is there as a safety net and to help improve the life of your children. Take full advantage of everything you are entitled to, and if you find yourself in a position where you are back in work and earning enough to cover everything, then put anything the government entitles you to into savings for your children - your daughters are going to come out of university with around 40,000 of debt for a 3 year course, so anything you can do to help them will give them a head start.
As a matter of interest, altough the student debt doesn't start to be paid off until a certain level of earnings, it does affect the mortgage they can apply for as my son has just discovered while trying to buy his first flat - the student loan reduced the amount of mortgage he could apply for which has stopped him buying a property for now, even though he could easily afford the payments.
Hi there
Thank you for the very useful replies. I have applied for child benefit just after this post. I didnt have all the documentation (birth cert) so sent a letter attached. It seems to have a had a reasonable effect but not all possitive. I discovered that she had been claiming for both children for the past two years even after (about half a year ago) I mentioned that I "may" end up needing to claim it. She has said that seh will lose her job and a lot of other things now due to it. My issue is If and its a BIG if that is true then it will directly affect my other daughters life, which isnt something that I wanted to happen.
I've not made it to the job centre yet, I work as a consultant (contractor) and have done for some 18 years now so I do have some months where the next contract seems to take its time. If nothing has happened in the next week I will trot down there and go through the forms. I am getting a bit deep into trying to pay the bills and all that, I suppose its the stigma of being unemployed more than the action. I've always frowned on people who live of the dole and seen it as a safety net.
As I said before thank you for all the advice its more than needed and its good to have some sort of an idea of what I may be entitled to. mortgage~1000, council tax~lots, heating~more, it all eats your money up very fast
Garry
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