income problem! plz help..

[rafzaf4eva]

Me and my husband have been declared bankcrupt and my husband is on Income based jobseekers allowance and i am a housewife and he only gets £83 week and i get £110 a week we have got no other income and lots of expeditures i have 3 kids to support also bills to pay and we are not entitld to housing benifit nor council tax benifit because we live on rent and the house is owned by my husbands brother we were the previouse owners we had to sell the house due to financial situation we remorgaged the house and bought a business which neva went well then we sold the shop and the house so that is the reason we r not entitled to any benifts. is there any other benifit that we can claim or get any other sort of help as we are struggling very much plz i need all your help Thanks....

[tasha75]

Why is your topic called "tax credit problem"? Have you tried to claim but were refused? You should be entitled to child tax credit, and working tax credit if one of you is working (you didn't say whether you work). Do you claim child benefit?
What expenditure do you have? seeing as you were declared bankrupt then I assume there is no debts to pay, and with no rent to pay either, it only leaves basic bills, household (food etc) and clothing expenditure. You get about 200 pounds per week / 800 per month tax free, should be enough for basic living.
There is also a question of switching to a cheaper deal or even provider for you gas/electricity/phone if you current one is expensive. If you can't get more income, you'll have to start cutting you outgoings. Just a general advice, perhaps you are already doing it, I don't know, you haven't said anything in your post.
Perhaps you'll get more advice if you ask in another forum that specializes in benefits? moneysavingexpert.com has a big section on benefits, as well as lots of advice on how to save money on bills, shopping.

[Frontier Mole]

Bit confused.
Previous posts have been about wife coming to the UK and income based job seekers allowance. Assume wife joined you in the UK?
Now both of you are bankrupt? How can that happen so quickly to both of you? When you were applying for your wife to come to the UK were you subject to a bankruptcy petition pending hearing?

[John]

As well as answering the questions already asked, can you please explain :-

we are not entitld to housing benifit nor council tax benifit because we live on rent

[tasha75]

As well as answering the questions already asked, can you please explain :-

we are not entitld to housing benifit nor council tax benifit because we live on rent

I might be wrong but I took it as "because we live no rent", otherwise it doesn't make sense.

[John]

Tasha, it could mean that, or it could possibly mean they are receiving rent, from sub-letting?

rafzaf4eva, if you want help here, please provide answers to the various questions that have been asked.

[tasha75]

I might be wrong but I took it as "because we live no rent", otherwise it doesn't make sense.

I was wrong, went through her previous posts and they are on mortgage at 600 per month, so won't get housing benefit.


If the house wasn't repossessed in bankruptcy then I assume there is no equity in it.
600 mortgage on 800 income is a lot of money, did you seek financial advice before petitioning for BR? You are supposed to submit financial report when filing for BR, so it would have raised the questions on how you are going to support yourself. They want to prevent debtors from getting into debts again.
You are either have to quickly find a job, or sell the house. I haven't seen anyone with a mortgage living on benefits long term. Benefits are just for basic living , they are not made to cover mortgages (with the exception of pre-1991? morgages). Insurance supposed to do that.

[tasha75]

Tasha, it could mean that, or it could possibly mean they are receiving rent, from sub-letting?

Don't think they would have got income based JSA in that case. Fancy that - become a landlord and live on JSA?

[rafzaf4eva]

Why is your topic called "tax credit problem"? Have you tried to claim but were refused? You should be entitled to child tax credit, and working tax credit if one of you is working (you didn't say whether you work). Do you claim child benefit?
What expenditure do you have? seeing as you were declared bankrupt then I assume there is no debts to pay, and with no rent to pay either, it only leaves basic bills, household (food etc) and clothing expenditure. You get about 200 pounds per week / 800 per month tax free, should be enough for basic living.
There is also a question of switching to a cheaper deal or even provider for you gas/electricity/phone if you current one is expensive. If you can't get more income, you'll have to start cutting you outgoings. Just a general advice, perhaps you are already doing it, I don't know, you haven't said anything in your post.
Perhaps you'll get more advice if you ask in another forum that specializes in benefits? moneysavingexpert.com has a big section on benefits, as well as lots of advice on how to save money on bills, shopping.

My problem was the house is my husbands brothers and he got married recently and i was asking questions on his behalf and know the question is about me and my husband now we pay him rent every month 400 pounds and we r getting less income we both don't work not eligble for housing benifit we applied and i wanted to kno if there was any other benifit we can claim.

[tasha75]

Aha, I see now about the rent confusion.
You haven't said about 110 pounds per week that you receive - is it tax credits, social service benefits?
I've run a couple of benefit calculators for you, and according to a tax credit calculator you should be getting about £130-140 per week of child tax credits (no work tax credits as none of you work). This is providing all your 3 children under 20, and in full time education if over 16.
You should also be getting £43 per week in child benefits. That makes 173 per week altogether.
Plus if your husband is on JSA and you don't work (don't have income) then you should be getting full housing and council tax benefits to cover your housing costs. Why are you not getting HB and CTB? Have you applied and were refused? What was their reason for refusal?
You have to go to a citizen advice bureau, they will help you to get everything you are entitled to. You can also check for yourself what you could be getting on www.entitledto.com

[rafzaf4eva]

[quote="tasha75"]Aha, I see now about the rent confusion.
You haven't said about 110 pounds per week that you receive - is it tax credits, social service benefits?

The 110 pounds i get is child tax credit and i do get child benefit also its just the tax credits we r worried about it is so less to support 3 children..
also when we applied for CB HB they said we r not entitled to it because husbands brother is a close relative thats why but we have to support our family ourselves he can't do anything..

[tasha75]

when we applied for CB HB they said we r not entitled to it because husbands brother is a close relative thats why but we have to support our family ourselves he can't do anything..

In that case I can only see 2 options for you:
- quickly find a job, you and/or your husband;
- rent another accommodation, the rent may cost more than 400 (depending on the area you live in), but it will be covered by housing benefit - saving you a massive 400.

[Frontier Mole]

Bit confused.
Previous posts have been about wife coming to the UK and income based job seekers allowance. Assume wife joined you in the UK?
Now both of you are bankrupt? How can that happen so quickly to both of you? When you were applying for your wife to come to the UK were you subject to a bankruptcy petition pending hearing?

Can you explain how you became bankrupt?

[rafzaf4eva]

Can you explain how you became bankrupt?[/quote]


We remorgaged our house and was interested in a business so we bought a newsagency which was going ok for the 1st month then after that it started going downhill we started making less profit and we even put more stock in but we don't realise where the money went the business rates were high aswell as it was in a town centre also we started borrowing money from our credit cards and we found it more difficult to pay the loan off so then we sold the shop at a really low price to pay some loans and after that we had nothing left so we applied for bankcrupcy and it was granted...

[tasha75]

Can you explain how you became bankrupt?

Are you planning on declaring yourself? H/O doesn't pay enough these days?

[Frontier Mole]

The HO does not pay enough and never has

I used to be an insolvency investigator for HMRC before HO days. So was curious to know the reasons behind the bankruptcy.

This looks like a classic case of bumping the profits of a business prior to sale to make the accounts look good. Then the poor sods that buy the business soon find the profits are just not there. I bet the sale price of the business was very good and the reason for sale was "family reasons" etc etc. Of course no one is going to say the business is failing so they pump money into the business as "takings" - which pushes up the profits on paper, gives a better return and makes the moving on of the business very easy. I have seen this many times in the past.

Good due diligence checks will spot the scam very easily as the rise in profits will not be matched with a like for like expenditure on stock / services for resale.

If this was their first business they were more than likely lambs to the slaughter as they were unlikely to commision due diligence to any reasonable degree.

[tasha75]

I used to be an insolvency investigator for HMRC before HO days.

So before joining immigrationboards you were annoying people on debthelp or some other forum? LOL
I had some interest in debts and BR in particular a while ago. Especially interesting was to read insolvency website about people with BRO, how they had withdrawn thousands and thousands just before declaring themselves BR and suddenly couldn't remember where they'd spent them. Or how they had paid to someone 15K and they don't know their name or where they are now. Really funny stories, felt like screaming "please, don't insult my intelligence".

Could you share your "inside knowledge" pls - the question that sometimes comes up in the immigration forums - can a former BR be granted ILR or be naturalised? In the caseworker guidance I've only seen that BR shouldn't affect if it has been at least 10 years since discharge, or if discharge date has been before the new BR law (1 April 2004 i think)? What about those that were discharged after 1/01/04/04?