Unemployment & Housing

[csider]

Does your mortgage life assurance (if any?) have any cover for unemployment?
Most mortgages here cover for one 6 months incident or similar.

will call my company (halifax) tomorrow.

 

[moggy]

i think what is meant is did you take out a sickness and unemployement insurance policy with your mortgage?

its just an extra policy like critical illness.
not an essential one like life insurance.

 

[bhaexpress]

JSA is not means tested. I had JSA when I was made redundant from Yorkshire Electricity and had just been given £22K redundancy money. I only had to receive it for 4 weeks fortunately before I got another job.

Actually it is, that's why they ask you how much money you have when you sign on.

 

[Yorkie]

Actually it is, that's why they ask you how much money you have when you sign on.

As Wardy has kindly pointed out, there are two different sorts of JSA. The one I claimed for 4 weeks back in 2002 was not means tested as I had my redundancy money and my works pension had also started. We also had my husband's income coming into the house.

 

[ack]

Found this crap 3 yrs ago,comp went bust but order book was bought out by another comp who offered me a job or redundancy.Asked the social what help I could get in either case,if I took the redundancy then I could get JSA but no help with anything else coz wife ws working and we wernt renting etc.If I took the job offer instead of sitting on me ass,and becoming a statisic,I was entitiled to no help at all coz not out of work long enough.
Now this job offer was 200 miles away,so not a daily commute,ment B&B and findig me own eve meal etc.I took the job offer and eventually moved,hence now in the mids and away from the coast,but thankyou Social and Labour for making the move a bit sweeter instead of sitting on me ass in rented housing and costing the state

 

[BensGrandad]

The biggest problem facing people in that sort of situation is not knowing what they are entitled to and also a lot of older people still look upon benefits as a stigma against them, rather than an entitlement. I know my mother does.

There is also a serious lack of information available as in my wifes case she has just had her 60th birthday and worked most of her adult life, even when she had the 3 boys, but her pension is 11p per week which is paid into the bank each Sunday night. We are still fighting it but it is a very long winded and drawn out battle.

 

[Wardy]

Some other things to think about:

DO NOT sell to one of those companies that let you rent back. Other then having no assurance of a long time tenancy, you will not be entitled to claim Housing Benefit for 5 years.

Also even if you sell and move, if the council think that you only sold your house, so that you could claim Housing Benefit then you would not be entitled.

For housing benefit the capital limits are different then they are for Job Seekers Allowance. If you have under £6000 then it is not counted at all. For £6000 - £16000 they assume an income of either £1 for every £250 or part of for working age people, or £1 for every £500 or part of for pensioners.

 

[Yorkie]

The biggest problem facing people in that sort of situation is not knowing what they are entitled to and also a lot of older people still look upon benefits as a stigma against them, rather than an entitlement. I know my mother does.

There is also a serious lack of information available as in my wifes case she has just had her 60th birthday and worked most of her adult life, even when she had the 3 boys, but her pension is 11p per week which is paid into the bank each Sunday night. We are still fighting it but it is a very long winded and drawn out battle.

Did she pay 'married woman's stamp'?
I started to when I went back to work (I did a small part-time job which didn't pay enough to pay NI whilst the children were babies) after 7 years, I paid that for one year but then decided that I wanted a pension in my own right.
Women of our age need 39 years of contributions (of either sort) to qualify for a pension, but not all the years count for actual payment because of the smaller 'stamp'
My birthday is in August and my forecast is £98 a week. It would have been £114 but because of those 7 years. Normally my husband's contributions would have offset that but because I divorced and remarried, then they don't count.

 

[BensGrandad]

Did she pay 'married woman's stamp'?
.

She left school and went to work in the office of a local grocers, in the 60s they had cash kiosks/offices, the had a son in 1965, and then had another in 1968 after which we entered the licensed trade and she and I were employed as a married couple as managers and she paid married womans stamp. 1974 had our last son and imediately after went to work asa barmaid and I worked as a pub stocktaker. In 1983 we bought our iown pub where she worked until we retired in 2003. During this time she paid a full stamp as a self employed person so much so that at one time we were behind on our tax and insurance, due to me drinking too much and not paying enough attention to the finer points of the business, and she gota NI demand for £2,000 which we had to pay.

She has now to complete a full history of where she has worked since leaving school but apparently the NI records only go back until 1979, so they have said.

I shall be 65 in October so she will then get a full pension based on my payments from that date but the annoying thing is she has worked all of her life and gets 11p per week her youngest sister is 48 and has never done a job that she has paid tax or insurance on during her life and is bleeding the sytem rigid because she knows exactly what she can and can't claim.

 

[Yorkie]

I would dispute their records only going back to 1979, if I were you, because when I was going through the forecast with Newcastle, they told me that I was in the WRNS in the 60's (and, as such, exempt from NI - at that time)

 

[London Calling]

A question you have to ask, why should the state pay anything to your mortgage, isn't there a better usage of its resources?

 

[Cian]

A question you have to ask, why should the state pay anything to your mortgage, isn't there a better usage of its resources?

If they didn't pay rent relief for those that are renting and unemployed, that argument might have some weight. But they do...

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

If they didn't pay rent relief for those that are renting and unemployed, that argument might have some weight. But they do...

..........to prevent you becoming homeless rather than to support your purchase of an asset though.

 

[beorhthelm]

..........to prevent you becoming homeless rather than to support your purchase of an asset though.

er... so they pay for someone else's asset instead? class warriors need to step back and think it through, its a bloody shit state of affairs. Its the wrong way round, they should pay for the first 39 weeks or what ever, while you sort yourself out. afterall, its supposed to be a safety net but seems to only work for those that cant be bothered in the first place.

 

[csider]

A question you have to ask, why should the state pay anything to your mortgage, isn't there a better usage of its resources?

Thanks for that, all the tax & ni etc I have paid over 20 yrs resulting to me being repossessed and left to sleep on the streets, yeah, sounds good option. Why didnt I think of that.

 

[csider]

er... so they pay for someone else's asset instead? class warriors need to step back and think it through, its a bloody shit state of affairs. Its the wrong way round, they should pay for the first 39 weeks or what ever, while you sort yourself out. afterall, its supposed to be a safety net but seems to only work for those that cant be bothered in the first place.

Quite.....If I am renting they will pay or tell me to find a suitable flat and will pay from day one. As a homeowner who has worked I get nothing.......All very wrong. What I can now do is transfer my hoome and rent out in another persons name etc and re apply in 2-3 months and pick up a fat cheque, maybe thats what i will do??

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

er... so they pay for someone else's asset instead? class warriors need to step back and think it through, its a bloody shit state of affairs. Its the wrong way round, they should pay for the first 39 weeks or what ever, while you sort yourself out. afterall, its supposed to be a safety net but seems to only work for those that cant be bothered in the first place.

And a safety net is exactly what there is - designed to prevent people becoming homeless.