Josie is a single mother to 2 children, she lives in temporary accommodation due to a relationship breakdown…….
Client Profile: Josie is a single mother to 2 children, she lives in temporary accommodation due to a relationship breakdown. Josie and her children all have medical health conditions.
Josie was in receipt of Income Support, Child Tax Credits, Child Benefit, Council Tax support and Housing Benefit.
Reason client needs advice: Josie's housing benefit stopped unexpectedly, and because of this, the landlord threatened Josie with eviction if she did not meet her rent payment. Her landlord advised Josie to claim Universal Credit (UC).
Josie made a claim for UC, and by doing this her Income Support and Child Tax Credits stopped.
Josie was then benefit capped by £500 per month.
Josie was forced to use the foodbank as she was struggling with the cost of living.
Josie was issued a section 8 notice to seek possession of the property because of the rent arrears.
What we have done to help the client: We advised Josie to apply for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for her child and to apply for Personal Independent Payment (PIP) for herself.
If these benefits are granted, the benefit cap would not apply to Josie.
We also helped Josie make a Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) application to either clear the rent arrears or reduce them.
Outcome:
Housing Benefit issue was resolved and £2000 (backdated to point of UC claim), rent arrears cleared through the application for a DHP.
• Eviction stopped
• Benefit cap stopped
• Both PIP and DLA were awarded. PIP - £247.40 every 4 weeks and DLA - £467.40 every 4 weeks.
• UC disabled child element awarded - £414.88
• Total better off every month £1,189.24 (Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment and Disability Living Allowance).
• Back dated PIP £2,800 one off payment received
• Back dated DLA £2,200 one off payment received.
• Total back dated one off payment £5,000 received
NOTE: All client stories have had certain details changed or omitted to preserve the clients anonymity.