Hi, my name is Verity123!

Verity123
Verity123 Online Community Member Posts: 6 Listener
in Start here and say hello!

Hi everyone,

My partner has a learning disabilty and qualifies for Council Tax Reduction, he also currently receives PIP . We are one of the few remaining still currently on legacy benefits and he has just received an Income from Self Employment form to assess our Housing Benefit again. Despite his disablity he loves to do what he can from home to bring in an income, but it is currently below what would be the Minimum Income Floor if we were on UC. This doesn't seem to have caused a problem with the Council for the last 10 years when we've had these forms to fill in before, but with this Self Employment form he has received a covering letter asking why he is not earning more money than he does.

We are now very concerned that we are doing something wrong and are wondering if we could be looking at a potential problem going back 10 years!

Any comments would be very welcome, we're both very stressed about this!

Thank you,

Verity

Comments

  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Online Community Member Posts: 64,050 Championing

    The minimum income floor doesn’t apply to housing benefit. This applies to Universal Credit. What other benefits are you both claiming other than housing benefit?

  • Verity123
    Verity123 Online Community Member Posts: 6 Listener

    Hi Poppy,

    Thank you so much for replying, this is so stressfull!

    Obviously, at the moment we are waiting for that dreaded letter to come through the door telling us to migrate to UC, but until then, he gets PIP and we get Housing Benefit, Working and Child Tax Credits (16 Yrs old). I was getting Carer's Allowance, but my work kept taking me over the maximimum income allowed, so that stopped.

    So, he loves his little job, it gives him a reason to get going every day, but with the best will in the world he's never going to achieve the 35 hours x minimum wage, which is why he's dreading the forthcoming migration. As I said previously, he's been doing this little job for the last 10 years and regularly filling out these Income From Self Employment Forms for Housing Benefit and CTR, declaring his Income and they've never questoned it until now, asking in a separate letter, 1. Why his Income is so low and 2. Why it stays the same amount every year.

    I know it sounds silly, but we're not really sure how to reply to this, with the fear that maybe we are doing something wrong and if we don't reply in a certain way (i.e. knowing our rights) then maybe we're replying our way into a lot of trouble, going back 10 years!

    All very stressfull, neither of us have had a good night sleep since receiving this and it has to be in by Friday. So, thanks for any advice on how we should reply!

    All the best,

    Verity

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