Relevant change opf circs?

Apologies if this has been raised before

I have a client who is working full time and gets child tax and working tax creds

She will be out of work for a month and then starts a new full time job

She lives in full Uc area : As she is in receipt of older legacy can she claim HB or must it be a change to UC?

UC probably wont pay out a great deal due to any TC run on, plus owed wages/holiday pay etc etc for that particular month

She doesn’t want UC as she doesn’t want to wait weeks without money for her children as Tax credits will perhaps stop, and its only for a month anyway?

Thanks

If you live in a full service area then (subject to a handful of exceptions), you cannot make a new claim any of the six legacy benefits.

So, ordinarily, your client couldn’t claim housing benefit. If she wants help with her housing costs, she would need to claim UC. Claiming UC would mean her tax credits end.

One of the exceptions is if you have 3+ kids - so if that’s the case, she could claim HB for a month without issue.

Another of the exceptions is that if her WTC stops but her CTC continues, she would be able to revive the WTC claim when she got the new job.

Pretty much what I thought. Im always the eternal optimist…

I did think that Child tax credits would have stopped and converted to UC allowance, so keeping CTC and WTC is a positive I suppose.

Thanks Elliott