Hi!
I'm really hoping someone out there has some great insight or sound advice, cause I really dont know what to do :S
My partner started a new job on Monday, after having been on benefit since January. We asked very specifically at the Jobcentre whether our housing & council tax benefit would be immediately stopped, and were told that it wouldn't. We were told there would be a 4 week 'run-on' period to help him back into work.
Turns out this was all wrong, we were not entitled to run-on, as he hadn't been out of work for 6 months.
Now we are very careful about our payments and dates etc. so it was quite a surprise when our housing benefit didn't arrive, given that our rent is due on Monday. Obviously he won't be getting any pay for the first month in his new job.
We've still not received any information about this from the Housing or Jobcentre. I only found out all this because I phoned and checked.
I spent all day yesterday on the phone to various people - housing, cavendish court, benefits advice, citizens advice, crisis loans - none of whom could offer any assistance. The best advice any of them gave was to call our landlord and discuss it, something I'm quite reluctant to do as we only moved here recently, and to make a formal complaint to the Jobcentre so they can change their systems.
Now we have today and tomorrow to try and solve this, which won't be easy given that nowhere is open on weekends.
I know benefits threads are pounced on and highly criticised, but the real problem here is that we foresaw this issue and made sure we explicitly asked about exactly this, and in essence were lied to by the Jobcentre. If they had told us the truth when we asked a week ago we could have put plans in place, or at least been able to contact relevant people. As is, we are not going to be able to pay our rent on Monday, and our only option seems to be to go begging from friends and family.
The way I see it, this is the Jobcentres fault. They gave us the wrong information and have left us in a very difficult position, and don't seem interested in offering any form of support or advice. I will make a formal complaint, and I would be contacting our MP if we had one right now, but none of this will help our immediate problem.
Any ideas? Thanks for reading anyway...sorry is quite a lengthy rant, but I just feel like I've been talking to brick wall for last 2 days
