advice needed

[welshcake]

I have a parent who is related to another child on my books, she wanted 3 places for her children so obviously i was dead chuffed as i would be full. she is a lone parent and i said i would take her children.

The care for these kids comes to £300 a week so her lone parent advisor begged me to take them as he said her tax credits for childcare would kick in within 14 days. so i did.:panic:

Anyway 3 weeks later no money they have still not sorted it apparently due to the amount of childcare being claimed it has to go to another department.

I have said to mm that come next week i am going to need something as it is draining my money to have her children with no childcare being paid. Plus my tax credits have gone down due to taking the kids on and i havnt even seen the benefit.

Does anyone know how long it can take. I know she will back pay me and pay me when it is sorted but it is gettin ridiculous now and its impacting on my kids. :(

[Mouse]

It'll be tough, but you need to tell mum that you can't go on working for nothing. That's a lot of money to be losing out on. Is she paying you anything at all? Presumably tax credits will only pay her a maximum of 80% anyway, so she should at least be paying you the other 20%.

If she has a lone parents advisor she needs to contact them for help. They may be able to help her chase things up or tell her how to get hold of an emergency loan from social services. It's not up to you to wait until it's all sorted - it's up to mum to find a way to pay.

[mushpea]

I have a parent whose circumstances have changed,, tc stopped her money and told her it would take up to four weeks to sort it out but she only has the one child so with the three it may take longer although I look after 3 from one family and it didnt take too long to sort it out.

[welshcake]

I know i just am soft and cos she is a relative of my best friedn it kinda makes things really awkward. I know i will get the money eventually but atm she owes me £600 from monday it will be £900 she says she aint getting her working tax yet either. if i knew i would get it by ..... then i could work to that but not like this. x

[Ripeberry]

How come they have reduced YOUR tax credits when you've not even been paid yet? :mad: As said before, mum needs to be paying you at least 20%!

[welshcake]

they reduced it cos i had to notify them on my increase in hours so they asked what my new earnings would be. 2 weeks later mine were reduced by alot:panic:

dont even have the money to make up for it.

however the mum is lovely she will pay me eventualy when she gets the money and she is really upset that it is taking to long but i feel bad hounding her all time to sort it. :(

[linzi133]

I had the same problem over Christmas (although my mum managed to pay me for a few weeks).....they took 8 weeks to sort her tax credits out! .....sorry if this is not what you want to hear
x x x

[pinkbutterfly]

they reduced it cos i had to notify them on my increase in hours so they asked what my new earnings would be. 2 weeks later mine were reduced by alot:panic:


I'm sorry for being nosey ... how can you tell what your earnings are if you're self employed? For example in December I actually made a loss ... I bought presents for mindees, we did a lot of cooking and I bought a new table and chairs for mindees to sit at and when I did my accounts I realised that I actually earned nothing and added to it out of my pocket.

[welshcake]

I have increased hours gone over 16hrs so come off tax onto working tax lost £60 a week

[Erika]

Her lone parent advisor should not be advising how long it will take. A lone parent advisor works for DWP, childcare costs for tax credit are processed by HMRC - a totally different authority. As a different authority, DWP cannot say how long it will take for HMRC to process a claim, nor can they say whether tax credit will even be awarded.

It sounds like the claim has gone to the specialist compliance department or as a "high value" claim. They may get in touch with her and ask her to provide evidence of fees and contract so it is important that she gets this all ready for them. They may also write to you. There again, they may not. What she should do, is badger them. She should ask how long it is expected to take for a decision, whether there is anything that she can provide which would assist in speeding up the decision on her claim. She should also enquire whether they will assist her with an interim payment to at least pay her childcare costs. My experience tells me that she won't get any cut and dry answers from the helpline. There is always the option of making an appointment at the local inland revenue office and asking them if there is anything that can be done - again she should ask about the possibility of an interim payment to meet her childcare costs, explaining the consequences if childcare continues to go unpaid - loss of childcare which would subsequently cause a loss of employment. She needs to note the date and who she speaks to and a brief outline of what was said. If there is still nothing after 4 weeks, she should take the lot to her MP and ask him/her to make representations on her behalf.

[jellytots2912]

this happened to me when paying my childminder if you claim over £175.00 per week they refer it to a different department who will then check the prices with the childminder. Get her to ring them everyday thats what i had to do and eventually they sorted it took about 3 weeks , i got them to ring my childminder to confirm prices rather than sending letters cause thats what takes so long, and tell her to complain its the only way they will sort it :-) hope this helps :-)

oh an bear in mind they may not pay her one lump sum cause with us they didnt although she hasent got long till end of financial year so fingers crossed she gets a big payout :-)