I have recently lost my job but I am being paid for the remainder of this month and the whole of next month.

What I need to know is, does this affect mine and my partners tax credits?

She is still in employment and believes we will lose out on approx £350 a month whilst I am 'not in active work.

As said above, I am due a full months pay in Jan and the same again in Feb.

She doesn't want to call up to discuss the possibilities slough I am being paid. She is just going off what the calculators say on the .gov websites.

My understanding of it is that if I am still in receipt of a salary, then benefits won't change until I am not being paid. As I know with JSE that I won't get a penny until I am no longer getting a salary?

Has anyone ever had experience with this, or even work for the government and are able to comment?

Any help appreciated.

I think you can have £6000 in 'savings'.
You might not be able to claim until your redundancy period (or whatever it is) is over.

Without the full details there are too many variables to be able to give an answer. I'm out of date with the current rules to hazard a guess.

I'm risk-averse when it comes to HMRC and DWP so basically I'd start asking as soon as possible. Its better to know what you are heading for rather than suddenly arriving at a cliff edge or worse still finding out you have done something wrong that may come back and hit you.

One thing you might have to be careful with is whether you are classed as working at the moment (if you aren't) even though you are being paid. Even then that classification might be different for different Government departments or claims.

My deepest sympathy Peter. I cannot offer any help except to offer my very best wishes for it to work out in the end.

It might be a good idea to go to Citizen's Advice. They will surely have advisors on tap who can tell you what your options are.

Good luck.

I think its down to hours worked isn't it for tax credits to kick in ?

if your still getting paid call it a Holiday

Nice two month holiday with pay.

Legally i guess its going to be on your p45.

You need to get in touch with them as soon as poss, i drew tax credits last year as on low income, then a few months down the line in November they wrote to me informing me that the payments would stop, i had no idear why! i few months later i gets a letter in the post to say i had earned too much from August on wards, so the payments had stopped, i wrote back to them saying if i had earned more from August onwards why did you still keep paying me up till November, i got no answer back, a few weeks later i recieved a letter saying as i had been over paid by £300 please pay this back by the end of the month. So had to borrow the money to pay them back,needless to say they go a nice letter to go with the cheque i sent back.
So please check before you hope everything is ok, as they have a way of kicking you when your down.

One of most important distinctions with Universal credit is that it is nothing to do with hours worked just income.As a new claimant you will be under UC regulations. One stop shops/Job Centres have support workers in place to help otherwise go to ASK US WIRRAL and they will advise best way to get what you are entitled to. Earlier you start the better as they are very busy and it might take a while to get an appointment. All the best. Nightmare losing a job.

Its not quite that simple:-

A self employed person has the "minimum income floor" whereby they are assumed to be working 35 hours at minimum wage.

For an employed person the number of hours worked governs how many hours job-seeking you have to do in order to get Universal Credit, your working hours plus job seeking hours have to total at least 35 hours unless you are on a work program where they have flexibility to state how you spend your non-working hours.

In both cases various other factors come into account such as housing costs, partners status and income, children and health.