Messy Situation - Where Would Someone Stand Regarding Somewhere To Live?

Dougal O

Hi.

This is pretty messy, and social welfare etc will be contacted on Monday to get more info, but for now, can anyone help me with this.

My wife wants to separate (I'd prefer not to, and address our problems, but I have no control over it). We've applied for mediation.

Neither of us are in full-time permanent work. I was made redundant 2 years ago, but I'm now getting occasional work away from home (submitting apropriate weekly slips to local SW office), wife is getting cash-in-hand (under the amount of hours permitted by welfare to still qualify for social welfare).

I'm currently claiming JA for myself, my wife & our three kids. We also get mortgage interest supplement.

Short term arrangement (me moving back to my parents (in my 40's :mad:) or staying in B&Bs while at work) has been agreed between our solicitirs, while they work on a more long term plan.

With neither of us in permanent full time employment, things are already really tight.

When I inevitably move out properly (not at all happy about it, but I don't see a reasonable alternative), my wife will start claiming social welfare for herself and the three kids (they'll remain with her in the family home). She'll probably continue to receive the MIS, I presume, as she's staying in the family home. I also presume she'll also receive some sort of single parent assistance, and possibly some other form of assistance for paying the mortgage?

Despite my bitterness and immense dis-pleasure about me having to move out (when it's my wife that wants to separate), I can't bring myself to insist that it be her that moves out, even though, with me not in full-time work, I would be home a lot of the time, till I hopefully do get full-time work, so the kids would still be in the family home, with one parent. So I do want to be sure that my wife & the kids are relatively comfortable, and in no risk of being foodless or nearing poverty.

So where does all this leave me? In addition to having to continue to pay my mortgage (in whatever way is decided by whoever decides these things), I'll also have to rent somewhere that will accommodate the three kids for overnight visits. And to my mind, anywhere I do rent shouldn't be of a lower standard, in any way, than if everything was ok and I was living in the family home - or do I have that wrong? Am I supposed to just accept the dingiest hole I can get, and disregard my expectations? Do I only deserve a kip because my wife doesn't want me any more?

Anyway, what allowances or assistance are likely to be available to me, given that I'll technically continue to be a home-owner? I'm sure I'll get my own social welfare payment (when I have no work), but after that, what's there?

I did get a call from an old boss the other day - he has a new job, and seems confident he'll be able to sort me out with something in the first half of this year, but till then, or until something else comes along, I need to know where I stand.

Sorry about the life story - plenty of extra info there, but I'm to drained to go over it and edit it out - sorry.

Thanks for any replies.

corkonian 38

i feel ur pain im in the same situation, all do i am working its still quite hard, visit kids and walk away back to a lonely flat :(:(:(:(

wmpdd3

When you move out, you will have to apply to be rehoused by the council, then after 6 months of renting, if you are still not working you will get rent relief.

Dougal O

After 6 months of renting? So how do I pay for the 6 months rent?

By rehoused, I take it you mean the council sources suitable accommodation for me? What might the parameters or factors be that the council consider when they do this?

Proximity to family home?
Level of similarity of family home (in terms of state of repair, security, etc)?
Suitability for having my kids visit?

Or do they just try to find the cheapest place they can, and disregard my expectations?


Thanks

wmpdd3

you prob have very little hope of getting a house, you just have to go through the motions.

Graces7

There is no alternative to renting privately until that six months is over.

Please, go to Citizen's info; they are the experts and this will not be the first time they have helped with this.

Also your Community Welfare Officer.

A terrible situation for you...

krissovo

The same happened to me, the kids and wife stayed in the family home while I moved to bedsit. It was all I could afford and I stayed there for nearly two years. I couldn't even have the kids stay over night :-( So it was very hard in the winter. Come summer at least we could go camping together which we did quite a lot.

I was told NOT to move in with my parents as I would lose a number of benefits however I was working full time all be it on a low(ish) wage.

Anyway it was a tough time, even harder than before the split and it really troubled the kids at an important time of their lives. They are still a bit messed up from it so if there is any chance of staying in the family home it really does make sense to stick with it. My ex and I both agree that we should have stayed together until the kids reached at least 16.

By the way despite everything we have both come through the situation positively. We both own homes and are doing well financially, but it took a number of years.

Dougal O

Thanks all.

I've had to contact a solicitor to respond to my wife's solicitor's letter.

For the next 6-8 weeks, I'm basically going to be out of the family home Mon-Fri with work anyway, and I'll go to my folk's when I've no work. My wife will have to leave the family home over the weekends.

This is short-term while the solicitors review it all and try to come up with something else.

But I'm getting angry about this. I've asked for none of it. I'll take it on the chin that I'm not perfect and that I have let my wife down (though not such that warrants separating - yes, that's subjective, but counseller, all parents, and many friends on both sides have agreed), but I want to make it up to her, and get us back on track - we have a family FFS! Not to mention that we have FA money!

So my wife's resistance to marriage counselling, and her own barring order on any family or friends on my side (after 20 years together, they're all effectively our friends) approaching her, and her similar barring order that I can't contact any family or friends (again, our friends) on her side, is all just too much now. I'm angry with myself for even letting her away with all this.

I've asked for none of this.
I want to fix things, rather than let it all collapse.
I've agreed to mediation.
I've had to enter into the legal process.
I've agreed to stay out of the family home.

Anyone reading this, is this proposition unreasonable:

I want my wife to resume counselling while this space thing is in place. If she refuses, I change tack and she's the one who leaves the family home.


Thanks

Rob113

Sorry to hear what your going through. It's horrible business. Know exactly how you are feeling.

If she left with the kids would the social not find her suitable accommodation and pay her rent allowance and give her the single parents allowance etc. The laws and the social etc are always weighed heavier on the side of the woman. And they are probably likelier to find her a house for her and the kids quicker than they would find you a bedsit or something.

Dougal O

Thanks.

My solicitor, counseller, citizen's advice office, and social welfare officer have all said the best thing for the kids is for them to stay in the family home, and I agree - minimum disruption for them, etc. My own needs come after theirs.

This is all just sickening. I've actually built parts of our home myself. I mean literally - extension, kitchen conversion, extra storage in places, furniture, decking, patio. How then can it come to pass that, in my 40's, I now have to face a future in bedsits & rented accommodations for the rest of my days (unless the lotto chooses me), after I've put so much into the home? My blood, sweat & tears are all literally in the physical being of the house, along with my ideas, creativity, ingenuity . . . This isn't what I signed up for.

And yet the alternative to me renting bedsits or flats is that my wife ends up doing it instead, and I can't stomach that either. I want my kid's mother to have dignity. She has & deserves her dignity.

On some wierd level, the notion of me in my own pad, spending all night watching 2 Star Wars or Aliens movies a night, at full volume, in just my underpants, with a pizza & Club orange is pretty appealing, but then I realise - I may not even get a place where I can bring a TV, or turn up the volume. Then real reality kicks in - my kids may not even be able to stay over, or even visit . . . So I'll only get to visit them . . .

I wonder if I just played hardball for a change, and suggested that my wife moves out rather than me, might she change her tune when the ugliness of that reality hits her, and decide that giving things between us a chance might be the preferrable route for her?

Seeing my solicitor again tomorrow.


Thanks