emzter19

Hi, I have been living in France for about 8 months, looking after my sisters house while she underwent treatment for breast cancer, she is due to return home in November so I will be returning to the UK around this time, I have two children aged 4 and 7, my 7 year old has ADHD and we were entitled to children's DLA and carers allowance before we left, aswell as child benefit and tax credits which we lost once I told them of our move to France, will I still be entitled to these benefits when we return in November? My husband and I both worked before we left and my husband is due to return to the same employer, any help would be greatly appreciated.

formula

You need to watch your time for returning or you will have to wait before you are allowed to claim.

DLA for children is
"have lived in Great Britain for 2 of the last 3 years, if over 3 years old"
https://www.gov.uk/disability-living...en/eligibility

Carer's Allowance is
"have been in England, Scotland or Wales for at least 2 of the last 3 years"

https://www.gov.uk/carers-allowance/eligibility



Child Benefit is
"usually live in the UK and were getting Child Benefit before moving abroad for less than one year"

https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit-move-to-uk

or else you will have to wait 3 months before you will get this.
Note that Child Benefit now has an income threshold for claimants.



Tax Credits is
"have been abroad for less than a year but usually live in the UK and were claiming Child Tax Credits before moving"

https://www.gov.uk/tax-credits-if-mo...ving-to-the-uk

or else you will be a 3 months before you will get this.

If you move into an area that is already on Universal Credit, there are work requirements that either you or your husband must meet and capital and savings will be counted whereas at present, for some strange reason they don't rule people out of claiming the income based benefit Tax Credits (that's why it is changing). Universal Credit will replace the income based benefits, Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credits, Income Support, ESA, JSA, Housing Benefit. For those with mortgages, the rules are changing under Universal Credit and under the new budget, the temporary help after 13 weeks has now ended and will return to a wait of 39 weeks.

You might want to stay in France and claim if you are exercising your treaty rights and can claim from France because as per the recent budget, UK benefits for parents to claim are being reduced so that they will be lower than they are in France, Germany and Sweden.

• Tax Credits will reduce in April 2016 even for exisiting claimants but not a reduction it seems on the disabilty element of Tax Credits.
• Some benefits will be frozen for 4 years, including Child Benefit and Tax Credits (at the new reduced rate that starts in April 2016).
• April 2017 will see Tax Credits limited to just 2 children, but that won't affect those already in receipt of Tax Credits at that date unless they have a child born after 5 April 2017.

I think there might be some changes for those claiming carer's Allowance too. Not sure.

spouse of scouse

Very helpful info for the OP

formula

Thanks. Thanks to google too as I had to look up the answers as rules are changing all the time.

How is your visa going?

spouse of scouse

I haven't applied yet - current processing time is averaging around 15 days so I'm waiting till our house here is sold before applying. It's just trying to get the timing right, which is proving slightly headache-inducing. Still, it'll all be worth it once we're over there

formula

Don't delay too long. Don't forget that on all that stuff that came in about the IHS, they said something like - citizens of Australia and New Zealand didn't need to pay but that they were in talks with those countries.

Good luck with the house sale.