Moving out
My relationship with my child’s dad is really unstable, not dangerous or cruel to my child but her dad and I are just not particularly happy together.
The issue is if we split and one of us has to move out. We’re both unemployed but he’s en route to change that hopefully, as am I, joint uc claim, joint tenancy in our social housing 2 bed, everything’s got both our names on iirc and we have no arguments over potential custody arrangements, we agree 50/50 custody. I think it’d be easier for me to move out of the house as I have a lot more support close by whereas his closest friends or family are an hour plus and he can’t drive. The problem is I don’t know how we’d get me housed somewhere else, I don’t have savings, there’s no space for me at my family’s home, It’s not a dangerous situation/involving DV so I don’t think I get emergency acom as there’s no deadline for me to move out. If we take my name of the tenancy that means I’m “making myself willingly homeless “ if I understand right, but if we’re splitting up the uc claim has to be changed and ugh it all just makes no sense to me how I’m supposed to go about it.
This is all hypothetical but I want to be able to understand what’s going to happen if we hypothetically do decided to coparent separately like we’ve talked about. If anyone can help please do if you feel comfortable but I’d like to remain anonymous so I won’t message anybody privately.
Tia x
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Depending if you move out with you child, you can ask your local social housing that your homeless with a child and depending if council is busy, they will be way quicker if you say your homeless with a child than by yourself. Make your own claim with universal, it really depends which parent the child stays with the most who gets child benefit if he is on uc aswell. If both of you don’t drive you want to stay local to each other for the child’s sake if your co parenting, as be much easier travel wise, but that’s if your comfortable with that and is suitable for you. My ex lives up north where I live down south with our son, it’s about 4hrs drive but our situation is a lot different that’s why we live far. Hope this helps a bit! X
Thank you for this, the idea was first off I’d need to swap child benefit to go to him not me and he’d send half over, and for my partner to keep the house and I’d essentially hope for a big one bed on the bidding list, and yes we’d want to live somewhat close together for everybody’s sake. My confusion is with things like where would I stay? Surely I can’t stay once I’m off the tenancy, or can I? How long is it likely to take given the fact that I’d legally be homeless but 1. Id done it “willingly”(legally speaking since I’d be agreeing to leave the tenancy) 2. The fact that we’d have nearly 50/50 custody except for giving him slightly “more”(?) so he gets to stay in the house? I don’t expect you to know the answers to all my questions but anything you *can* share helps(: plus if anyone else sees and can answer! Thank you for everything you’ve already let me know🩷
For the tenancy wise, if it’s a joint tenancy and you give notice that you don’t want to be on it, the whole tenancy ends for both, if he stays the landlord must agree a new tenancy in his name only. For where you can stay, for temporary if any friends/family until something comes up. Go to council and ask for emergency accommodation and then apply to get on the housing list. Or a cheap private rent, use universal credit/ housing benefit if eligible. Apply to the homeless council team. The quicker you do it the quicker your not have waiting
Are you sure you want to have that child benefit transferred over to him?
You’ll lose the child element of your UC, nursery funding, you’ll only ever be eligible for 1 bed home. Financially, you’re agreeing for him to be the primary parent and leaving yourself with a single persons allowance, which is tough to live off.
You’re right about the intentional homelessness issue, but if you’re in a joint tenancy and present as homelessness, some councils will tell you that until the tenancy has ended or reassigned they won’t help, so I’d check with your local authority (LA) before you do anything. (My LA advise people to come off the tenancy before an homelessness assessment).
If you get the tenancy reassigned to just him, yes you can stay there as an occupant, but it may impact a homelessness assessment.
No one can give you a time frame for rehousing on here, get an estimate from your LA. In some areas of London it can be 8 years, where I am it can be a year, sometimes less.
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