Applying for council housing.

[dillys]

I am british and my husband is a Turkish citizen on a Spouse visa. He arrived in Jan 2010 and we live with my mum. I am claiming Incapacity benefit and DLA. My husband is still looking for work, so has no income. All of this public funds stuff is really confusing. Could we apply for a council house and receive HB (HB until he finds a job) without it affecting his ILR?

Also, is there anything he could be claiming while looking for a job? We're positive he'll get a job during the xmas period but whether it'll lead to it being permanent is unknown. He worked and made his NI contributions in Turkey before coming to the UK, and we have proof of those.

Any help would be great.

[vincomgo]

where do u live now? Do u have any children?

[dillys]

where do u live now? Do u have any children?

We live in Leicester and would be under Leicester city council. We live with my mum in her council property.

We don't have any children, so I know we'd be at the bottom of the list.

[John]

This is actually quite complicated. Firstly there is not a problem just applying for Council Housing, but if any is allocated, would that be a problem? Well it could be given that if the accommodation allocated is bigger than would be allocated to a single person, then that would be considered use of Public Funds.

Furthermore, if HB is claimed then it would be necessary to claim it as a single person, and that could restrict the HB payable.

Your husband has now been in the UK for 8 months and is still out of work. Yes I do appreciate the state of the economy and I know it is difficult, but he needs to get work, any work, in order to help your situation.

[dillys]

So it's ok as long as it's no more than say, a one bed flat that's less than the £90-something limit for a single persons HB?

He did get offered a job as a cafe manager after an expansion, but after they dragged it out for two months, they went into bankrupcy! Which means starting all over again in the job search. He's starting an ESOL course in March, which will hopefully help in his applications, but a lot of the application forms sent off don't even net him an interview, even though he's been working for the past 15+ years and has references etc. We were thinking that if the council property and HB was possible, we could start looking a lot further afield for jobs and relocate.