I am absolutely blazing mad, fit to burst in fact. Last year everyone in our street had cavity wall and roof insulation done free of charge. We did not have ours done as my husband was in and out of hospital for weeks at a time so said we would get it done this year. when we had the soffits and guttering replaced. This has now just been done so I have just telephone three companies, told them I am over 70 years of age and have a disabled husband and we have been turned down because we do not have income support or pension benefits.
When I asked them why all our neighbours got it free they said it must have been an offer.
I was under the impression that over 70's received it free.
Bummer that,,i know just what you feel like,,i have a small private pension,,,not much but just over threshold for any benifits..Makes you wonder why you worked yuo ass off in the first place..
My parents didn't spend, we havn't spent but we'd be better off without it, all the freebies and balance that out against the miserable interest it brings in, we would be better off spending the lot, and what would happen if we all did that.
It's hard to cavity insulate a tent. When I get rich I'm gonna have a shed and live in luxury. Poor Bobby xx
We had our loft and walls done, free, a few years back. Wondering if you should ring social services who would advise or point you in the direction of someone who can. Dont blame you for being mad? Love Annie80x
I have contacted Age Uk, and waiting for a reply. I will also contact the Council. It is true, for the measly interest we get on our little bit of savings (just over the thresh-hold) we may as well draw the lot out and give it to our children but I suppose big brother will be watching us. We have all got a pittance rise in our pension but that also puts us over the thresh-hold again. I used to work for the NHS and young mothers came in for their free milk because they were just under the thresh-hold for benefits. Other mothers came in and they were £2 over the thresh-hold so had to pay for their milk, so the mothers who had to pay were at least £14 per week worse off after paying for it. There is no justice.
Thank you very much for your comments, I will keep you informed.
I have just been on the government site and it states that the old free cavity wall insulation grant has now been stopped, it is now called The Green Deal and benefits are taken into account.
Hi folks. I just moved my gas & electricity to British Gas and the man on the phone asked if we had the insulations. Since we have I didn't ask him any more but I got the impression he would have offered some king of deal - woth checking out?
I agree wholeheartedly with everyone's comments about benefits. I worked all the hours god sends, studied at night, worked away from home 5 days a week for 27 years, took a job where I was responsible for other people, saved, paid into a pension (conscience decisions about how to spend our money so we went without other things). Had nothing from the state except unemployment benefit when I was off work once for quite a long time.
Now I have a motability car (oh what a life saver that is) but I paid £2k for the scooter and the hoist to get it in and out? And guess who paid £6k for the Stannah stair lift so I can get up & down stairs - well it wasn't the council.
So when I die soon and my wife's part of my pension is cut in half and she doesn't have the benefit of my state pension (earned over 47 years' work) she also won't have all those savings to help her live.
Who'se the fool - me or the people who have babies and get free rented flats, their furniture provided, and all the benefits up to the lady reported as having benefits for which she would need to earn £70, 000 if she was in work, or the lady 10 miles from here who is having a 5 bedroomed house built worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds just because she won't stop having babies?
And nturally I can't mention immigrants, legal or not, who come into the country with full benefit entitlement because I will be called a racist.
I was a member of a Labour party which was socialist - born to look after people who were down on their luck through circumstance. Which expenses fiddler should I vote for now?
Hi Frank, thanks for your comments, yes we are in exactly the same position, paid for our stairlift, hand-rails for the bath-room, bathroom seats etc. etc. just forked out £500 for lots of repairs and gardening doing. I just feel like drawing all our money out and sticking it in a tin box under the floorboards but big brother will know all about it. If I had our time again we have said we would rent, have expensive holidays and definitely put our money in a tin box under the floor-boards and claim every benefit going, we also have to pay for our dental treatment, glasses, rates, water rates, tv licence, food, clothes, electric, gas.
We have a young woman living in her own detached house near us, she has a child and is divorced. Her father gave her the money to buy her ex-husband out of his share of the house, she gets, child support, benefits, free loft and cavity insulation, free dental and optical charges. She pays for a gardener to do all the work, her father does all her diy
People say be glad you have your own house to sell, where do we go if we sell, we don't want to buy again or even rent as my husband couldn't take the hassle, all the house is to us is a means of leaving it to our children when we die, and heaven forbid if we have to go into a home, the government will take that too but I will kill myself before that happens. We have looked into putting the deeds into our sons names and making a will that states we can live there until we either die or are incapable of looking after ourselves, but there is also a clause in that, you have to live 7 years after making the changes otherwise if you go into a home they can still claim it for payment.
People also say we still have our pride because we do not claim benefits, I am not proud, I am ashamed of myself for not knowing the complete ins and outs of claiming benefits like some of these lazy good for nothing layabouts, who sit outside their house drinking cans of beer and smoking all day long, they deserve a medal for beating the darned system.
You can tell I am absolutely seething. The government ought to be helping the people who help themselves and helping the people who definitely need help and not taking their benefits away. Benefits should be for people who definitely need them, especially the old and infirm, people on this site with all their terrible illnesses ought to get top priority in benefits, they should not have to get down on all fours begging for handouts, the benefits should be theirs by right. A doctor or specialist should have a form to fill in to be handed to the benefits office stating they need this and need that, it would cut out all the red-tape of filling in forms, appealing, and re-appealing, when you are seriously ill, you do not have the strength, willpower, or the inclination to be filling forms in week after week, it is soul destroying.
Also, it does not matter how much savings you have, you have saved, paid tax on the interest so it should be nothing whatsoever to do with the government, if your illness or state of affairs says you are entitled to benefits then your savings or lack of them should not, under any circumstances come into it.
As you can tell, we seethe together over exactly the same things.
One point about the council taking the house if the second marriage partner has to go into a nursing home after the first has died. Most couples buy a house together like we did and like you seem to have done. It's called "A joint tenancy" and if the first partner dies the second owns the whole house. So the council can take the lot.
There's another way which we have done. It's called "Tenants in common".
I own half the house and my wife owns half the house, separately. If I die first (likely) I have left my half of the house to my two sons equally, i.e. they would own a quarter each. They must let my wife live in it until she dies, and sell it if she wants to. If she were to go into a nursing home she only owns half the house so the council can only get that half cos my sons already own the rest.
Complicated - of course, a solicitor was involved. The bill says £280 but I don't know if that included rewriting the will.s So you could see what your solicitors would charge (you have got wills haven't you?).
Hi Frank, thanks for your great comments but the house is in my husbands name and he won't change it to joint names as he says because we have both made wills out, if he dies I get everything, if I die, he gets everything, but I said, what would happen if he had to go into a care home because I had been taken ill and could no longer look after him, he said whatever will be will be and if he had to sell the house to pay for the care home fees then that is what he would do. So I said again, what about me, I would only have my state pension because they would take his state pension and his attendance allowance so I would be left with about £400 per month to live on., and after nearly 50 years of marriage I would have nothing to my name.
I can only hope he dies before this happens as he does not seem to give a damn about me or what would happen to me if he did go into care. I think at the bottom of my heart he is blackmailing me so I will keep him at home no matter what my health is like.
How can love turn to dreading him getting up in the morning, wanting this and wanting that and treating me like his servant.
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