Would we qualify for housing benefit?

Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for your replies earlier about housing benefit.  This isn't quite related to housing, specifically, but benefits still so I'm putting it here.  In applying for housing benefit (via my Brit husband), they said we needed to apply for tax credits.  We did, purposely excluding the section about working tax credits because we are not sure if we are OK to receive them.  I am the working partner and my husband stays home with our son.  Due to this situation, we aren't sure whether we can receive working tax credits without breaching my settlement visa terms.  So we tried to just apply for the child tax credit through my husband.  What happened is that they applied the child tax credit and deposited it directly into my husband's bank account but then sent cheques made out to me for working tax credit. 

We have not deposited them.  I've called the tax credit office who deferred my case to the next level.  I am still waiting to hear back.  There is a 30 day expiration date on the cheques, of which 2 weeks is already gone.

Will I be breaching the terms of my visa if I deposit the cheques?
Can they apply working tax credit through my husband even though he is not working?

I think I will start working on preparing for the KOL test so we won't need to worry about this stuff anymore.

Thanks for your help!
Katie

I'm no expert in these things by any means, but I'm pretty sure you can't do working tax credit yourself until you have ILR, and as it would be based on your income, not your husband's, it looks like an error to me.  My DH applied for benefits while he was looking for work.  I had work; he didn't, and we were told the only one that applied as I didn't have ILR at that time, was JobSeekers.