Confused Will Child Tax Credit/Family Allowance affect our application?

My partner and I have a 3 year old daughter together we are all residing in the UK. My partner is a British citizen, Im American and our daughter has dual nationality...she was born in the USA but has a British passport. My partner and I are not married but I have overstayed my visit...he will be making the £18,600 by next April 2018 with the pay rise he gets this June 2017. He is however claiming child tax credit and child benefits at the minute, will our application be rejected? We called HMRC and asked if we aren't married and Im American if we should put both our names down to claim both benefits, they said no just his name. Will our application be rejected because he claims these 2 benefits? He does not claim anything else. Please help I would greatly appreciate it.

Well, you have a LOT more to be concerned with than CTC and CB.

When do you plan to legalise your status in the UK?  When did you become an illegal overstayer?

You do realise that you are jeopardising your family's entire future by not being legal in the country?

It is going to take a lot of money, a lot of time, and an EXCELLENT attorney to sort your status legally.  With all of that you *may* have a chance at a successful visa application but will be put on the 10 year path to ILR, meaning many more visas and fees over the coming years.

Before inserting a little emoticon rolling your eyes maybe you should get facts before judging someone. If my partner and I did not care for our family we would not be sorting out a visa in the first place and just live off benefits. My partner is a hard worker and I am a good mother to my child and obviously Im seeking help because I care so don't patronise me about jeopardising my family's future. There's countless people here who have agreed that the rules are unjust. I wont go on any further if you chose to judge. I didnt come here for that.

I shall remove the rolly eyes.  They were there due to the extortionate fees UKVI charges for families to be together.

I don't judge.  But I do think that you are focused on the wrong thing right now.  Honestly, claiming benefits is the least of your worries.

But do help me help you.

When did you become an illegal overstayer?
What type of visa were you on prior to the expiration date?
Why can you not apply until April 2018?  Typically after 6 months in salaried employment one can apply - I hate for you to wait more than a year to legalise your status.  It affects everything.  For everyday you overstay, it is going to be that much harder to legalise your status in the UK.

I was surprised to get that kind of response from you since I have been following forums on UK Y for quiet some time now. I moved back to the U.S while I was pregnant, my partner and I were seperated for nearly 3 years. I came back with our daughter now 3 in April last year 2016. Trying to sort the visa out from different countries and miscommunication between my partner and I, he thought he was supposed to make £18,600 after taxes not before. We thought we were short by thousands. Come to find when we arrived and went through his p60s he makes an average of £18,450 before taxes. This June he will be getting a pay rise making the £18,600 along with any overtime probably more.. I know the longer we wait it will get harder, we are both stressed out to the max. We dont know how to go about this. Hes receiving CTC and CB at the moment.

I am aware if I have used the NHS I would have to repay any money to the NHS over a certain amount not sure what that amount was but surprisingly I have not used the NHS during my stay.

Okay, great news on the £18,600 from starting from June.

What that means is that there should be two options:

1.  You can apply after he has been at over £18,600/year for six months (so December, possibly January).

2.  You can apply as soon as he has made over £18,600 (gross) in the past 12 months.  So if his raise is enough to push him over £18,600 for the year after that very first paycheck in June, you can apply this year in June.

Adding to that, if you add in his overtime to his earnings over the last 6 or 12 months, does that get you over the threshold?  If so, you can apply now.

I don't want my tone to be misinterpreted.  It's the middle of the night and I imagine both of us aren't asleep for very valid reasons (I'm heavily pregnant, hormonal, and deep in the throws of quarter end for work, so figured I'd try to knock a few hours of work out in the middle of the night considering this kid doesn't want me to sleep).

But the overstay IS going to seriously and negatively impact your application.  You cannot do this application yourself.  You WILL need to hire a solicitor to apply on your behalf.  I'd recommend using Medivisas (specifically Victoria Sharkey) based out of London or Laura Devine (she has offices located in both London and New York).  Unfortunately a reputable solicitor is not going to be without a large bill.  But they will be able to get you legalised and on the 10 year path to settlement.  After that first visa approval, you *should* be okay to submit the three future applications without a solicitor.

This is the list of public funds that you are not allowed to claim, however, all of that goes out the window a bit when you are applying outside of the rules (which unfortunately is your current circumstance).  Your husband can claim any and all of these - he just can't claim *more* because of you.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-funds--2/public-funds

Another consideration is use of the NHS.  If you use the NHS, please be sure to request a bill and pay it.  An outstanding NHS bill of £500 leads to an automatic visa refusal.

You CAN do this.  It's going to be expensive and time consuming, but you can do this.   Your a mom, you can do anything.   

I am aware if I have used the NHS I would have to repay any money to the NHS over a certain amount not sure what that amount was but surprisingly I have not used the NHS during my stay.

You read my mind!  I wrote about it in my reply.

KFdancer you are simply wonderful. Pregnant and hormonal, you have been nothing but kind, comforting, and helpful to me and many others on this forum.

AllieCT2014, please listen to her helpful advice and to the the words of others here as they really want to help you all that they can. They don't get paid, they do it out of the kindness of their hearts. For myself, I would dearly love to meet and thank them personally.

Well, you have a LOT more to be concerned with than CTC and CB.

Although that is also VERY serious.

We called HMRC and asked if we aren't married and Im American if we should put both our names down to claim both benefits, they said no just his name.

Welfare payments are nothing to do with married.  If you had told HMRC that you are living togehter as a couple, then they would have told you that he must claim in joint names. It is benefit fraud to claim you are single when you are not.

I think he can expect to pay all the Tax Credit benefit money back. The government do not allow the money he would have received as part of a couple, to be deducted from the money he will need to pay back from his single parent claim. He needs legal advice here too ASAP because if it runs into thousands of pounds, which it sounds like it might as he doesn't earn very much, then he could find himself in court for benefit fraud.

The Child Benefit he was allowed to claim in his own name.

How about housing benefit? Was he claiming for that too? Or Council Tax Allowance? Or Council Tax 25% single person discount?

Before inserting a little emoticon rolling your eyes maybe you should get facts before judging someone. If my partner and I did not care for our family we would not be sorting out a visa in the first place and just live off benefits.

You are living off benefits. Tax Credits are benefits.

If you go to the benefits section on the government site, you find this -

https://www.gov.uk/claim-tax-credits/joint-claims


3. Joint claims

You can apply for tax credits as a single person, or as a couple (known as a ‘joint claim’) if you’re both 16 or over and living in the UK.

Usually, you must make a joint claim if:

    you’re married or in a civil partnership (and not permanently or legally separated)
    you live with your partner as though you’re married or in a civil partnership
    you’re temporarily living away from one another, for example looking after a relative or working abroad for the government for less than 8 weeks

You might also need to make a joint claim if you and your partner are not married or in a civil partnership, but:

    sometimes live in the same house
    have a joint financial agreement
    have dependent children


"You must pay back any tax credits you’re not entitled to if you don’t make the right sort of application."

No he isn't claiming any other form of benefts. I dont understand, it says if he isnt subject to immigration control he cant claim, he is not entitled to claim if he's a British citizen? We dont live in London, would they be able to handle our case from a different city? This is so stressful. Would it be better to leave the UK with our daughter and apply? We obviously dont want to be separated again. My stomach is in knots. We ibviously dont want to continue to live off benefits we want to give our daughter the best life and thats by doing it the rignt way.

Would we be better off cutting off our daughter's CTC and CB asap?

Would we be better off cutting off our daughter's CTC and CB asap?

He is claiming CB correctly, in his name only. He can claim benefits and has a child in his household.

As you saw from the Tax Credits link I gave, it reads that Tax Credits should be clained in joint names as that is nothing to do with being married,  yet he is claiming as a single parent.