Pregnant EU Jobseeker, and new EU partner

Any help or advice on this would be appreciated. 

My client is a Czech national who has been in receipt of JSA since December 2012.  She has never worked in the UK.  She was a lone parent when she started her claim.  As well as JSA she gets CB, CTC, DLA for her child and HB.

She is now pregnant again, and the baby is due in September.  Her new partner is also Czech.  He has been in the UK for about 8 months.  As far as I know he has not worked and is not currently claiming any benefits.  (I think he claimed JSA when he arrived, but his claim has stopped due to him coming to our area to stay with client).

In the short term client could add him to her JSA claim, and make a joint tax credits claim etc.  I think it is likely he is living with her, if so she needs to do this.

I’m not sure what will happen when the baby comes.  Presumably there will be a point when she will have to end her JSA claim as she will not be available for work.  If he claims JSA for them how will the new EU rules affect them?  Can she continue to get HB? 

What would happen if she wanted to reclaim JSA herself in the future?  Either because his JSA ends after six months or if they split up?

I suspect your client is going to lose her JSA early in July because she has been a jobseeker for more than six months since 1/1/14 and her employment prospects do not look good given that (a) she hasn’t found work after 18 months and (b) she is having a baby.  That will immediately put the kibosh on her HB as well.  If he claims JSA instead, she will still lose her HB because she remains, at best, a jobseeker or the partner of a jobseeker and she is no longer personally on JSA; and he cannot get HB because he would be making a new claim after 1/4/14.

The transitional protection in HB reads as follows:

Saving

3.  (1)  The amendment in regulation 2 does not apply to a person who, on 31st March 2014, is entitled to—

(a)housing benefit; and .
(b)an income-based jobseeker’s allowance, .

until the first of the events in paragraph (2) occurs.

(2) The events are—

(a)the person ceases to be entitled to that income-based jobseeker’s allowance; or .
(b)the person makes a new claim for housing benefit.

This means she will be caught by (2)(a) as soon as she ceases personally to be entitled to JSA.  So he is going to have to hope he can find a job pretty quickly, or commence some effective and genuine self-employment.

Thanks for that explanation.  I knew it was a bad situation but its even worse than I had realised.

I think the next step is going to involve asking Social Services for help…