Case Study 2
Client: *Mrs Brown
Mrs Brown lives with her husband and two daughters in a flat that they are paying a mortgage on. They receive help towards their mortgage interest payments through ESA, but it still isn’t sufficient to cover their large mortgage interest payments.
In June of this year, Mrs Brown’s father-in-law committed suicide. This was a huge shock to everyone in the family, most of all, her husband. Her husband worked with his father in their family business and the consequences of his death caused the business to fail. As result, this led to the mental breakdown of her husband causing him to be sectioned. Needless to say, this had a devastating effect on the family as they had to cope with the loss of a father-in-law and grandfather and the temporary loss of a husband and father. It was an extremely sad and disruptive time for her children and exacerbated the applicant’s poor mental health problems causing the doctor to sign her off work.
As a result of these terrible incidents there was a knock-on effect on the family finances. Before her father-in-law’s suicide and her husband’s breakdown, the family coped well with their finances and never struggled to pay the bills or mortgage. After the collapse of the family business, the family had to rely on benefits and family contributions.
As the family struggled with their finances they fell into arrears with their EDF Energy gas and electricity accounts. When Mrs Brown found out she was very shocked as her priorities had been focused on the family and not on the finances.
Mrs Brown’s local Citizens Advice Bureau helped her apply for benefits, pay the mortgage and learn to budget on their new income which she had previously found very difficult. Unfortunately she was still in no position to pay off her energy arrears so she was referred to the Energy Advice Project at Bristol Debt Advice Centre where they helped her make an application to the Trust. Her application was successful and £355.00 was awarded to her electricity account and a further £205.00 towards her gas account. These payments allowed the applicant to concentrate on paying the mortgage and improving her and her husband’s mental health as well as enabling them to make a fresh start in managing their ongoing usage.
*Names have been changed to protect the applicant’s identity