Vocal Voices

Can anyone tell me how housing benefit works? How do you know how much you will get?

Hi mm you have to complete a form from the council office
Give details of income and proof of savings
The housing office Decide the A.mount you receive plus you need to tell them how much rent you pay
It is usually paid dire t to your landlord
You then pay rent which is the difference between the Ben if it and rent

Thanks Saundra. Thats really helpful.

What I am trying to work out is, if we purchased a bungalow for Luke with a mortgage against our house, how do we know he would receive enough housing benefit to cover the payments to us?

Or do we need to find out how much housing benefit he would received before we start looking? But then he wouldn't know how much rent he had to pay

I think if the property is owned by a relative then the rules on housing benefit might be slightly different?
Have you looked on the direct gov website MM?

https://www.gov.uk/

I might be being a bit thick Shell, but are you thinking of doing a 'Buy to let' sort of deal for Luke's property?

The Gov't pages for HB are here: https://www.gov.uk/housing-benefit but I think that you might have to look a lot deeper and get more dedicated legal help with your proposal than the HB site and benefits calculator offer.

I'm almost sure you can't claim housing benefit if you are related to the landlord
WHEn my late sil was letting her home out her son couldn't have it as a temnant
But that was years ago

I didn't think you could either, but apparently provided you have a firm tenancy in place, with guaranteed monthly payments and your books audited you can, as a professional landlord.

Plan A was for Luke to buy his own bungalow with a mortgage through Mysafehome in conjunction with a housing association. That has failed as the housing associations have no money to buy on the open market and on their own new developments they no longer build bungalows.

Plan B was the bungalow that his great grandma left to Tim and his brother, that his brother is living in and paying nothing for. Brother got made redundant due to ill health and could no longer afford to live there so was desperate to sell which would have been brilliant. He now has a 6 month contract working for a mate, so doesn't want to sell, wants to wait for housing prices to increase which we don't have time to do and means Luke couldn't afford it anyway.

So Plan C is that we buy somewhere, with a second mortgage against our own house and Luke pays us housing benefit which will cover our mortgage

That sounds good mm
I do hope it works alright best of luck to you all

Not sure about good Saundra, the last thing we wanted was another mortgage, especially when we own half a bungalow anyway but Luke has to come first and he has to leave his present place on 8th August

Would it make more sense for you to buy BIL out shell, less to borrow against your house ?

Make sure you check the rules thoroughly regarding renting out to Luke. I know my old boss, who is renting out her house since remarrying and moving in with her new husband, was unable to have her mother as a tenant because of course they're related. Silly really as her mother now claims a higher housing benefit to live elsewhere