renting house to parent

steviegee50

me and my brother bought my mums council house 4 yrs ago . she has been living in it rent free , can i now charge her rent . since she has less than £6000 in the bank will the dss pay the rent for her . if the mp,s in london are getting away with it i thought i might give it a try

Robert_Sterling_3

Who is the owner of the house as shown by the Land registry.

steviegee50

the title deeds are in me and my brothers name . we have joint ownership

PasturesNew

Questions would be asked about how you came to be able to buy her council house and other issues.

It would be considered "worthy of looking into" because she's paid no rent for 4 years and now needs rent to be paid, to you, when she had a perfectly good council house.

silvercar

Do the terms of the purchase allow you to rent the property out? Are the council aware that you have moved a tenant in (and yourselves out) so soon after purchase?

margaretclare

It sounds as if OP and brother, although now the owners, haven't been living in the house, but the Mum has, as she did all the time that she was a council tenant. Mum hasn't been paying rent for 4 years but they now want her to pay it, but - correct me if I'm wrong - they want her to have it paid from public funds and not from her own income.

It's a scam, isn't it? Why on earth would anyone's Mum agree to this? Council tenancies are among the most secure of all tenancies - she'd have done better to stay as she was.

Why did the OP and bro want to do this? It doesn't benefit Mum at all, does it - her tenancy was secure. She was the one who had 'right to buy'. As things are, she has now exchanged a very secure tenancy for complete insecurity.

I don't think the authorities will look very kindly on this obvious scam!

silvercar

margaretclare wrote: »

It sounds as if OP and brother, although now the owners, haven't been living in the house, but the Mum has, as she did all the time that she was a council tenant. Mum hasn't been paying rent for 4 years but they now want her to pay it, but - correct me if I'm wrong - they want her to have it paid from public funds and not from her own income.

It's a scam, isn't it? Why on earth would anyone's Mum agree to this? Council tenancies are among the most secure of all tenancies - she'd have done better to stay as she was.

Why did the OP and bro want to do this? It doesn't benefit Mum at all, does it - her tenancy was secure. She was the one who had 'right to buy'. As things are, she has now exchanged a very secure tenancy for complete insecurity.

I don't think the authorities will look very kindly on this obvious scam!

Happens all the time. Kids persuade Mum that she is sitting on a goldmine, or that she can pass them an inheritance that she wouldn't otherwise be able to do. They can buy property and let her live in it forever.

Then they realise that either they can't afford the mortgage or that if they want another mortgage for their own place they need to make this one a BTL deal. Either way poor mum can now help them a second time. On top of giving them a property she can pay her kids rent. No matter that mum has no income, if she was renting from the council the council will pay her rent so why not still let the council pay her rent?

In a minute OP will come back and say that they would never evict their Mum, they just thought that she could claim rent if she was entitled and that would help them with the mortgage.

Gorgeous_George

margaretclare wrote: »

...It's a scam, isn't it? Why on earth would anyone's Mum agree to this? Council tenancies are among the most secure of all tenancies - she'd have done better to stay as she was.

Except she has enjoyed four years with no rent.

margaretclare wrote: »

...Why did the OP and bro want to do this? It doesn't benefit Mum at all, does it - her tenancy was secure. She was the one who had 'right to buy'. As things are, she has now exchanged a very secure tenancy for complete insecurity.

They wanted to make money. The same reason that some people go to work. With falling house prices they may well get their fingers burnt.

margaretclare wrote: »

I don't think the authorities will look very kindly on this obvious scam!

I don't think they care that much. Most councillors are probably crooked anyway.

GG

margaretclare

I don't think they care that much. Most councillors are probably crooked anyway.

Around here, we often see publicised instances of people being prosecuted for benefit fraud. So yes, 'they' do care that much.

Except she has enjoyed four years with no rent.

With less than £6K savings she probably hadn't been paying rent anyway. The difference is, now the sons want her to pay rent but for it to be paid out of the public purse.

They want this on the grounds that 'MPs are doing it'. There are several instances of 'MPs doing it' but they may well be brought to book before too long, and the loopholes closed. One at least may well be prosecuted for fraud. Is that an excuse for 'we might as well try it'?

Gorgeous_George

Where does the fraud come from?

Would it help if mum moved into someone else's BTL and the brothers rented their house to a stranger?

GG

Barneysmom

This sounds like a huge scam to me. They want the council to pay their mortgage for them??

It's like if I sold my house and paid the buyer's mortgage, it's not right.