Housing Benefit in N Ireland

Legacy_user

My brother has just bought a property and is renting it out. He lives in my fathers house with him.

He has literally just got his first tenant in and she has announced she is pregnant and about to claim help to pay her rent. Can anyone tell us if the housing benefit(?) is paid to her or direct to my brother by the Housing Executive and does it make any difference if she is a foreign national ie: does she have entitlement to housing benefit?

Choco

Your brother can have rent paid directly into his account. Regarding if tenant is from abroad it all depends on where she is from? Was her country 1 of the 1st to join EEC or did they join later. If joined later there could be a slight problem as all depends if she was working here legally with all her Home Office documentation etc. It used to be for Benefit IS/JSA ETC purpose anyone from abroad whose country joined in 2nd lot of countries was not allowed to claim Benefit unless they had been working here legally for a year. However as I left SSA 2yrs ago this may have changed and there agian Housing Executive rules may have been different.

System

I think she is either Polish or Lithuanian but I'm not 100% sure. He doesn't really care as long as he's not stuck with a first tenant who starts to default on her rent

Choco

If Polish or Lithuanian are the countries she is from then that was 2nd set of countries to join EEC and she would need to have been working here legally for at least 1 year but as I say I left SSA a couple of yrs ago and things may have changed. Does she have a partner?

System

Choco wrote: »

Does she have a partner?

I don't think so. From what my brother said when he told me he had finally got a tenant the tenancy is in her name only but since she's told the managing estate agent she's pregnant I would assume there's a man about somewhere

absoluteutopia

I'm not being racist here but never again would i let any of my houses out to Polish/Lit tenants. Maybe i just had bad luck? but the phone calls complaining from neighbours about noise mess etc, i once called in out of the blue to two of the houses and found 8 living in one and 10 in the other sleeping on mattresses everywhere. Constant chasing for rent, two houses had to be completely redecorated one needing a new kitchen. NEVER AGAIN! as i said maybe just bad luck