Private Renting - housing benifit advice

khampson

Hi, currently me and my girlfriend are living with my parents but we have decided we would like to private rent a house, I earn 18.5k a year but my girlfriend is on job seekers allowance! We have seen a house to rent at £475 a month but what I would like to know is would my girlfriend get any additional help money wise other than job seekers allowance to help with rent/bills? Or will it be left to me to cover everything and survive on my wages and her job seekers allowance?

Any advice would be great.

Regards Keith

debrag

is your gf on contribution JSA? income based your wage would be too high. You have to look after your partner. Me & My parenter get a little more than you (both working) and get no benefits.

use the entitledto site to work out if you can get anything but I've done a quick check and you'll get nothing I'm affraid

Jowo_2

Download the budget planner on the Tools section to work out your full income and outgoings to see if it's affordable. Besides the rent, you've got unavoidable expenses like food (£200), council tax (£100), energy (£70), water (£25), tv/telecoms/broadband (£40), contents insurance (£20), travel and so on. That's around £930 that's already gone on basic expenses, excluding social expenses and travel from an approximate income of £1400 (your net income and her JSA). Can you cover the rest of your outgoings on just over £100 per week for the both of you?

What do your total estimated expenses and income come to? What do you currently pay your parents and how much do you have left over each month? That way you get a good idea how good your budgeting skills are and how much of an increase in overall living expenses that you will experience.

The way means tested benefits are set up mean that a partner's income is included as they are expected to look after each other.

You are probably better off waiting until your partner gets a job.

khampson

I am currently paying £200 a month to parents and buying my own food, I also currently have a car that I put about £20 a week fuel in and annual insurance is about £350 and then tax and maintainance, would it make any difference if we say were just friends and not together? We can't get a council property because I am still named on a morgage which will take another year to completly remove my name from.

Keith

00ec25

khampson wrote: »

would it make any difference if we say were just friends and not together?

Yes - you would be committing benefit fraud

Jowo_2

khampson wrote: »

We can't get a council property because I am still named on a morgage which will take another year to completly remove my name from.

Social housing allocation is based on need. Working healthy adults with no dependents who aren't homeless are about the lowest priority of all. There are millions of people on the lists for housing association and council properties and very few will get allocated any since the churn rate is very low - something like 5% of stock comes available in each year.

When you say you are going to 'come off' a mortgage, is this because the property is being sold or because the other owner has sufficient income to prove to the lender that they can take on the mortgage in their sole name (that they earn around x3 the sum of the mortgage?).

Oldernotwiser

Why not be more realistic and look at renting a small flat until your girlfriend is working again?

khampson

Jowo wrote: »

Social housing allocation is based on need. Working healthy adults with no dependents who aren't homeless are about the lowest priority of all. There are millions of people on the lists for housing association and council properties and very few will get allocated any since the churn rate is very low - something like 5% of stock comes available in each year.

When you say you are going to 'come off' a mortgage, is this because the property is being sold or because the other owner has sufficient income to prove to the lender that they can take on the mortgage in their sole name (that they earn around x3 the sum of the mortgage?).

I am named on the morgage with my ex because she has agreed to pay me £11000 and is currently paying me £100 a month, if we want to change our morgage before October 2011 it will cost us £5000, she can get a morgage to pay me the rest of the money but I don't want to come off until I get my money! This stops us getting a council house because according to them I have somewhere to live.

After this is sorted I intend to buy again

if my girlfriend went private rented, how many nights could I legally stay over?? I don't want to break the law

Keith

Jowo_2

khampson wrote: »

I am currently paying £200 a month to parents and buying my own food, I also currently have a car that I put about £20 a week fuel in and annual insurance is about £350 and then tax and maintainance,

Right, so in addition to around £930 in basic bills (around £600 greater than you pay now), you additionally have motoring expenses of approx £150 per month?

So this is taking you up to basic expenditure of approx £1100 per month out of a joint income of approx £1400 without any money allocated for social expenses, haircuts, gifts, holidays with the remaining £300 pcm.

This leaves you and your partner with a disposal income of about about £5 per day to splurge on take-aways, pubs, the hairdresser and so on.

I think you would be better off if your girlfriend and you focussed your efforts on securing her employment rather than looking into non-existent or fraudulent benefit claims.

Even if she only got a job paying the National Minimum Wage, this would bring in an extra net monthly income of £760 per month. This takes you from just existing and borderline to get into debt up to a comfortable standard of living.

In that scenario, you would both have significantly more disposable income and can do more than just pay basic household bills.

Jowo_2

khampson wrote: »

if my girlfriend went private rented, how many nights could I legally stay over?? I don't want to break the law

Keith

That's a question for the benefits board. Off the top of my head, all I can say is that few landlords are willing to rent their properties to those on benefits. If you wait until you can afford to rent privately when your girlfriend gets a job, then it's likely that virtually all landlords would accept you as tenants. Currently, I reckon more than 95% of landlords would reject your girlfriend while she's unemployed.

Remember also that if she is under 25, she'll only be entitled to the shared house rate on LHA and won't be entitled to LHA to cover the rent on a 1 bedroom self-contained property. See the LHA direct website for info.

Jowo_2

khampson wrote: »

This stops us getting a council house because according to them I have somewhere to live.

What also stops you from getting a council house is that you are a healthy adult in good employment.

Local councils don't tend to allocate property to healthy adults in employment anyhow - it depends on the local area but most local councils are overwhelmed by demand. They generally only allocate it to the neediest and where they are obliged by law to assist, such as the homeless, those with children, the disabled.

Someone approaching them for housing who has a job will invariably be told to find a private rental so I'm surprised you even considered this as a solution.