getting a hosuing assasciation to take on a house

antant

By which i mean

If i were to buy a house for a knock down price because its in a less than salubrious area, do it up and put it up for rent, given that the renters in the area im looking at would quite likely be low wage or unemployed, possibly on some forms of benefits (logic would suggest), can you get a local council or housing assosciation to get involved in some way that ensures via their benefits, the rent is always paid?

vague query but im sure you get my drift

dktreesea

Some councils do rent from private landlords on behalf of their council tenants. I am not sure about housing associations. It is probably worthwhile to offer the council the property for rent, so they become your tenant rather than you being directly involved with the actual tenants.

I don't know if all councils do this, but if they do, there are some advantages, because it is a commercial rather than a residential lease, so the council is then responsible for making good any damamge to the property and doing any repairs during the period of their tenanct, much like you would be if, for example, you rented a shop.

The flip side is that they can want long payment terms (sometimes), as opposed to paying in advance the way normal tenants would, or a couple of months rent free at the start of the tenancy.

Also, they like properties in better areas, because the people they usually offer these kinds of houses to are people who are living in an area where there is relatively little council housing stock who, for whatever reason, now qualify for help. By renting privately themselves, they can avoid things like having to subsidise travel for the children (if they had to move more than 2 miles from their current school) or even having to find places in the new local school if it is already oversubscribed (the situation in Edinburgh, for instance, with some of the Leith schools - meant to be a poor area but has a rapidly expanding population so some of the schools there are now full.)

Mankysteve

No Housing Benefit is payed into the claiming bank account although once there three months in arrears you can clam to have the HB paid direct into you account. Some coucil though will act as guarantors to tenets who can afford to save for a deposit for private landlord. So basically dont get a mortgage on property that your going to rent out unless you can afford to pay that mortgage if the tenets stop paying rent.