Help re JSA and house purchase

jow1

I am a new poster, and wonder if anyone can help with some advice on this. A slightly complicated situation:

One of my relatives died this year and left her estate to another relative.

The one who inherited the estate has a home already and wants to take care of their sister, so is giving the money for a house to her. The money is going straight into the house and not into the sister's bank account at all. (They are a very lucky sister!) The house will be owned in the sister's name, though.

The problem is that the sister is currently unemployed, so I am presuming that their JSA will stop once they move into the house as they will have an expensive asset in their name. Is that correct?

If it is correct then the sister will need to find another way of supporting herself. She is going to try setting up a business because she is not far off retirement age and so is not finding it easy to get work and I will post on another forum to see if there are any ways for her to get a mortgage on the property to support herself while she is setting the business up, unless anyone has any ideas here.

Thank you for your help.

jow1

von

I assume that the person inheriting the money is not in receipt of a means tested benefit because if they are this could be treated as deprivation of capital. With regard to the sister this will not affect her entitlement to means tested benefit providing the money is not deposited into her bank account and she is living in the property.

jow1

Thanks for the reply, von. No the person inheriting the money isn't on benefits, the inheritance provides her with an income as well.

The one who will be moving in isn't in that property yet she would be moving in (and the property would be registered in her name) while on JSA which is the reason for the query. She doesn't want to take money she's not entitled to at all, but equally while she'll have this asset she won't actually have the cash to live on.

~Beanie~

You can claim JSA even if you own a house.

von

If the sister will be living in the property then it won't be a problem as it will be treated as her home, although they may ask her to clarify where she got the money from to pay for the property, but just to clarify Beanie's post you can claim JSA Cont & Income-based even if you own a house providing that you are living in that house as your home. But for Income-based JSA if you own a property and you are not living in that property then the value of that property (after deductions for o/s mortgage/selling costs etc) could be treated as capital and may affect entitlement to Income-based JSA. There are certain circumstances where the value of the property could be disregarded for a certain period of time.