Buying Housing Association House??

kimbokoo

am after a bit of advice.
My grandfather lives in a house which is owned by a local housing association. he has lived there for over 30 years.
grandmother passed away a few years ago, and due to their being so many memories in the house, we are thinking that when (god forbid) grandfather does pass away, we would like the house to remain within the family.
my husband and i are thinking about buying it ,though we are not on any tenancy agreements, just so that when the inevitable does happen, we will still have the memories of where we all grew up.
so first issue is would we be able to get a mortgage on the house as we dont live there?
second would be if we were allowed to do this, would this affect grandfathers current help he gets with paying for bills/rent/council etc?

any advice would be appreciated

sirmosh

If you need a mortgage I don't think you can do it. If you had the cash to give to him so he could buy it and leave it to you then it might be possible.

cattie

The only way to do it is to give him the money to buy it outright. As he is elderly he won't be able to get a mortgage and as he is claiming benefits, his income is obviously not high. Once the property has been bought he will not be eligible for housing benefit, which is just as it should be.

Many families do stump up the cash to enable the tenant to buy council or HA property, as they see it a good investment & a good way to make money on a property bought with a huge discount. If you do this you will of course need to ensure that a will is drawn up leaving the property to you.

Yorkie1

I recall seeing some threads on here about right to buy not being possible in any event with certain HA properties. You'd need to check this out.

carefullycautious

As above post some housing associations have stopped the Right to Aquire.

Do check with your relatives.

This may help

https://www.direct.gov.uk/.../HomeAndCommunity/BuyingAndSellingYour

Mrs_Z

There are 2 problems as far as I can see

a) Housing Association tenants do not normally have 'Right to Buy'
b) if they did, it would be the tenant's, ie. your grandfather's

It might be worth investigating if there are tenancy succession rights, but this would mean that you would have to live in the property for starters.

Running_Horse

kimbokoo wrote: »

my husband and i are thinking about buying it ,though we are not on any tenancy agreements, just so that when the inevitable does happen, we will still have the memories of where we all grew up.

And do what? Turn it into a museum of your childhood?

We get so many of these discussions on this board, and the advice is always the same.

Why not just let him enjoy the security of tenure in his last years?

He is not going to gain from the arrangement, and could end up seriously disadvantaged.