what would you do?

kaya64

We have been given the option of renting a house next door to my parents, my parents are both ill and i now look after them so this would be convienient in that respect.

The house is being completley refurbished with new kitchen and bathroom and new carpets throughout .

At the moment we have a house on interest only and are finding it hard to keep up the repayments .

In our situation we claim working tax credits and if we rented a house we could get £200 off the rent in housing benefit plus council tax benefit which would certainly make life easier.

The down side is , we used to live on the street and moved from there because we never liked it , now its like we are being drawn back there .

I don't know what to do i am interested in others views

Strapped

If you never liked it before, then why will you like it any better now? I think that's what you have to ask yourself. Although on paper, it sounds like an easy choice.

pmlindyloo

Are you selling your current house? If so a lot will depend on how quickly you can sell it or have you got that part covered in some way?

No one can really answer your question as we don't know the area etc etc.

In these situations I always write down the pros and cons of each scenario and go from there.

It sounds, at least from the financial aspect, that you would be better off renting.
Perhaps another possibility is to rent somewhere nearer to your parents but in an area that you like.

If you sign a 6 month contract for the house next door it does give you the option to move if you don't like it. Equally, you may find yourselves moving every 6 months because renting is not a guarantee of a house for years.

kaya64

Thank you for your reply , i think it is long term let , but i am not sure about moving there to be honest.

i have two jobs right now and so does husband to make ends meet but sitll its tough , i thought of selling but we wouldn't get another mortgage we have defaults and have missed a few mortgage payments , its hard to come to terms with the reality that only a few years back we had a thriving business which was making us over £250000 a year , now its nearly non existent and will probably close soon , its as if we are going to lose everything.

We were very generous with our money and gave a lot of it away , now i wish we had saved it .

kaya64

Strapped wrote: »

If you never liked it before, then why will you like it any better now? I think that's what you have to ask yourself. Although on paper, it sounds like an easy choice.

its true but beggars can't be choosers and we may not have a choice the way things are going , but deep down i don't want to live down that street .

Werdnal

When you say you have the chance to rent it, have you passed any credit checks etc? If your credit is not good, and you will need to depend on HB to meet the rent, does the prospective LL know this? They may change their minds if your income is not good enough to cover the rent, or they prefer not to have benefit tenants.

Even if you do decide this move is the right thing to do, don't burn your bridges and sell your property until you know the LL is 100% guaranteed to accept you as tenants!

namecheck

As your life is currently quite stressful, I would not add to it by living in the street you dislike so much. Also, as you are working, you will not in any case be on hand 24 hours to help your parents.

IMO I would see if there is somewhere else to rent, within walking distance.

kaya64

namecheck wrote: »

As your life is currently quite stressful, I would not add to it by living in the street you dislike so much. Also, as you are working, you will not in any case be on hand 24 hours to help your parents.

IMO I would see if there is somewhere else to rent, within walking distance.

thank you , you are right i am rather stressed right now and i do keep thinking of how much i didn't like living down that street, i keep looking at my house and thinking i should fight to keep it , but having no money to spare isn't a very nice thing after working two jobs and only paying out all the time, we are both non smokers we never drink and we hardly use the car only to get to and from work, its not much of a life is it ?

kaya64

Werdnal wrote: »

When you say you have the chance to rent it, have you passed any credit checks etc? If your credit is not good, and you will need to depend on HB to meet the rent, does the prospective LL know this? They may change their minds if your income is not good enough to cover the rent, or they prefer not to have benefit tenants.

Even if you do decide this move is the right thing to do, don't burn your bridges and sell your property until you know the LL is 100% guaranteed to accept you as tenants!

the tennants who left were unemployed with 3 children and left it in a real state , he is a private landlord who is a builder my parents know him well so he trusts us and knows we would be claiming HB, i still don't know what to do i am torn between living like this without a penny to spare or move and have some spare money over .

tyllwyd

Are you being realistic about the situation if you sell your house - if you have a surplus, you might be over the savings threshold for claiming housing benefit, but if you are in negative equity you might not be able sell. And have you factored the cost of moving - solicitor's fees, estate agents fees etc?

Werdnal

business_man wrote: »

Hey, why not? It's only the tax payers money.

Wait for the day when these benefits stop and British economy recovers.

OP, please disregard business_man's snide comments - he has a terminal dislike of anyone who even mentions HB and has been roundly rebuked for this type of sarcastic and unnecessary remark in the past.

b_m, OP is obviously struggling, both her and hubby working 2 jobs and trying to care for sick parents, cut them a little slack!