Buying house off husband

BigAunty

Of course, if your MIL did qualify for another council property via the homelessness process after selling her original one to you on the cheap 5 years after Right to Buy, then perhaps you could also buy that one through RTB, too, a few years down the line.

Background - the original post was about the OP buying her MILs ex council property owned jointly by her MIL and her husband because he could not afford to continue paying the mortgage while his MIL lives there rent free. At the time of the purchase, the mortgage broker told her husband he'd be able to receive rent from his mother via HB but that advice was false.

For some bizarre reason (or perhaps a misunderstanding), a Housing Officer or HB Officer told her that if her MIL received less than 16k from the sale, her MIL would be rehoused in social housing. The house is valued at 88k but it was proposed to buy the property at 66k, the sum of the outstanding mortgage, and hopefully to suppress the new ownership from the benefits authority.

The property is halfway through the 10 year fixed mortgage term and there is a belief that as his mortgage payments of £290 per month (after a small Support for Mortgage Interest payment to the mother) is unaffordable, the property will eventually be repossessed. This will cause issues to his credit meaning he can't remortgage his current property.

From the OPs perspective, the council should really be offering social housing to the MIL now, rather than later when it is repossessed so she is doing them a favour by bringing it to their attention now.