I don't know the first thing about housing benefit. Please help.

GolfGirl

Thorsoak, I understand your comment.

As I see it, a contrived tenancy is one where the rent is set artificially low for the express purpose of gaining housing benefit. Is that correct? This is not the situation here.

What would be immoral is if I had set the rent at the market rate knowing my daughter could not afford that amount – and then attempted to get housing benefit to make up some or all of the shortfall. I have not done that.

If I had come here and said that I was a 23-year-old working 40+ hours a week and earning £13,500 pa, that I was having difficulty affording anywhere to rent, and asking the question "Am I eligible for housing benefit?", would that also have made you angry?

To answer your question directly – no, it wouldn't make me angry. Why would it? If my daughter had stayed in her bedsit (paying £200/month more than she is paying us) she would, according to two online calculators – which took into account age and personal circumstances – have been eligible for housing benefit.

dippy3103

If she is 23 to some extent the rent charged is academic- she will only get single room rate.
Hope things look up for her.

swingaloo

You have a property which you need an income from in order to pay a mortgage.

You could let the property to someone who can afford the rent but instead you put your daughter in it at a reduced rent and then want help from the tax payer to pay for your investment.

Immoral and contrived.

GolfGirl

I clearly haven't expressed myself with adequate coherence – or perhaps you haven't read the whole thread. Both are likely, I think.

If you want to see me as a greedy, grasping scrounger, then that is your prerogative. However, I have to – politely – confess that I am entirely indifferent to strangers' opinions of me. I posted here for knowledge, not a debate on my character. Though, of course, you are entirely within your rights to comment in whatever way you see fit.

I really do appreciate the information I've been given on this thread. Thank you.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

GolfGirl wrote: »

If she got some HB, she could pay us a little more rent.

This is the bit that would make me say this is a non commercial tenancy. The more HB received the higher the rent charged.

No other tenant would accept a landlord that ups the rent if they receive HB.

emsywoo123

OP, I completely understand your confusion. It seems bewildering that a council will pay HB (possibly at a higher rate) so long as it is not going to a relative. Took me ages to get my head around it!

To explain, the last house I rented was owned by my parents. They only charged approx 70% market rate! HOWEVER when I moved in, it was with a partner and we had a formal tenancy. When we split, I had to apply for HB, and as I had a formal tenancy, had been paying rent regularly and my parents were very clear they would not support me financially, the tenancy was not deemed contrived.

My situation changed, and I no longer need the HB. However, for every genuine circumstance, there are parents that buy homes for their offspring who cannot afford to pay full rent, and look to local councils for HB. that is why the strict rules are in place.

In your circumstances, it very much looks like a contrived tenancy. I appreciate it is a minefield and you've done nothing illegal and I believe you were right to ask, otherwise how would you know?

You've done a lovely thing for your daughter, and I hope her fortunes change and can pay more to help.

NYM

If your daughter is under 35 she would only be entitled to claim for the shared accommodation rate.

Input the details and it should give you an idea of how much she might be entitled to claim.

https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/search.aspx

GolfGirl

Emsywoo, I totally appreciate that there need to be strict rules when it comes to this sort of thing, otherwise there would be all sorts of shenanigans going on.

One of my earlier points was that, assuming my daughter was eligible for housing benefit in her leaking studio, she would eligible for less benefit now because we have set the rent so low. If, as I've already said, we had set the rent at market value and tried to claim the shortfall, that would be appalling (it would indeed be a contrived tenancy). But we've done quite the reverse. Since the rent is so ridiculously low, I would have expected her to receive only a small amount of benefit per month, if anything at all. I'm not sure if people have the idea that I expected the whole rent to be paid. Or that I've installed my daughter in the flat with the express intention of raking in housing benefit. Certainly neither is true.

However, I do appreciate that my innocence (and ignorance) of this area – coupled with the sensitivity surrounding the claiming of benefits – has caused certain people to leap fiercely upon me. And it's clear from some of the comments that not everyone is reading fully before they post. I appreciate it that you did.

FBaby

I understand that as someone who has never needed to rely on benefit and doesn't know much about how it works, that you could have thought this was an avenue to explore. Nothing wrong with that.

The issue as I see it is the expectation your daughter and yourself have in light with the circumstances. She is young, on a starting salary, yet she and you seemed to think that she should be entitled, one way or the other to a nice one bed flat. When I was 23 and earning (the same amount but many years ago), this was the ultimate luxury that I was aspiring to, not something I felt I deserve. After years of sharing, I got a 1 bed flat on my own when my salary increased and I thought I deserved it, until I realised that once I'd paid the rent and bills, I had very little left to pay for everything else. I couldn't afford it, so I went back to sharing until I earnt yet more.

You and your DD have to accept that it's about choice. Either your DD pays more and cuts down on everything else to enjoy the luxury of a place on her own, or you decide you want to spoil her and take it upon the chin, or you both accept that you can't afford it at the moment, she finds somewhere to share, you rent your place, and when she earns more and can afford the full rent, she can move back in.

Caz3121

GolfGirl wrote: »

If I had come here and said that I was a 23-year-old working 40+ hours a week and earning £13,500 pa, that I was having difficulty affording anywhere to rent, and asking the question "Am I eligible for housing benefit?

The answer here would be to look at the LHA for shared accommodation for your postcode, many areas are around £250-£300 per month and this is the amount that the HB calculations would be based on....not the actual rent figure unless the rent was lower than this...
The advice, would be to look for a house share
Have you checked the LHA for your area. Even using Kensington & Chelsea @ £131.27 per week the benefit calculator returns no HB on a £13.5k salary, income would need to be under £8.5k to get the £75 per month HB based on that LHA