Housing benefit and proceeds of sale

bribri_2

After renting for more than six years having sold my house, I put in a claim for housing benefit which was awarded. 3 months later it has been reviewed and the LA want to know details of the house sale.

I know about the five year rule for sale and rent of same property - does that apply here as well?

Thank you

Mojisola

I expect they're thinking of deprivation of capital - they'll want to know how much you got for the property and where it's gone.

bribri_2

even though my claim wasn't made until more than than 6 years after the sale of the property. I don't even know if I have retained records that old.

rogerblack

What did you do with the money?
If you've lived off it at a reasonable rate - that's clearly not an issue.
If you gave it away - it may be.

Were you at that time employed and not eligible for HB?

pmlindyloo

First of all, did you reveal to them that you were an owner of a property 6 years ago when you applied for HB?

I am trying to grasp how they would know that you owned a property 6 years ago. As far as I know you would not have had to put this information on your application form (or did you?)

If you didn't give them the information then it can only be assumed that they have access to information showing large sums of money being moved around and/or other information.

Does that make sense?

nannytone_2

i am reading this differently lindy.
the OP has only been claiming HB for a little over 3 months, but sold their property 6 years ago

BigAunty

bribri wrote: »

even though my claim wasn't made until more than than 6 years after the sale of the property. I don't even know if I have retained records that old.

It's not about the timing of the sale that I suspect they are investigating (the 5 year rule about claiming HB as a tenant in the same property that was previously owned is a red herring).

I'm with the others on this - they are probably wanting to clarify what happened to the capital from the sale of your flat in 2008.

I take it that you are living in a different property? If you are living in the same property as the one you previously occupied, is it now owned by a relative or (ex) partner or parent of any children that you may have? Or do you have/had a relationship with the landlord of your current property? Just asking this to see if there are any potential 'contrived tenancy' issues despite the fact that it's your previous property the council are interested in.

Sums of capital above 6k start to reduce means tested benefits while sums over 16k rule out things like housing benefit and council tax discount. Someone who sells a property gets 6 months protection from having the equity counted in benefit calculations if they are intending to buy a new property with it.

Local authorities investigate deprivation of capital issues to ascertain whether or not a claimant has deliberately deprived themselves of capital to ensure they can claim benefits, such as gifting money to relatives, for example. If they believe this has taken place, they can apply 'notional capital' rules which means that they take into account this missing capital and treat it as if it still exists. They expect a claimant to have spent it on everyday living expenses.

They can go back as far as they like to see what happened with a claimant's capital.

pmlindyloo

nannytone wrote: »

i am reading this differently lindy.
the OP has only been claiming HB for a little over 3 months, but sold their property 6 years ago

Yes, I agree.

Sold 6 years ago, began claiming 3 months ago

What I was trying to find out was how did the council know that she actually owned and sold a house 6 years ago?

BigAunty

pmlindyloo wrote: »

What I was trying to find out was how did the council know that she actually owned and sold a house 6 years ago?

It could well be that the council have the powers to view people's banking information,don't know.

My speculative guess would be the data-matching exercises that local authorities run and which the Audit office have publicised. This may not be the actual case, just a possibility.

They feed masses of databases through a system and set up flags to catch certain types of information on a yearly or biannual basis as an anti-fraud measure.

This is where they discover that full time students are wrongly claiming HB, that council workers off sick have second jobs, people presenting themselves as homeless are property owners or have lied about their connection to the borough or have bought right to buy properties in the past.

It also identifies dead pensioners who are still receiving benefits, that tenants claiming HB actually own (or their partner does) the house they live in, social housing tenants who have sublet their properties, immigrants with no right to work in employment and so forth.

bribri_2

No need to get caught up in how the council know about the property. The question on the form is, what was your previous address? Did you own it?

Property sold on open market. I have no connection with buyer.

Started renting. Thought I would buy again but never did.

RAS

So the COuncil will want to know - how much equity did you get?

What did you do with the money?

If you have blown £1mK, they are unlikely to be sympathetic. £10K is a different matter.

Bear in mind that they can get info on the sale and mortgage values at the point of sale reasonably easily if they want.