Renting from a family member and housing benefit.

Twister17

So basically my partners cousin has a house that he wants to rent out, we've been looking to move house for a while and his cousin has approached us asking of we would be interested in the house. We do recieve a small amount of housing benefit currently. My question is would we still be entitled to housing benefit if we did rent the property from him? Everything I've read online says we would as long as we could prove it was all legitimate with rental agreements and stuff, which would be fine. Just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation, what sort of information did you have to give as 'proof' and did it work out in the end?

Thanks in advance!

pmlindyloo

Twister17 wrote: »

So basically my partners cousin has a house that he wants to rent out, we've been looking to move house for a while and his cousin has approached us asking of we would be interested in the house. We do recieve a small amount of housing benefit currently. My question is would we still be entitled to housing benefit if we did rent the property from him? Everything I've read online says we would as long as we could prove it was all legitimate with rental agreements and stuff, which would be fine. Just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation, what sort of information did you have to give as 'proof' and did it work out in the end?

Thanks in advance!

It is possible to rent from a family member. In actual fact, according to the Shelter website, a cousin is not counted as a family member.

However, I do believe that there is a question on the HB application from about being related to your landlord. (Whose name is the HB in?)

The application would be refused if it could be proved that the tenancy was set up in order to take advantage of the benefit system. It is called a contrived tenancy.

The general advice is to make sure that you have a proper tenancy agreement and (according to official guidelines) the landlord would evict you if you broke your tenancy agreement or got into rent arrears. In other words, you would be treated as any other tenant.

It helps if the house has been rented out previously and also if a letting agent deals with the tenancy.

So, get everything done properly and make sure your LL assumes all the responsibilities of a landlord - gas safety check /deposit protection etc. This is for you own sake as well.

As regards renting from family members this has its own drawbacks so make sure you consider these.

Twister17

Thanks, that's really helpful. Our current claim is in my name I believe as I deal with all the budgeting and stuff, my oh is on there too with his income and everything declared, but I would be classed as the main claimant as all letters we get from them are addressed to me.

The house is currently being rented out but the tenants are moving out soon hence the offer. It's my cousins house but his parents (my oh's aunt and uncle) deal with all the repairs and stuff due to partners cousin suffering from mental health issues. They currently rent through a letting agent and charge around £700pcm how ever they would be happy to rent it to us for £630 as that's what they get per month after the agency takes their cut anyway, they have said if they rent to us then they'd cut out the letting agent as they'd have no need for it. Would this be okay? Neither of us are looking to take advantage of the benefits system or anything like that and they will have a proper agreement drawn up and everything and will treat us like they would any other tenant I.e if we don't pay and stick to the tenancy we'll be served and eviction notice. I guess it comes down to whether the council would see it that way or not though.

Twister17

We viewed the house this evening, the current tenant showed us around and was very informative and told us everything we need to know about utilities and council tax etc. It's exactly what we're looking for so we have decided to go ahead and rent the property! We always pay our rent on time and have looked after our current property well so there shouldn't be any complaints. We are looking to move in mid-January after we've served our notice here and got Christmas out the way. Looked at the budget and have worked out that even if we're not entitled to any help we should still just about be able to afford it providing we stick to a tight budget, which suits us just fine. Can't wait!

Thanks again for your help.

susiesww

Yes you are entitled to housing benefit. As it was rented before then its a commerical agreement and will be no problem at all.

Twister17

Thank you, it definitely seems like that's the case based on the things I've read online.