Gifted a property

tomtom256

konark wrote: »

LA got very upset when it found I was renting from my uncle and stopped my HB. I really can't envisage any arrangement between parents and children to be 'commercially based', certainly not in any caring family.

Unfortunately the HB regulations allow it under certain conditions so thats just your view, unless an investigation can prove otherwise.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

konark wrote: »

LA got very upset when it found I was renting from my uncle and stopped my HB. I really can't envisage any arrangement between parents and children to be 'commercially based', certainly not in any caring family.

Lots of relatives rent to relatives. Rules in place to check that tenancy is commercial and not contrived. As long as all the boxes are ticked nothing to stop HB being paid.

LoveLifeAgain

jay1181 wrote: »

Is there not rules in place to stop hb being used to fund rent payments family members or is that just a Scottish rule. Up here no hb will be paid to members of the same family. If you have lied to gain hb up here ALL of it will be clawed back one way or another.

Just out of interest, would it be clawed back from the landlord or the tenant, do you know?

nannytone_2

LoveLifeAgain wrote: »

Just out of interest, would it be clawed back from the landlord or the tenant, do you know?

they can only recover overpaid benefit from the person that claimed it ...
so it would be the tenant as the landlord hasn't claimed anything

rogerblack

DearOhDear wrote: »

Although, financially, no better off and also liable for the extra buildings insurance and any running repairs etc, could I still get help with council tax as I do currently? Also, would my ESA be affected?

Your parents can pay for the insurance and repairs and other running costs without issue while they are alive.

Assuming for the moment the rest of the estate after the house is left is not enough for you and your wife to live on forever.

A trust can be setup to pay certain expenses directly.
As long as you have no legal way of accessing the capital in this trust, and it acts to provide for you in your best interest, this may not affect benefit entitlement at all.

This will be complex and somewhat expensive to setup. But if the residual of the estate exceeds 16K, your benefit entitlement would stop entirely, so it's worth it.
(apart of course from PIP/DLA (if not by then means tested, which seems likely)).

jay1181

I learn something new everyday Thanks for the link

rogerblack

NYM wrote: »

Sometimes, family will allow/make, certain adaptations to the property to suit the needs of the person living there that private landlords are reluctant to allow, such as special baths/special toilets, lower kitchen units...

This would be great evidence that it is not a commercial tenancy.

NYM

rogerblack wrote: »

This would be great evidence that it is not a commercial tenancy.

I know of a Landlord that allowed one of her tenants to have a special access bath installed (one with an opening panel like a door?)

Mind you, I don't know if her tenant is claiming HB. Maybe that makes a difference.

rogerblack

NYM wrote: »

I know of a Landlord that allowed one of her tenants to have a special access bath installed (one with an opening panel like a door?)

Mind you, I don't know if her tenant is claiming HB. Maybe that makes a difference.

Quite - I'm not arguing that adaptations will never be made by landlords.
Simply that if a landlord allows a tenant to make unusual adaptions, because they are family, this is a really, really strong indication that that tenancy is not on a commercial basis - which is a requirement for HB.

If it's an unrelated landlord, this doesn't matter at all.
Family are only allowed in certain circumstances to rent to family and have it paid by HB.
One of the requirements is that it's a commercial tenancy.
This means that everything is done properly, and the family member is treated exactly as a normal person off the street would be.
They have to be evicted if there is no rent paid, and all the usual landlord/tenant behavior.

Adapting a property extremely to the point it would be hard to market is not normal behaviour.