Council Tax Benefit enquiry

Housing_Benefit_Officer

bery_451 wrote: »

The other property that she lives in is not even freehold and still on mortgage so basically the bank owns that property till the mortgage has been paid up. This is the advice im getting on the phone earlier on so cant be classed as capital as it is the banks capital.


Anyways a CAB trip is a must to verify.

If a property has a commercial resale value of say £100,000 and the outstanding mortgage is £50,000 then the capital value is £50,000.

Can you answer these questions:-

1) How much is the property worth (not the price she paid for it) You can use Zoopla to get a rough idea what similar properties in the immediate area are worth - not an accurate guide but a very rough guide:- http://www.zoopla.co.uk/house-prices/

2) How much is the outstanding mortgage.

Just because a property has an outstanding mortgage doesn't mean it has no capital value. Any capital value over the outstanding mortgage isn't the bank's capital - it is the claimants capital.

The only time a property will have no capital value is when the property is in negative equity (where the outstanding mortgage is more than the value of the property).

As it is a former Council home I would assume the property was purchased with a very generous discount. It could be anything from 35% to 70% of the commercial resale value. The property is very likely to have a substantial capital value - it isn't the banks capital - only the outstanding mortgage is - if it was sold and the mortgage paid of she would receive any excess capital value.