Is he a landlord?

jelliot

My OH's father has just died without having made a will and under Scottish law his house is now jointly owned by my OH and his sister.

My OH and I own our house and the sister lives in a council house and cannot afford to buy out my OH, so OH's sister wants to give up her council house and move into the inherited house and pay her brother what she was paying in rent to the council but wants her brother to pay half the council tax and half any maintenance bills.

She will pay for gas and electricity.

My OH is agreeable to this, after all it is his sister, and the whole thing will be "unofficial" with them just having the title put in their joint names.

She is getting housing benefit but of course this will stop when she gives up her council house.

Will he then become a landlord or will his sister, owning half the house but paying him rent, just make them joint owners and her just paying him "dig money"?

Marvel1

It's a terrible idea to start with and in future a mess.

Sell house and then 50/50.

Housing benefit will stop as you said, how is she going to pay the rent?

Why half countil tax?

theartfullodger

He would be receiving rent for his 50%. So yes, a landlord. Need to get registered (up to £50k fine if not compliant), adhere to all requirements (electric tests, smoke alarms etc etc) and declare income.

Terrible idea, flog it

[Deleted User]

Sister is worried she will lost her benefits if the house is sold?

How will she pay rent if she will lose HLA? Why should brother pay half of council tax etc if she's living there? He's not getting anything back. The rent is purely to compensate him for sister living there.

Place needs to be sold.

CIS

As resident she would be the one legally responsible for the council tax charge so she's ultimately responsible even if the brother agreed to help and thendidn't.

Craig

exiled_red

Regardless of questions about who pays what your OH and his sister need to figure out what the long term plan is. It seems that the sister is looking at this as a long terms solution which is ideal for her, but what about you and your OH? If you need money at some point in future for whatever reason, it becomes likely that your OH will have to evict his sister to sell the house and get the money, how would that go down with the sister?

Pixie5740

Instead of jointly owning the property could your OH sell the sister his half with a private mortgage arrangement. That would the monthly payments from the sister mortgage repayments rather than rent. Your OH could have a charge put on the property for the value of the private mortgage. Obviously this should all be written up in a formal contract with sister so that after making Y number of payments of £X the charge would be removed. This plan would make sister responsible for her own CT and utility bills as she should be since she's the one occupying the property.

If sister can't afford the above plan then your OH should save himself the ballache and just sell the place.

[Deleted User]

Very good idea, but will have to be sure sister can maintain the property if something goes wrong.., roofing, boiler etc. Otherwise resale value will fall over time. Seen threads along these lines lol.

Look at what the sister is doing now. If the sister maintains her council house (decorates etc, keeps it clean) then that is an indicator that she'd maintain the property, but only partial. Is she ok financially or is she in debt (indicator as to whether she'd have impetus to pay agreed amount or if the agreement would fall apart in short order so then another messy situation develops).

If she keeps her council house messy, has no pride in it, is in debt, then no way in a month of Sundays should an arrangement be made.

G_M

There are 3 sesnsible options:

1) sister buys brother out (though apparantly cannot afford to)

2) property is sold and proceeds shared 50/50

3) sister stays where she is and property is let on the open market, with brother/sister as joint landlords, sharing both the rent and maintenance costs

All the above are likely to impact on sister's benefits since she has now inherited wealth and is no longer in need of support.

If the plan for sister to move in proceeds,like others I see difficulties, both in the short term (who pays what - I fail to understand why brother is paying council tax) and the long term.

* what is sister fails to pay rent (she already seems to have little contingency)
* who pays maintenance costs - minor like boiler service and major like roof repairs
* what happens if brother needs £ and wants to sell (he'll never be able to!)
* what if sister marries, then divorces - her ex will have a claim on the property!
* does brother want to be a landlord? And pay tax?

etc

AdrianC

deannatrois wrote: »

Very good idea, but will have to be sure sister can maintain the property if something goes wrong.., roofing, boiler etc. Otherwise resale value will fall over time. Seen threads along these lines lol.

Which would, of course, be her problem entirely - since she would be the 100% owner. The brother's charge over 50% of the value would almost certainly be more than covered in all but the absolute worst-case scenarios, no matter how dilapidated the property became.

Look at what the sister is doing now. If the sister maintains her council house (decorates etc, keeps it clean) then that is an indicator that she'd maintain the property, but only partial. Is she ok financially or is she in debt (indicator as to whether she'd have impetus to pay agreed amount or if the agreement would fall apart in short order so then another messy situation develops).

If she keeps her council house messy, has no pride in it, is in debt, then no way in a month of Sundays should an arrangement be made.

Very well put.

enginesuck

Flog it, and get the sister to declare that she now has wealth and stop the Benefits. She is no longer entitled. Every taxpayer is subsidizing her ! She is not losing "her benefits" she is simply no longer entitled to taxpayer support !