Relative as a tenant

onthefence12

Hi,

I bought my first house earlier this year and I have seen that a new house has come to market in the area, which I think is a good deal. I am considering if I would be able to do let to buy, where I switch my current property to a buy to let and move into the new one.

Ideally I would like to have someone reliable and who I can trust as a tenant. My dad currently rents and gets some help through benefits, I think it's UC that he gets. From my point of view he would be the ideal tenant as I trust him to respect the place and would be less hassle to manage. Would I be allowed to have him as a tenant or would this be seen as contrived and blocked? I would of course only be interested in having a proper tenancy agreement etc. What steps would I have to take to arrange this?

Many thanks for your help and advice, much appreciated.

Ames

AIUI buy to let mortgages don't allow you to let to relatives.

Housing benefit (I'm not sure if UC is different) does let you claim for a property owned by a close family member if you can prove it's on a commercial basis - ie that you'd be prepared to evict if necessary. As you have no history of being a landlord and would have only just bought the property it's unlikely IMO that you'd be able to convince a decision maker that it wasn't a contrived tenancy.

Although mixing business and family is often a bad idea.