Housing benefit, inheritance and purchasing a property to live in

ElwoodBlues

Homewise helps those aged 60+ to secure their next property for less than the market value. This is through our Home for Life Plan, which is a Lifetime Lease option. By choosing a Lifetime Lease, our customers live in the property of their choice free from rent, mortgage or interest repayments for their lifetime, living happily and securely in their ideal home with an option to secure a guaranteed cash inheritance for loved ones too.

I'm not recommending or advocating them, or 'Lifetime lease', just pointing out that it appears to be an option.

wilfred30

The Home for Life Plan wouldn't work for the OP's relative if they want to continue living in their current flat as it cannot be used to purchase your current property, only a new one.

wilfred30

Don't forget OP that the landlord cannot end the tenancy, only the tenant or a Court can do that so it's entirely possible that the landlord could sell the flat to another landlord rather than go through the very time-consuming process of eviction.

In which case, your relative wouldn't need to move at all.

TBagpuss

It is possible to get an equity release / lifetime mortgage to buy a property, rather than on an existing one. your relative would need to get advice from a specialist broker. Generally speaking, the older someone is when they take out the loan, the higher proportion of the property value they can borrow.  At 70, I think they would only be able to borrow about 35%-40% of the value of the property so on your figures would still have a shortfall.


Another option might be for you to see whether you can borrow additional funds on your mortgage, then lend that money to your relative and secure it by way of a private charge against the house - basically you would be acting as mortgage lender to them. Your charge would be for a lump sum equal to 50% of the property so you wouldn't get regular payments but would benefit from any increase in the property value.  So they would end up owning the house but owing you £100,000 secured against the property with a private mortgage. 

Obviously that would be dependent on you being able to borrow the extra and to afford the repayments 

So far as I am aware, they would be be entitled to claim any kind of housing support.

I understand that they would prefer to stay in the current flat but thy can't force the landlord to sell with a sitting tenant, another option might be to see whether there are any other properties which would be suitable which might be more affordable for them -  such as retirement flats (often cheaper than comparable flats on the open market) https://www.sanctuary-retirement-living.co.uk/older-person-shared-ownership-opso offer a form of shared ownership for older people  and as they would be paying rent on the portion they sdon't own, they would be able to claim benefits if appropriate