Student finance Parental rental income

hsh68 · 31 March 2023 at 1:51PM

Hi
Our daughter is going into her final year at uni in September. Up till now we have not provided income details to Student finance as our household income was above the threshold for any more than the minimum maintenance loan. However, last year both my husband and I left our jobs and now rely solely on a small rental portfolio. It seems that SF are only willing to asses our income before any mortgages are paid which will affect the outcome for our daughter significantly as we have substantial mortgages on all our properties. Does anyone have any experience of this and any advice please. We were hoping that she would get close to the full maintenance loan this year as our actual income now is so much lower. Thanks for reading.

tacpot12 · 31 March 2023 at 3:56PM

It seems unreasonable that mortgage payments are not deducted from rental income, seeing as you are legally bound to make the payments. How have you discovered that they won't allow the deduction?

I would write to your MP about this.

MalMonroe · 31 March 2023 at 5:39PM

Hi, before you write to your MP, though, it might be worth trying to get a bit more information if possible.

You might want to have a read of the article that Martin prepared on 2 March this year - it's full of helpful information and explanations, especially if you scroll down to "you could get more living support if your family's income dropped for any reason".

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes/

With student loans, it always seems to be more complicated than it needs to be. I had one in the late 1990s, as did my daughter and things appear to have changed drastically since that time - they were confusing enough then.

I hope you manage to get things sorted out to your satisfaction and that information in the link above is of some use. Apologies if not but I trust Martin to be thorough, because he usually is.

All the best to you and your daughter.

_Penny_Dreadful · 1 April 2023 at 1:15PM

tacpot12 said:

It seems unreasonable that mortgage payments are not deducted from rental income, seeing as you are legally bound to make the payments. How have you discovered that they won't allow the deduction?

I would write to your MP about this.

It’s not that unreasonable. You can’t deduct the mortgage interest as a business expense on your tax return either.

However, the SLC shouldn’t just be looking at gross income.

If you’re self-employed

If you have not completed your tax return yet, fill in the form to ask to delay providing evidence until after the Self Assessment deadline (January the following year).

You still need to return evidence for any other employment, for example if you had a salaried job earlier in the year.

https://www.gov.uk/support-child-or-partners-student-finance-application/current-year-income