Housing benefit with savings

jenbrooks1990parker

Hi,

I am recently separated and own a home with my husband which I want to sell. I won’t be able to buy a home on my own due to my low salary so I will need to rent. I discovered I can get housing benefit each week towards my private rent but I will end up with a lump sum of around 100k from the sale of the house so as I have savings I won’t be entitled to the housing benefit. Does anyone know what is best to do with a big amount of savings as I don’t want this to be used on my rent as my aim will be to buy on my own but I need to save more to be able to do that. If I invested it or gave it to a family member to help them buy while saving my money would this be looked into and affect my housing benefit claim also? 

Thanks 
Jen 

elsien

You can’t give it to family that would count as deprivation of capital and he would be treated as if you still had the money

In some circumstances, which others may know more about I think capital from a house sale can be disregarded for six months But no longer than that.
After that, you would be expected to use it to live on and any Means tested benefits would stop. Investing it probably isn’t a good idea because investments need to be for five years plus To mitigate the risk of ups and downs in the stock market, 

It is not reasonable to expect cash strapped councils to carry on paying your rent while you have 100 K sitting there. 

Keep_pedalling

What you are proposing would be benefit fraud so don’t even think of going there. How would you manage to save a house deposit when as soon as those savings reach £16k you will loose you means tested benefits?

PS. If your user name is made up of your real name and year of birth you really should change it. 

tacpot12

The best thing to do would be to move to somewhere where £100,000 would allow you to buy a property. Your salary won't reduce by much so you will still be able to get a mortgage for the extra amount needed to buy somewhere. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Shared ownership might be an option?  I'm not sure if you can get help from UC towards the rent part of it.  (It will be UC, not Housing Benefit, unless you're over pension age which your username would indicate probably not.)

poppy12345

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Shared ownership might be an option?  I'm not sure if you can get help from UC towards the rent part of it.  (It will be UC, not Housing Benefit, unless you're over pension age which your username would indicate probably not.)

Yes, you can claim for help with the rent part in this case.