Housing Beifit

mash_3 · 11 August 2004 at 7:12PM

My wife used to live with her parents before we got married. Her father passed away and as a result the bank wanted to reposses the property. She had to take a mortgage out to stop this happeing. So the now her parents property is in my wifes name.

We got married and i took out a mortgage and we moved to the new house around 3 years ago, and her my mother in law lives in my wifes house. My mother in law has a low income around 10,000 punds. Over the last 4 years this has been the situation where we covered payments on both properties.

I thought it might be worth looking into geeting help with the payment on my wifes mortgage as we are now expecting a new baby and finances will be streached.

If we can not afford the payments on my wifes property my mother in law will have to find help for housing. This is a situation that we wanted and have avoided over the last 4 years. We have covered the payments up until now but was wondering if we have a case for help.

thanks for your adive.

Ted_Hutchinson · 12 August 2004 at 4:57PM

A good source for online information about Housing Benefit matters is here HBINFO

From which you can see that your wife's mother could claim Housing Benefit if there was a formal tenancy between her and her daughter. Landlord is a close Relative It would have to be a formal rent agreement and her mother would have to make the claim. If it appeared the rental agreement was designed to take advantage of the HB scheme that would be sufficient to prevent payments but if you get advise from a reputable Welfare Rights provider this shouldn't be a problem. The alternative is that alternative accomodation for you wife's mother will have to be found and this could be more stressful.

There is a Housing Benefit Calculator here Housing Benefit Calculator which will enable you to work out how much help your mother should get which would assist with the mortgage interest. You would need not only to charge market rent but also a standard commercial rental agreement. I am assuming you wife's mother hasn't capital/savings over the limit you should also be aware that the property may be considered unreasonably large for a single person and therefore the subsidy towards the rent would be limited to that of the rent for a property of appropriate size.

mash_3 · 12 August 2004 at 10:21PM

Ted

As my first response I really appreaciate it, thank you for your reply.

I will get on and do some more research with the calculator and link you have provided.

Thanks alot

MASH

Housing Beifit

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