renting

[purpledahlia]

Hii
Does anyone know if your allowed/can get housing and council tax benefit for private rents.. if your renting from parents?!

My parents cant sell their old house, i hate the house, but, i need out of their house.. it would be temp..6 months. Till i find a flat, it would be my own space and would get me out of here, BUT, im not sure if its allowed?

Id still have to pay rent to them, just cheaper, its 4 bed, but housing benefit would only entitle me to a 2 bed, once LO is born. But parents are saying they would prefer to rent it out for cheaper than have it empty and still have to pay for it. its been on the market 11 months, i wouldnt be looking to move till Jan, so would be like 13/14 months on the market for renting or selling, with no luck.

So its a legitimate private rent, just so happens the landlords would be my parents. does anyone know about this???

I dont particularly want to live in this village and be stranded... but i would rather be there than sharing my tiny room here with a baby and having no space or freedom with what i do etc..(knwo what its like living with parents!)

It would also enable me to look into childminding, im a qualified nanny etc and the house has spare rooms i could use and be self employed. but thats thinking far ahed just now,

So does anyone know the rules on renting from family?

 

[KitKat]

Hi i rent my house of my mother housing benifit never questioned it, for me my partner and 3kids i get £115pw paid 4 us, i live in northern ireland

 

[Emma1980]

I rent my house from my mum, but i never told the housing benefit people that!

 

[purpledahlia]

how did you not tell them?? I have the same surname.. so when i put landlords details.. it would be obvious.. lol. we have a very rare surname of '' pickles '' so not just like smith or something haha!

would i just ring the local council to find out for sure? or how does it work, i dont even know what u need to show the council when applying for housing benefit.

 

[Emma1980]

I have a different surname and my mum has several houses so is pretty well known... i was just never asked about it really, wasnt done on purpose.

im pretty sure its fine as long as you have an official contract etc ( she can print one out on the internet ) ensure she puts the rent as the average rent for that area, you wont get the full amount before bubs is here though....

just did a quick search on the net and yep, if you have an official tenancy agreement all should be fine...

go in to your local council and ask for the HB form, fill it in and take it back with the tenancy agreement and also your benefit paperwork, someone will probably go thru it with you and let you know if they need anything else

 

[Emma1980]

just another thing i noticed in a search, they may request proof that your parents have had the house on an open market to let

 

[purpledahlia]

thats fine we have that, its been on the market for ages. I wouldnt be moving till baby is here anyway, the house's rent and area would be worth more than what they would charge.. would we put in the agreement the rent amount they wanna charge? or the full amount for the area.. and then they obv wouldnt pay it all but thats fine..?

 

[Emma1980]

the amount for the area not the amount they want, hopefully that will work out for the amount they want, how come your not moving in before? might still hit what they want and beats the house standing empty! easier to settle in before babies here!

 

[KitKat]

in northern ireland when we apply for housing benifit it asks on the form what relationship is to landlord, around 8years ago when i rented a diff house from my mum i had to get proof that the house was not in my name which was stright forward, i dont think you will have a problem getting your housing benifit

 

[purpledahlia]

thats true, well for the size/area the property could get like a thousand a month.. they wont pay that out, and parents wouldnt charge me that, they will basically charge me what the council would pay.. so as far as i know.. but i need to ring tomorrow to check.. a single person is 390 housing benefit, once baby is here would be 500.. but i need to check, so would we put the full amount its worth then just see what they will pay? or would they question where the rest of the rent will come from since im on benefits.. cos they will know i cant afford to pay 500 a month to top it up.. or does that not matter..
Well i technically could move before i guess.. but id be here over xmas and first few weeks with baby anyways.. i guess that wouldnt matter, i could start to 'prepare' find furnoture.. go up, re paint it if i wanted, things like that?

 

[purpledahlia]

yeah house is def not in my name! okay cool, now i just need to think about if i wanna do this and find out details.. how much id be entitled too and stuff, and contracts etc

 

[Mize1982]

i recieve hb and have recently changed my address now when i got the paper work it said they will not pay if u live WITH your parents and you pay them rent so seeing as they wont be there maybe it'll be ok

 

[purpledahlia]

yea, im with them just now so wouldnt get it, but id not be with them if i move to that house.

 

[Rebaby]

My cousin's parents (my aunty and uncle) bought a house with the sole intention of renting it to my cousin so she could live there with her LO. She claimed housing benefit which covered most but not all of the rent payments to her parents, and obviously her parents didn't make her pay the rest to top up, so it worked out really well for her Not sure how they worked out all the paperwork as i wasn't involved but it was all legit and i know they had to draw up a contract and that.

 

[kit603]

It does ask on the Housing Benefit/Council Tax form what your relationship (if any) is to the landlord, so there's no way to avoid telling them that you're renting from your parents. However, so long as you are actually paying them rent and have a tenancy agreement then I can't see it being a problem.

I don't think they'll pay out the whole amount, as its a 4 bed and you're only entitled to a 2 bed. Each are has a "Local Housing Allowance" already determined for someone entitled to a 2 bedroom house and that'll be the maximum you can claim - even if the house you're renting is a 4 bedroom.

 

[purpledahlia]

yeah, thats fine. They would charge me for a 2 bed anyway, they just cant afford to pay out for 2 houses and it would be better if someone was in that house, id get council tax benefit aswell and parents would have a bit of income coming from the rent to put towards their new house. And they wouldnt have to worry about bills cos id obv have to pay them if i was living there. So it would benefit, apart from it being in this tiny village where i dont really wanna live! but i guess for the first 6 months i could deal with it, be closer to mum etc.

Does anyone know how much it would cost them to make up the contract and sign up to the council to be landlords and do everything they would need to do??

 

[kit603]

yeah, thats fine. They would charge me for a 2 bed anyway, they just cant afford to pay out for 2 houses and it would be better if someone was in that house, id get council tax benefit aswell and parents would have a bit of income coming from the rent to put towards their new house. And they wouldnt have to worry about bills cos id obv have to pay them if i was living there. So it would benefit, apart from it being in this tiny village where i dont really wanna live! but i guess for the first 6 months i could deal with it, be closer to mum etc.

Does anyone know how much it would cost them to make up the contract and sign up to the council to be landlords and do everything they would need to do??

Not sure about how much it'll cost them to register as landlords (or if you even need to) but contracts you could just download from the Internet and change as applicable. I'm pretty sure that nowadays you have to pay a deposit whether its somebody you know or not as its supposed to go into one of the landlord/tenant deposit schemes by law. (I could be wrong about having to pay one, but I know that if you do pay one it has to go into one of those schemes.)

Also, I'm pretty sure that they'd have to declare it as a source of income with HMRC because i've just filled in a tax return as i'm self-employed and part of the tax return had a section devoted to income received from renting out property. Again, could be wrong?

 

[purpledahlia]

orite, k. i didnt think of those things. ill mention it to my dad!