Housing benefits loop of doom! – Anyone have any good ideas on how to house my mum (80)

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I’ll try to keep this short.

My mum is 80, lives alone, and is currently in a private rental. She’s about to run out of savings and will soon be eligible to claim housing support and pension credit.

Her current landlord has said they won’t accept tenants on benefits, apparently due to insurance reasons, so she’ll need to move out.

We’ve looked at helping her ourselves by buying a small buy-to-let property and moving her in, but the council has told us they won’t pay housing benefit if she’s renting from family, even with a proper tenancy in place.

We also looked into shared ownership and part-buy schemes, but again, we’re being told she can’t live in a property as shes not the leaseholder, but they won't sell to her.

She can't get a mortgage.

So where is she meant to go?

There’s no social housing available in our area at the moment and we’re doing everything we can to give her some stability, but we keep hitting walls.

If anyone knows of a way through this or any schemes we’ve missed, I’d really appreciate it!

Ask your local council and housing associations. Often they have a single list of homes and you 'bid' on a home.

You can get really nice ‘garden rooms’ that are liveable all year round with all amenities off the shelf if you like that option. (My dad was considering it when his house fell down whilst it was being rebuilt). They don’t always need planning permission either. I can’t find the exact company he was looking at now but something like this
https://www.norwegianlog.co.uk/annexes

Wow these are fantastic

If you have space in teh garden OP I think this is your answer, you'll add value to your home, you'll have an annex you can rent out in years to come when mum isnt around any more, mum wont have to pay rent, you can afford it without a mortgage (although you'll lose your savings so to speak), shes right close by and can keep the dog.

https://www.quick-garden.co.uk/granny-annexe-angela-m-82mx6-15m-27x20-44-mm.html

There are almshouses all over the country. I'm sorry my earlier link to almshouses didn't work but it really is worth looking into.

I looked at some of the almhouses links as I would love to live in one, one day, but they have quite strict criteria most of the ones I saw about either being born in a particular parish or having lved for a long time in the borough, being able to show you are independent and self sufficient but at the same time 'in need'.

There are some where I grew up, havent lived in that area for nearly 20 years but I would love to live in them

I did look at that she’s Ok as she has moved to be close to us and we are 25+ years in this area.

They do look lovely.

This is an excellent post!

Do they actually know she's going to claim UC or are you being absurdly over scrupulous and thinking she has to move out because of something it says on their website? And if they do know, why on earth did you tell them?
The landlord won't have a clue how she's paying the rent. When she's eligible, get her claim in and she carries on paying the rent as usual. Of course she doesn't have to move!

Why are you still thinking she needs to move? She doesn't!!

I agree with this!
Refusing to rent to someone solely because they receive housing benefit (or using phrases like "No DSS") is considered unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010..
What a hungry b###### the landlord is to do that to an 80 year old. 🙈
Who cares where the rent is coming from as long as it’s paid.

If she has £25k why can’t she pay for another private rental upfront? I’m not sure I get the issue re benefits?

It sounds like it isn’t the landlord themselves but an overarching letting agent policy. Still unlawful! They will get absolutely nowhere trying to enforce that. Just don’t tell the agent, they have no business knowing.

I strongly suspect though that the LHA rate (which caps housing benefit entitlement) isn’t going to cover a 2 bed garden flat. Though OP’s mum might be able to claim once she’s below £16k savings snd get something to help (though she’ll probably keep eroding her savings to cover the shortfall).

In the meantime, mum should get on social housing waiting lists.

i’m doubtful that OP is going to be able buy a property and get all her costs covered by the amount they will be able to claim in HB, but you never know.

Do you know how difficult it is to secure a rental property with a pet?

Because she will run out of savings? The rental is approx £1500 she is paying council tax, bills etc, food, living costs and she is only on a basic pension. So she is fairly quickly burning through money, she’s had car repairs bills of over £1200k and other unexpected costs, so thinking ahead she will be needing some housing support.

We are rural and even with 8 months of looking even an annex in a local house was £1200pcm + bills.

100% the case I don’t expect to cover all of the costs of a house if we do buy, I’ll just divert some of my pension money into the rental for how ever long I need too, it’s not ideal but it is where we are.

There is that but being rural it’s a bit easier.

Once we are out of the agreement I’m going to let the agent know, but I can’t straight away! Else they will ask why I noticed 🤣

Much more secure and comfortable for an 80 year old to be in a nice sheltered housing flat from a housing association.

’m not sure whereabout in Hampshire you are but her max HB eligibility (once she has run down her savings) will be something like £800pm in Winchester for example.

it is a big problem in general that LHA is completely out of step with actual rents, as you have already found you can’t actually find anything to rent that’s fully covered by HB.

@Frostiesflakes there definitely isn’t in Bath - ( where I live) believe me , if you are on the lists unless you have something to move you up bands , there are around 120 people come up higher on the choice based letting which you have to go through - I really think it’s very location specific

OP - coming back to a couple of points you made ‘anyone’ can go on the lists regardless of savings- someone with £200k could- and if it’s anything like round here it will be a central list and she would be banded depending on need - if she will be moved out as you say she should state that and due to age too probably will get high banding - problem is some of what’s offered really can be grim , just depends- claiming for rent etc is savings dependent as you know - under £6k can claim up to local area allowance for a 1 bed- £6 to £16k it will be tapered - over £16k - can’t claim .

others have mentioned Housing 21 - that’s a really good one and a very searchable site , Anchor too and you can see what’s immediately available or list for others - other providers are Girlings ( private provider but long term tenancies) there is also a good website called Movingsoon that is mainly about this type of accommodation

You can have a look at Hampshire choice website to give you an idea of what is available locally. You can even look into how may people are bidding on properties.

The agents are wrong it's illegal to discriminate but they still do it. The house owner is ultimately responsible for the law being followed. My ex landlord probably still hates me but tough shouldn't have let a property with illegal electrics.

Sounds a bit fishy about the landlord and "insurance reasons" for not accepting benefits.

I thought housing benefit/UC was by default paid to the tenant for them to pass on so it makes no odds to the landlord and they might not even be aware if it's an existing tenant.

I suspect some just say they don't accept it because they don't want to lose out if someone gets their benefits stopped,

Entirely agree but if as OP says this isn’t an option then using the money to provide a roof over her head appears to be a no brainer unless I’m missing something 🤷🏻‍♀️