Leasing a house to a local council-anyone done this?

[SuperSange]

My sibling and I have inherited an ex council house from our grandma, they bought it in the 80’s. We can’t manage it as a private let due to distance, and I don’t agree with the private letting system, but the local authority run a scheme whereby you lease the house to them, they do the management, repairs, tenant finding, the lot, but we retain ownership of the house. We’re not sure about selling it yet, I think it’s all been a bit sudden and too soon. This way it goes back into the social housing pool, which I’d prefer. Has anyone done this, I’d not heard of it before, and wondered if it seems a bit too good to be true. We split the rent 50/50 with the council, which we’re very happy with.
thanks x

I'm a rental property owner and I know other people who've done it. Given your views it sounds the obvious solution for you, but go into it with eyes open. Some local authorities are good to work with, others awful, so ask around in your area. Ask estate agents, post on local forums etc. . Get crystal clear on what costs they would hold you liable for, and what changes, improvements or repairs they may insist on at your cost. For example, they might cover day to day maintenance, but say you're responsible for repairs to the structure of the building. They get to decide what repairs are necessary, and if you can't arrange to get it done yourself you might just get handed huge bills as they've had their contractors do it. I did something similar with an agency working for the government. For me it became unsustainable as, while they covered the day to day maintenance of the property, they did that so badly that major issues were able to develop and the property got run down. Their contractors would carry out roof repairs and bill me, I'd ask them to check for anything else that needed doing while they had scaffolding, and they would ignore me as they weren't working directly for me. New repairs were needed soon after, requiring expensive scaffolding again, and I had no comeback, just had to pay. This happened multiple times. The tenants consistently treated the property badly. It was very difficult to get the property back when I needed to sell. When I did, it was in a bad state and I literally had to scrub crap off the walls.

@Cornucopia55 You’ve raised some valid points there, we need to do a bit of research locally. We’re very early in the process at the moment, so will ask some of the questions you’ve raised. Thanks so much for your help!