Buying property for relative to tennant (&housing benefit)

[74slackbladder]

Has anyone got any experience of trying to buy a property in essence for the benefit a relative who is on housing benefit?
Idea would be that the housing benefit would be paid by my brother to my father to cover the mortgage. From exploring this avenue before for MIL I don't think its possible if you are a direct relative of the person you are paying the rent to.
Is there a way round this ?

it isn't possible and if you did find a way around it, it would be fraud. A tenant can't claim housing benefit when they rent property from a close relative.

have just read the same, more or less on CAB website. it just seems mad to me that a person on housing benefit can pay rent to a private landlord, but that landlord cant be a relative that is basically trying to help them out. i understand that a lot of people probably do it as a bit of a scam or to try and make some money but in this case its simply the most sensible (and obvious) solution to my brother's housing problem

13 years ago, my grandmother bought a house for me to rent from her, and I claimed Housing Benefit to pay the rent.

I was 17 and was a single mother, my DS was 4months old at the time. For reasons due to lack of space I couldn't stay on at home with my parents and there were no council houses available so my only other option was going to be to end up in a hostel. My grandmother obviously didn't want that to happen so bought the house. I then had to write to the council (or whoever it was paying HB, think it was the council) explaining the situation, that my grandmother would be the landlady and the reasons why I did not feel I could live in the hostel with such a young baby (kitchen locked at 9pm seemed to be the main problem - no electrical items allowed in rooms so couldn't make/store/heat baby's bottle) and they agreed that they would pay my HB.

I know that my situation was different, I assume, to the OP's brother and that it was 13 years ago, but would just like to point out that they did let me claim HB and were in full possession of the facts so it was not fraud.

It might be worth asking to do a HB calculation and see if they will pay before going ahead with it.

They have tightened up on that sort of thing a lot though. Friends of my mums got a house almost completely paid for by benefits (the h lost his job 6 mnths after getting the mortgage and then didnt work for 18 years), and a free extension years ago!

my dad would only agree to buy the property if he knows HB will cover it. he is semi-retired so cannot really afford to be out of pocket.
i guess there may be some mileage in talking direct to council and being up front about situ.
basically my brother needs to relocate to be near my parents as he is hopefully about to udnergo a massive op which will mean he needs to have someone nearby (currently 2-3 hrs drive away).
they have checked out housing market locally and he can just about get somewhere with his HB allowance that is habitable and close-ish to parents.
why is it that people who genuinely NEED help in this country can never seem to get it ?!

it is possible, i know someone who got HB to cover the rent on a house she rented from her mum who had a mortgage on it.
know it took some messing about though and do consider that now there are these local housing allowances they may not cover the whole rent which may in turn not cover the whole mortgage.

It is possible because we do it. My parents own our house and we claim HB. The question is asked "Are you related to the landlord?" and we said yes, he is my dad.
Never had a problem and unfortunately we have had 3 separate benefit claims in the last 3yrs due to redundancy... the latest one started this week