Will the STATE pay your mortgage if you are unemployed looking after children?????

[drosophila]

A friend of mine is soon to find herself on her own and she will be left in a flat with a reasonable size mortgage. She has two kids and has not worked since the birth of the first one. I'm not sure what her exdp will contribute financially but understandably she is worried.

I told her of a case I had heard off where the state payed the mortgage on her house and she got about £400 or £500 a month to live on. In this case the woman also had two young kids. Anyone got any knowledge.

Thanks

if the state would pay your mortgage then EVERYONE would get their partner to "leave" and get it paid for them wouldn't they?

ridiculous.

she'll have to sell the flat and rent somewhere if she refuses to work.

oh and if you have any profit from the sale of your house you have to use this to pay rent until it is all gone and then you can claim housing benefit (this also happened to my friend once they had soldshe couldn't get a mortgage as not earnign enough and she had to spend all £23000 of her profit on rent, whilst her ex dh brought a house with his new girlfriend with his £23k!!)

Thing is I am sure that there is at least one case ( a friend of a friend) where the state did pay the mortgage. In this case the couple had split and she was a SAHM. I think he lost his job but not sure and the state decided it was more cost effective to pay the mortgage than house them in B&B's.

I assume there was no council housing available in their area. I know the husband was always pressuring the ex wife to sell but she dug her heals in. I suspect each case may be viewed on their merits.

I'm interested in the concept of 'not being able to afford not to work' - if she has two preschool age children it may be difficult to find work that covers the childcare costs! I certainly found that, and am not going back after no3, because I was actually making a net loss (in a skilled professional job).

Have never heard of the state paying mortgages though. Surely that should be up to exdh.

Working might well be the better option if she is able to get a job which can cover childcare costs for 2.

And Expat, if she does rent, all the taxpayer will be doing is bumping up the capital and income of rental landlords. Don't see why paying interest on a mortgage is unacceptable as a way of keeping a roof over someone's head- and may well be cheaper than private rent, anyway. Though I think the idea of some payback on sale, if there is a profit, is an interesting one. Pro rata to the profit made during that time - not as a complete loan to anyone who has a mortgage - why should they be left without access to the welfare state? pay enough stamp duty! Lots of peple would have given eye teeth to get a council house, found private renting too expensive, so have struggled to buy.

Exdp does not have his name on the mortgage so I guess the legal responsibility stops there.