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Original poster

Will Housing Benefit Pay Mortgage?

13 replies

brokenbiscuits1 · 20/03/2013 20:16

Hello mumsnetters! Hoping for some more advice please...

Can you claim housing benefit to pay a mortgage if there is another person who is jointly named on the mortgage who is working full time?

My partner's ex (whom he jointly owns a property with and has a joint mortgage with) has now said she is considering giving up work and living in the property (which is currently empty and being renovated to sell). He asked her how she will afford the mortgage repayments if she is not working and she has said she will claim housing benefit.

Surely housing benefit won't pay for a mortgage when the other person on the mortgage is in full time employment and earning a decent salary. We sure as hell aren't paying the mortgage for her to live there and not work either, so we are hoping her "plan" will not be possible.

If it makes a difference they were never married and the children live with us 50/50. She has her own home, as do we, so no problem about it being the children's current home or anything like that. She appears to be looking for an easy way to not have to work and have either my DP or the state support her to do this

Any advice would be fab!

OP posts:

thenightsky · 20/03/2013 20:19

If she has made herself intentionally unemployed I cannot see she'd be entitled to anything would she?

MrsHoarder · 20/03/2013 20:20

I thought housing benefit was only for rent?

And I suspect they are jointly and separately liable for the mortgage so there is no halves and if she stops paying he'll have to pay the whole lot.

ThisIsMummyPig · 20/03/2013 20:24

You can't claim Housing Benefit for Mortgages.

There is some mortgage interest relief which is available through the jobcentre. You should contact them for more info. (HB is admistered through the local council for now)

glitch · 20/03/2013 20:24

You can claim SMI (mortgage interest payments) if you are entitled to housing benefit. You are allowed to claim if your ex is on the mortgage but no longer pays or lives there. It would need to be her only home.
In order to claim HB she needs to be on JSA, IS or similar.

scarlettsmummy2 · 20/03/2013 20:25

Housing benefit won't pay mortgage l. There is some sort of fund that pays interest for those who have been made redundant, but if leaves work voluntarily she won't get. And even is she did, she would be put on the work programme after six months! Although she may then get her just desserts

ThisIsMummyPig · 20/03/2013 20:26

Does she own the property she lives in at the moment? If so then that property would be treated as an asset, and she wouldn't be entitled to anything.

ThisIsMummyPig · 20/03/2013 20:29

I actually think you should get legal advice about preventing her from moving in. I have seen an agreement as part of a divorce which prevented one partner from living in the property, and stipulated that both partners had to b reasonable about the sale, that the sale would be conducted through an estate agents, who would do all the viewings.....It was clearly designed to stop the ex from moving in and making the property unsaleable.

That agreement was about dissolving a civil partnership, but I assume something similar could be agreed in your case, especially as there are children.

Original poster

brokenbiscuits1 · 20/03/2013 20:31

Thank you all - very quick :)

Well I suppose she isn't deliberately giving up work, she has sort of stopped caring and is very very close to getting fired and has said she's not fussed bascially.

MrsHoarder, yes jointly and severaly liable, it's more than he wants it sold and she will move in, stop the sale and try and get him to pay mortgage, which we can;t afford to do and why the hell should he just cause she doesn't want to work! Hmm...

Glitch, that's worrying, he wants the property sold as she is screwing him over financially in many ways and he doesn't want any more financial ties with her.

Scarlett - She would get Income Support I guess as their youngest child is only 4 so she could claim that until he is 5 I believe. However, we currently get the child benefit for the children so I'm not sure she can get income support. All a bit confusing really.

Mummypig - She doesn't own her current home, it belongs to her uncle and she is paying him rent to live there. We also rent our current home and the jointly owned property is currently empty.

OP posts:

scarlettsmummy2 · 20/03/2013 20:33

She won't get anything if she is fired either.

ThisIsMummyPig · 20/03/2013 20:39

How much do you hate her?

If she is currently claiming HB and the property has been on the market for more than six months then she needs to declare it as an asset. This means that it will be valued 10% deducted (for reasonable selling costs) and then the profits divided by 2. This would mean that a £100k property would be valued at £45 grand for her. Anything over £16k would knock her off benefits. You could easily send that information in to your local council who would do a land registry check to confirm it.

If that doesn't get her off benefit, you could ask them to investigate if she has any legal liability to pay rent, and if the arrangement has been contrived between family members.

All of that only applies if she stays at her current home. I still think you need to find a way to prevent her from moving in (legally) otherwise you might never be able to sell that property

Original poster

brokenbiscuits1 · 20/03/2013 20:59

scarletts mummy - Do you know if the "won't get benefots for a set time if fired or resigned" applies to people with children claiming IS or just JSA?

Mummypig - Unfortunately the jointly owned property is in negative equity, so is going to be sold at a loss. In fact, whilst we are doing it up she hasn't actually agreed to the sale, she is ignoring all legal communication about the property so we are in the process of applying to court for leave to sell without her permission given that she has abandoned the property, hasn't paid a penny of the mortgage or shown any interest in it for nearly 2 years now.

I don't hate her as such, just hate the way she is trying to screw over DP. Even though we have the children living with us 50/50 she knows if she isn't working she can claim a large amount of Child Maintenance from DP to help support her, added to Housing Benefit and income support (if she gets it) she will be quite happy I guess :(

OP posts:

scarlettsmummy2 · 20/03/2013 21:05

I'm not sure to be honest, although they may query what has changed that she feels she can no longer work I would have thought. I was a presentation from the job centre on Tuesday and they seem to be very militant at the moment and pressured to keep people in work- seem particularly keen to get people into care work so I doubt they will give her an easy time.

SuperGlumFairy · 24/03/2013 11:47

Sorry I just came across this thread but surely if the care of the children is split 50/50 there is actually no reason your partner should be paying any child maintenance. I thought it was normal that in the cases of 50/50 split that both parents just pay the costs of having the kids with them and maintenance is effectively erased?
Regardless, whether she works or not, the amount of child support he pays doesn't change. Her income has no bearing on what he pays. He is paying to support the children, not her and the amount he pays would only be affected by changes to his income. Is this not true?

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