Can I give my house to the council?

[IdontknowwhyIcare]

Ok this is a bit of a story and I feel sure I read somewhere it was possible to do this.

My 78 yo mum has 2 houses. The first she lives in and is paid off. The second she bought because she thought watching the tv programmes 5 years ago it was a good idea. Sigh....
Basically DH, DS and I ended up gutting the house and setting it up in immaculate rental condition. new kitchen, nice bathroom, no artex, ch, magnolia etc. Anyway we live abroad, mother is too old to manage the house, we cant sell it and have had no end of problems with the allegedly reputable managing agent. 3 times even after references we have had tenants not pay, etc.

My question is can I get the council or somebody to use it and pay us rent? At the moment we are on a hiding to nothing so I really cant think of a way out. If we could even sell it we would get less than she owes. The Abbey as were got her to cash in a policy to pay the deposit. The purchase price was 180k, the dep was 85k and now it would probably only fetch 120k if we could find anyone to buy it. Quite frankly I would love someone to take it off her hands. The tax situation doesnt bear thinking about but thats another story.

Any ideas or advice? TIA

not unless you sell it to the council? it sounds like you need another managing agent, i have heard one advertized that guarentees your rent - let me have a google

here

here

here

i haven't looked at the sites and i'm not recommending any of them. i suspect the charges would be higher, but it might be worth it.

Yu can make arrangements to have it rented by people who need care. You should contact your local authority about it.

You definitely can in London in some boroughs and also some housing associations (Notting Hill Housing Trust for example) will take on privately-owned properties. They tend to want them for a minimum of 5 years or so and have ceiling rents (usually a bit lower than an EA can get you). The good thing is that the HAs or council will do all the maintenance on the property - they are basically buying a 5-year lease on it.

I'd look at getting another managing agent too.