Letting flat through council?

[solittletime]

Hello!
I’m hoping to get a good idea of what it would be like to let a property through the council.
I inherited a flat some years ago and been renting it out through a private agency.
Following a string of problems I’m wondering if it would be worth considering handing management of the property to my local council?
I get to vet the prospective tenant apparently.
It would feel nice to be providing decent accommodation to someone who needs it. However I’m concerned that I might be getting myself on to a situation where I could never choose to give notice if I ever need to sell the flat.

Does anyone have experience of doing this?
Thanks!

My partners brother has a flat and he lets it to a hospital trust and they put visiting doctors and consultants in that's worked really well but they have an arrangement if he wants to sell it's a years notice as they put people on placements in there

we looked at this briefly before selling.

the 'guaranteed rent' looks nice, but depending on the area that can be a lot lower than standard market rent.

in addition if the house is mortgaged you would need to swap to a (more expensive) specialist mortgage as normal ldnders don't want to take the risk.

plus the house needs to be renovated to a certain standard before handing over, all floors must be the same surface and level, stairs a certain standard (hard to achieve with an older property). if there is a garden it needs to be accessible from outside.
requirements might be different for other areas.

basically a long and potentially expensive list of requirement.

Could you air bnb it ? Might generate more in income.

@Savoury

I've a question on this. Is it not the case that the rent can be paid directly to the landlord from benefits or has that changed with UC? I remember a friend who rented his flat out for 5 years to the council with the money coming straight to him. There was still a fair about of hassle though and he eventually sold.

Yes rent can still get paid direct to the landlord if the tenant and landlord agree even on UC. There just has to be a reason. That could be something like the tenant is worried about managing large amounts of money my daughter is on UC her rent is paid directly to the landlord. I'm on the old system my rent has always been paid directly to landlord as well . Its just that it's not automatic anymore. Now you have to ask there the only difference

@ButterflyAway

I let a council flat. I’m a single mum, I work full time, claim no benefits. My flat is certainly not destroyed and I am so incredibly tired of seeing the attitude towards council tenants and the made up shit about them on here.

I think if the tenants are the type of people who are going to smash a place up. Steal not pay rent . They will do that weather they work or not .

Agree. Council must do it on purpose. Think about tuition fee, the money sent directly to the school/ University not to the students. They could easily do the same with tenants and landlords, sending the rent money directly to the landrords. Now that would be the best ,,insurance" but somehow councils don't do it. ;(

Don't do it.

I know two people who have tried this, after extensive encourage from two different councils (both London).

In both cases the tenants destroyed the properties and the councils were absolutely useless to deal with.