Buying my parent’s council house

[MojoJojo71]

After some advice please as I’ve had an idea and I’m not sure if it’s doable or full of pitfalls I’m not clued up enough to see.

My parents are in their 70’s and live in a 3 bedroom council house that they have rented for 40+ years. My mum is disabled and has been increasingly unwell over the last couple of years. I’m worried that if she passes away they’ll make my dad move out into a flat or bedsit. He has mental health issues, depression, anxiety and OCD and I’m worried he won’t cope well with this st all. I only have a 2 bed flat for me and 9 yo so I couldn’t take him in.

Their house is only worth about 60-80k and with discount they could probably buy it for 20kish and this would mean he could stay in it until he died Obviously at their age they couldn’t get a mortgage. I’m presuming in order to get the discount the house would be in their name so I couldn’t get a mortgage for it in my name either? If not I probably have enough equity in my property to remortgage and give them the money to buy it. Is this allowed? is there another way to do it I haven’t seen?

If one of them had to go into a care home and the house had to be sold would I be able to get the money I had given them ring fenced in some way?

I hope this all makes sense. I’d appreciate and advice/experience

You can’t buy their house

And then they need to go into a home and you lose the lot. Great idea.

Very unlikely to be doable.

Surely they gave a joint tenancy? So it’ll revert to a sole tenancy in his name if your mum dies. Tenancy could also be in your dad’s sole name as 40 years ago that’s often what happened. You need to check their tenancy agreement basically or ask their landlord. If tenancy in your mums sole name then he can succeed to the tenancy if no other previous succession ( assume not if they have lived there for ever)
Basically I wouldn’t worry too much but ask the council housing office for clarity

The righttobuyhelpline.co.uk
might be a good place to start

You need to talk to a solicitor but it should be feasible for you to make them a loan secured with a lien ( I think that's what it's called) on the house that goes on the land registry so you receive your money back if the house needs to be sold. It would be sensible at the same time to get their wills made but even if they go loopy and leave it all to a cats home your lein should come first out of the sale proceeds

If your dad has lived there 40 years and is on the tenancy agreement, the council cannot force him to move out if he ends up living in the house alone.
there are loads of rules on rtb, to stop family and friends buying someone else’s council house, I would forget about it unless you want to sell up and move in with them permanently, after a length of time you can go on the tenancy and buy

It is very unlikely you could do this and certainly not possible to ring fence the money to buy the house in the event that they needed to go into a care home. Either you are gifting them the money to buy the house or you are seeking to buy the house (which is not allowed).

Councils will investigate where the money comes from to understand whether it is a genuine purchase or if someone is seeking to benefit from another's right to buy discount. Social housing provision is extremely poor these days, thousands of children spend their Christmas in awful emergency housing provision waiting for a home so they have a duty to ensure that it is a genuine purchase by the tenants and not for someone else to benefit.

If he is on the tenancy then they won't make him move out. He may be subject to bedroom tax although I'm assuming that potentially they are already subject to this.

A sheltered scheme might suit him too in a few years. They can be great for loneliness and having lots done for you that you can no longer manage yourself. A big house is good leverage to get into a great scheme ( if that is what he wants) as all councils will be delighted to get it back!

Thanks everyone. Probably not going to work then. Just an idea. Hopefully they’ll be with us for a good while yet and it won’t be an issue.

They do have a joint tenancy and theoretically he could stay but a lot of their income comes from my mum’s disability benefits so his income would reduce significantly and because of the ‘bedroom tax’ his rent would rise so he’d probably be encouraged to move to a smaller property.

Bedroom tax doesn’t apply to pensioners.

Thinking about it, I don't think they would be subject to bedroom tax as they are over state pension credit age.

You can certainly give them the money to buy it. The council won’t ask where the money has come from. But you won’t get the money back if they go in a home. If you want to ensure repayment you’d have to get a solicitor involved and lend them the money on a formal basis secured against the house.

Don't buy. Bad move. If your mum dies or has to move out your dad would get benefits to make sure he can pay rent etc. He'll be fine.

You can't 'but' another person's council house in your own name. You can gift your parents the money so that they can buy it. You can't get the money ring fenced like you could if you were say helping out with a deposit in a private sale because officially you haven't played any part in the buying of the house. The only way you can eventually get your money back, I would think, is to make sure your parents will you the house. This is a risk because if they go into care some of the money will be used (not all as a certain amount is ringfenced. Not sure how much) if they don't go into care, when they die and the house is sold you would have made a good profit and have helped out your parents who would no longer be paying rent. If you have other siblings, to get your money back you would need to ensure that the amount you put in was specifically willed to you before the rest of the assets were shared out. The risks seen little as the amount you would be putting in would be ring fenced (I think was £23000?? Not sure situation now. If you do have siblings and they could afford it, you could minimise the risk by gifting the amount needed between you

They can buy it and after so long transfer ownership to you. It’d be best to go through a solicitor.

My friend did this for his parents. He gifted the money to his mum and after a period she transferred ownership as his dad has gambling issues and he wanted to ensure his mum had a roof over her head.

Good point Bellex. I had forgotten this as an option even though I also know someone who did this. 😀

Missing the point maybe, but where can you buy a 3-bed house for £60k?!

This has all sorts of tax implications. OP would effectively be a landlord and would be taxed as if the parents were paying rent. All of the laws that apply to landlords would apply to OP. And if the parents went in a home the council would likely claim it was deprivation of assets and go after the house anyway.

See a solicitor OP, I’m virtually certain you can make a formal loan to your parents. They’d be allowed to borrow the money from the bank so there’s no reason they can’t borrow it from you.

I've just posted on another thread about my Mum's local authority house.

My son gave my Mum the money to purchase it for cash in her name. The local authority didn't even ask where the money was coming from just for proof she had the funds available.

You need advice from a solicitor with regard to care fees etc but it's definitely doable.

My grandparents and uncle did this. Right to buy in their name they couldn’t get mortgage in their circumstances. So uncle applied for mortgage along with grandparents. House ownership was all of them (on the deeds) I think you need advice from people that have done this.