As a family we are wanting to club together to buy a house as a home for our severely disabled adult-child.
We understand his needs in great detail and want to be able to get into a position where we can influence where he lives and where he has a secure tenancy with backup from an enhanced supported living arrangement. He is currently living in accommodation as part of a residential care service. These arrangements have already failed twice and he has lost his home each time so we want to stop this happening.
Some service providers have suggested that this has been done before with families leasing a property to a sympathetic housing association who in turn rents it to the disabled family member on a secured tenancy.
Has anyone had experience of this or able to offer any help and guidance please?
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Hi really sorry I don’t have an answer for your question but would love to know the outcome. My brother in law is disabled and lives at home with my mother in law and I have been worrying about how we would arrange care for him at home should my mother in law pass so a similar situation. Good luck. Just a thought - would Mencap not be able to help?? Karen-Mencap Stephen-Mencap SarahR-Mencap
I think whether your son/daughter has capacity to sign tenancies needs to be considered in deciding what route you take.
The important thing is that they don’t pay rent to family directly as this prevents them from claiming housing benefit for rent (which in turn is important for the upkeep of the property).
Another option might be for your family to put the new property into a discretionary trust, with themselves as trustees. The Trust could then rent out the property to your adult-child. There may be tax implications to this but it might be worth having a free initial consultation with a Solicitor with Trusts expertise to ask.
Hi, I own a limited company that owns and rents out accommodation. When my LD brother needed a home and the LA could not provide suitable home, I asked if HB would be available to help pay his rent, if my company purchased a suitable home and leased it to him. The answer was NO. I argued about this as the limited company is a separate legal entity but the benefits department argued that as I was a Director of the company they wouldn't pay. This made no sense to me. I would have taken this further up the chain for an appeal but didn't have time as the need for a new home was urgent. Luckily, we managed to secure a tenancy and care package with the same organisation which makes things a bit easier to manage.
That's interesting, thank you. It's great that you found another solution. My understanding is that you use your own (or company's) property it would need to be leased to a registered social landlord who would need to rent it via a tenancy agreement to the disabled person at a commercial rent. I've yet to meet anyone that has made this work in practice though, hence my post!
HI Just reading your post from a year ago and wondered how you got on with getting HB for your son. I am wanting to buy for my daughter. We could buy the property via my husbands limited company - he is not the father of my daughter and I am not part of the limited company. I wonder if that would get around the problem ? What are you thoughts or experiences please . Thanks
Our journey has not been an easy one. We did get to the point of having an offer accepted on a house which we were going to part finance (25%) but we would have had to get a BTL mortgage for the 75% in our name. Mortgage rates were already climbing and it was a worry that we wouldn’t be able to recoup all of the costs via housing benefit. Also, most mortgage companies had a problem with the tenant being a family member, so it all felt a bit dodgy attempting to put a registered housing association in the middle of this to get round the restriction and to secure a higher rate of housing benefit. Several of the mortgage companies also had a problem with us renting to a housing association. I also noted that mortgage rates for companies were even higher, so forming a (CIC) company or using a friend’s rental company instead had this added complication. All a bit ‘Catch 22’.
In the middle of this process we had a serious incident when we realised that it was wishful thinking on our part to put our lad into a domestic setting at this point with neighbours, etc, so we changed tack. He is now in specialist supported living. The jury’s out on whether this will work….
I would agree with Lachla who suggested contacting Golden Lane Housing, although they never came back to me so you may need to be persistent. Also, maybe try and find other specialist housing associations who do this type of thing for people with special needs and see how you could help finance it.
One last lead we followed up was ‘MySafeHome’. Worth a Google. I spoke at length via Zoom with the super helpful CEO who I think was David Abbot. If we ever revisit this idea I would definitely be looking at this government backed scheme as a way of ‘doing it properly’ - just my view. Not a quick solution but a robust one.
I hope this is helpful. Let us know how you get on. If I think of anything else I’ll come back and write it here.
Thank you for or the update - such a complicated system that should be so easy for families just trying to help their disabled children live somewhere decent. I will follow up on my safe home - thanks
My friend has done it for twin boys. It’s been an experience. She had to set up her own care company to staff it. The boys aren’t left with enough money so she has to subsidise them heavily in order to buy the things they need and to pay the bills. She’s had to remortgage her own property to do this. Staffing is a huge problem, there just aren’t any at present.
We looked into doing the same for our son who leaves residential college this year but have managed to find a wonderful residential place for him. His has severe learning disabilities and very complex needs but hopefully with a long transition from his current college house it should work out! It’s always a worry though.
These are two interesting experiences, thank you. I hope the residential placement works out for your son.
The thing that would worry me about your friend's situation is that the support arrangements seem to depend on her management. In our situation this just isn't sustainable as it's just too intense, so we need an arrangement that will stand the test of time when we can no longer help.
Our feeling is that care service providers may come and go (our experience so far) but if we can de-link the accommodation element with a secure tenancy, that would be a better and more secure arrangement for our disabled son in the long term.
Yes it isn’t ideal but it was the only way that the LA would agree to. That’s what our me off, as much as I love my son I don’t want to be responsible for finding staff. I’d probably end up covering shifts myself!
I am in a similar position in that my son has complex needs and if I have another carer ask me a question while I am still in my pj’s I might cry. My partner and I are in the very fortunate position that when my mum passed recently we were able to buy her house which is very suitable for adapting. We have approached our LA to offer 3 of the bedrooms for others with learning disabilities to rent (which like in most areas is desperately needed). We have not had which response which I find rather rude! However a local care agency are keen to work with us and we will need to register the house as a home of multiple occupancy. I need to negotiate the rent with the LA as the shared bedroom rate of HB won’t cover the mortgage/other costs. Properties which would be affordable under HB are physically too small for my son to move around in and could not accommodate the adaptations he would need.n
So I don’t have experience but I am trying to achieve the same thing as you as I don’t feel accommodation where someone doesn’t have a right of tenancy can ever meet our basic need for shelter.
HI I am reading your post from a year ago and wondered how you got on with it all. I am wanting to buy a property to rent to my daughter. My husband who is not my daughters father - owns a limited company and we thought to buy it through that and rent it to my daughter on a proper Assured short hold tenancy agreement, and collect the rent etc. As I am not part of that limited company I wonder if that would be ok for her to still claim Housing Benefit . Or have you found a way around this ? Thanks Janice
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