Dear Housing Benefit folks,

I am assisting a retired Lady who is living ina property she used to own with her ex-husband. There were mortgage arrears of £9800 and a possession order was made. Two of the clients daughters paid off the arrears and purchased the house for its true value. The house had to be sold due to a divorce issue in addition to the arrears.

The Lady believes the sale took place late 2002 or early 2003 and i await confirmation. Hence the Lady is still in the house but has never paid rent. In 2008 a tenancy was signed and the Council turn down the claim on 2 counts
1. She previously owned it
2. There is no commercial agreememt

I think I can by pass the first issue in light of the arrears / Court order and the divorce issue.

My concern relates to the commercial aspect. Therefore could you good HB folk point me in the right direction as to any CM decisions that may assist me. It would be good to also point oiut anything in relation to issue 1 as they may not see the wood for the trees.

One other issue is that the Client's Daughter recently had to re-mortgage with her Sister Daughter 2 as Daughter 1 could not afford the motrgage alone. Hence the Lady is still in the property and not paying due to low income and the daughters would never throw the Mum on the street.

All info greatly received.

Regards

Brian.

I can't add anything to the commentary in CPAG's HB and CTB legislation, 12th Edition (pages 226-229), which gives much detail and CD's/court cases about the issue - including non payment of rent and whether or not a failure to evict a tenant is evidence of non-commercialty.