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Entitlement to Housing Benefit when you are renting from a trust of which your children are ‘potential’ beneficiaries…..
not sure how much difference that makes where there’s that trust of which she’s a trustee.
seems to me you need to sit down with the trust solicitor and have it all spelt out properly, my feeling is that is the only way you are going to be clear on the legalities of that aspect and thus be able to deal with HB
property and trusts are very complicated, and as others have said, the HB and DWP people don’t usually get it.
Claire, I’d readily agree that most DWP/LA bods don’t understand trusts - I also have nothing more than a tenuous grasp. But, freehold ownership means the clmt is an owner for HB purposes - the trust situation won’t change that.
The claimant may only be the legal owner but have no equitable interest in the property. However my foggy memories of contract law seem to be that you cannot make a contract with yourself. There is also an equitable principle that a trustee must not take advantage of his/her position as a trustee so as to benefit from that position.
The trustees of a trust of land have to be the registered proprietors of the land in law, as only the legal owner can sell it, mortgage it or let it out. They may well have no personal right to anything at all from the land - to live on it, to receive the rent for their own use etc. All joint ownership of land creates a trust of land but the terms of the trust will not be apparent from the Land Registry entries.
I’m afraid I don’t have a copy of any annotated housing benefit regulations to hand. I don’t know whether the term “owner” in the HB regulations has ever been the subject of judicial interpretation to mean “beneficial owner” - that is, the sort of ownership of the person who owns the house they live in - or whether a mere legal title without any beneficial interest is also covered.
I don’t know whether the term “owner” in the HB regulations has ever been the subject of judicial interpretation to mean “beneficial owner” - that is, the sort of ownership of the person who owns the house they live in - or whether a mere legal title without any beneficial interest is also covered.
See the “Burton” case as cited earlier in the thread. Legal title without beneficial interest is sufficient to constitute ownership for HB purposes in the context of the definition in HBR 2 and with reference to HBR 12(2)(c).