Home ownership on benefits

Our son is currently living on ESA and also receives PIP and housing benefit. He is living in a house that we own. He is on a twelve month contract, he pays the full rent although the housing benefit does not quite cover the total and would pay until the end of the contract period out of his own money if he left during it, although he would no longer be eligible for housing benefit. There are other tenants paying rent and the housing benefit office has accepted that this is not a contrived tenancy. He moved into the house while he was a student and paid us rent from his student loan before he became disabled and went on to housing benefit.

It is becoming clear that it is not a longterm solution for him. As we have some money available, originally from inheritance, we are looking to provide the money for him to buy a house. The money would come from our account at the time of the purchase as we do not want to take him above the benefit threshold and our research indicates that a house he lives in would not count as an asset that could be used to take him above the threshold.

We are concerned that this might be misinterpreted, including that it might retrospectively be considered that his current tenancy was contrived, although we will be carrying on letting out the house after he leaves.

The house purchase would cost something over £100,000, he has been a tenant on housing benefits for about three years and pays £280 a month rent - total therefore is about £10,080 so not exactly facilitating the purchase of the new house.

This is not an attempt to avoid inheritance tax as our total estate is below the current threshold. On the other hand, we will still have sufficient funds and property to ensure that we are not accused of reducing our assets to avoid paying for our care in the future (plus we are in our 60s and in reasonable health).

Can anyone advise if this looks ok and any pitfalls we need to be aware of.

Thanks

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I'm afraid we cannot give specific financial advice on the forum. This is one of the situations where we strongly suggest you should get face2face advice. Try doing an internet search for 'welfare advice' and your town/area/postcode.