My kids receive survivor benefits from their dad who passed away. I'm their representative payee and unemployed. Can we use their benefits to buy a house?
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These benefits are for food, clothing and other needs. I would apply other monies to buy a home
I would contact the Social Security administration directly to get any questions answered, as they are the experts. Their contact info is at this link:
They are the experts and can give you the true information for your situation. If you have trouble understanding what they are telling you or need further assitance, I recommend asking your state senator help. I found mine by googling my town and the words state senator. His staff was very helpful and has helped us resolve several situations. The services are free (well...paid for by tax money).
Any time there is money and potential tax implications going on, I go right to the experts!!
Good luck and blessings to your family!
I don't see why this would not be acceptable since housing is a dire need, especially in the housing economy of today that viciously punishes renters.
I suppose you might have to state your case and make a case for why you will be housing insecure unless you procure the new home, + statistics
for instance here's an article documenting how fleeced renters are in most areas: www.marketwatch.com/
here's one documenting homelessness that occurs once a landlord randomly decides to vacate a tenancy agreement and dovetails with how there really ARE no tenant rights (the article is from UK but this sort of shenanigans has been happening over here for ages) www.independent.co.uk/
there's the fact that AirBnB and other 'rentier economy' models as well as the generalised lack of tenant rights make rental affordability AND availability a huge danger for people and that for this reason it is easier to be homeless than ever before www.citylab.com/
then if for some reason you have access to a decent house you can afford, and the ability to meet the down payment, it stands to reason that this is the absolute best thing you can do for your family's safety in the world that exists today
(try to hold on a year or so though once the housing bubble collapses.... again. Due to above circumstance buying is 'hot' again and homes in many areas overvalued. I live in BFE and they STILL want $250k for a bungalow-type deal. Just.... nauseating)
I believe you are asking if you can use the children's SS survivor benefits to secure a loan to buy a house.
If that is what you are thinking about then I can tell you that I do not believe there is any lending institution that will accept this as a means of collateral for securing a loan instead of someone having a steady job.
If you already had a house then you could use some of the benefit money to help make payments as these benefits are to be used to provide housing and all the rest of their needs.
You should go to your local SSA office and discuss what these payments are supposed to used for and even ask this question about housing. You should be keeping very good records of how this money is spent as the SSA can request an accounting at anytime (usually this is an annual requirement but they do not always follow up on records). I can tell you that SSA can be very strict if they request records and they are not available.
If there are no young children involved then it is usually assumed that any adult would be working and making money to pay for their own needs and only use the benefit money for the children's needs.
Here are a couple of sites that have further explanation about children's benefits:
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