Hi Nicola – having never (to our knowledge) carried out a ‘beneficiary check’ before, we did a comprehensive exercise 3-4 years ago. As you say, it is a condition of their licence that periodic checks are done, and otherwise, how do we (and crucially trustees who have a legal duty to uphold the charity’s objects) know whether they are complying with the charity’s objects – and whether they are in fact beneficiaries at all?
There are probably many different ways of doing this, but we created our own questionnaire, and asked for copies of bank statements, investments statements etc. We learnt from the experience and processes of at least one other almshouse at the time too, which was invaluable.
It was a big project (we have 62 properties), and a fairly painful period of time, as it was not something that had been asked of the residents before, some of whom had been living in our almshouses for a decade or more. Most complied with the request, some at the second or third time of asking. The consequences were made quite clear from the outset which was that failure to comply could result in the setting aside of a licence, as we need to be able to demonstrate that our residents are beneficiaries.
In the end, we did not need to go down that road, as a few residents decided to leave their almshouse and move elsewhere. We knew that they had significant assets, and they knew that we knew, so they made the right decision without us having to do anything drastic.
We also did some work around cost of living and the implications of asking some who technically had too much money to move out. This led us to our ‘prevent’ policy, so that even if residents did not meet the usual criteria of being in receipt of housing benefit / universal credit, they would soon do so were they to rent privately.
And finally, we offered help to many residents in applying for benefits which they either didn’t know they were entitled to, or did not previously wish to apply for.
A big project – but an important one.
Good luck,
Emma