The trust fund itself doesn’t have legal personality and cannot be a landlord: it is a sum of money or property assets. The landlord(s) is/are likely to be the trustee(s). The starting point would be to see who is the registered owner of the property – if the trust has been properly done the land registry should record that the registered owner(s) is/are trustee(s). If for example the property is owned by Mr and Mrs X as trustees for the benefit of their son Y, the claimant’s landlord is not a non-profit body and it cannot be specified accommodation.
Unless they interpose a non-profit body by leasing the property to such a body, who then sublet it to the HB claimant. Or they could set up a non-profit SPV, owned by the trustees, to own the property directly and the land registry would show the non-profit SPV as the registered owner. So there are ways they could do it and keep the case within the HB scheme.
