<p>if a parent of the student does not OWN the property, it is not an asset. If a parent does, then a parent should get some of what the house would sell for if it were immediately put on the market and a sale within, say 3-6 months is desired. Get three realtor’s estimates. Could look on Zillow and tax valuation, but those things can be wildly inaccurrate. We’d sell MIL’s piece of junk house in an instant if we could get what Zillow values her house. </p>
<p>Not sure if this was already covered, but for CSS Profile (or FAFSA), if the parent does not own the house, but is living there for free, then is there some sort of imputed untaxed income to report? The fair rental value of the home?</p>
<p>^good question, thanks.</p>
<p>How that works, I’ve yet to know when say, parent and student lives with Aunt or Grandmother, how imputed income is calculated. Frankly, i don’t think it is. Many moons ago, my DH and his mother lived with Grandmom, who was well to do. DH got full freight at the top priced schools I’ve seen similar scenarios in recent years. I have no idea how it should be done.</p>
<p>I’ve certainly known people on welfare who were living with a relative who owned the house. Just as the house wouldn’t be your asset if your parents owned it, it wouldn’t be your parents asset if your grandparents own it.</p>
<p>Sounds like there is no reason to report your grandparent’s house on your FA forms.</p>
<p>The house absolutely does not need to be reported unless the OP actually legally owns a piece of it. The issue that is a gray area is when you live with grandma or anyone, and have no income of your own or very little, and you are getting support of sorts from someone. I don’t know how that is supposed to be reported.</p>
<p>If you live with parents and pay $X in rent, for example, it becomes an issue as to what that $X is. Do your parents have to report that amount if they have a kid going to college and are filing fin aid forms? I think they do. But if they don’t charge you anything but you end up spending $X by helping out with expenses here and there without really tracking it, there usually is nothing to report.</p>
<p>On the flip side, if you are paying $X to parents for living there, and that pretty much covers a lot of the things you get from them in terms of meals, shelter, etc. But say you don’t pay, and they feed you and you live in a pretty nice house and get your kids’ costs picked up too. If your report a zero income or very little, you will almost certainly be selected for verification for FAFSA as well as from PROFILE schools and they will be very interested in how you are making ends meet on nothing. They may feel that you are getting some benefit translatable to unearned income or benefits that need to be taken into account. Like what if grandparents are paying for private school for the kid, you are driving a nice new car on their dime. </p>
<p>But I don’t know how that is handled and I suspect it on a case by case basis.</p>
<p>I don’t think rent is reported on any financial aid form, so would they care if you pay rent or not? My house averaged a $3,000 per month mortgage, and nowhere did they ask what my mortgage was. It would be money I did not have available to pay for college, but they did not know that. When I ran the EFC with and without my mortgage amount, it was exactly the same.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if they have to investigate such details or would want to. It seems like a unique situation. Do they care if someone is living rent-controlled for $2500 per month in NYC or if they are the neighbor who pays $10,000 per month for the same place?</p>
<p>I am pretty sure CSS profile has question about rent and mortgage. I filled out the form 8 times.</p>
<p>Federal housing index multiplier should be used, instead of using Zillow to calculate house value.</p>
<p><a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid; </p>
<p>In many cases, what you pay for rent or mortgage is a non issue. But fin aid offices get very curious when you are living “on air” and may ask you what your rent is and how you are paying it. Also any rent you RECEIVE if you are renting out a room or a dwelling is quite relevant As income it will drastically affect EFC.</p>
<p>In this case, the parent is living rent-free in the old farmhouse that used to belong to the grandparents, who now live in a more modern, smaller house closer to the center of town. When the grandparents die, the house is promised to him, but until then, he’s living there, can’t rent it or do anything except live there, and of course the grandparents could decide at any point to get renters who pay something 
The grandparents decided to do that to help the parent start a small business, where all his funds went.</p>
<p>^^^The CSS profile does ask for a monthly mortgage or rent payment. The question is PE-150. There is also another questions that asks the amount of the mortgage on your residence. </p>
<p>I don’t remember the Profile. Is there a line for other support provided (i.e. rent waived)?</p>
<p>PROFILE schools can use anything they want when it comes to giving out their own money. So, if they see no rent being paid or mortgage, yeah, they might question it, or take it into consideration. But the house itself is not needed to be listed as an asset because it’s not the person’s house yet. </p>
<p>I want to add, that just because a question is asked on PROFILE does not mean it is used in determination of fin aid for any given school. Most schools, for example, do not use 401K funds in consideration, but the question is asked on PROFILE However, if there is an abnormally large 401k amount, like way out there, it might enter the picture at some schools. Primary Home equity value is usually counted in some form for assets but varies from school to school. Some use the full amount, some none of it, some have varying ceilings usually expressed in terms of mulitple of income.</p>
<p>As for having free place to live, how it enters the picture can vary from not at all to a consideration, yes. In my area, the rents are very high, as are any housing costs. So someone getting a pass from that is getting quite the benefit. I knew a family who got free place to live, as one parent was a vicar. There are also boarding schools that have apartments and homes for the teachers; really a number of private schools may do that. In some cases, those benefits are very big indeed. But how any given school counts that, I can’t tell you.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
Value of a house is now fairly easy to establish/view by looking at the many sites the show values and by looking at the tax assessments (and then computing based on what percent of value the tax is based on. But sites like zillow, Realtor dot com, etc estimate value and then value is the equity you have in the house.
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This thread is over a year old; one should assume that the profile has long been submitted. Old threads should be used for research only, but should not be resurrected. Closing.