We applied to be a charity first, we got rejected twice because family members would be on the board when the charity was supporting our children. Ultimately due to timing and needing to move forward on getting the property we wanted so applied to be a CIC instead. This was our only option at the time but did mean we lost money on the stamp duty for the house that we wouldn't have had to pay as a charity. After this, and an investigation into our charity commission application, we got approved but it was too late for us to use it to buy the house. We just left it then because we had so much to do. In the future we think we will apply to be a charity again, it feels more in keeping with our aims, we want to think about how we can serve the local community more broadly. We think there is some mileage in running courses, supporting other families who want to do something similar and maybe supporting a second house using the same model. We had support when applying to be both a charity and CIC from an independent consultant. I couldn't have done with without him, I would have been at sea - his support helped reduce the stress.

Setting up the charity and passing ownership of the house from us as parents to the charity was really important. I think it helped statutory services take us seriously, it proved we didn't want to profit from the house. It was easier to have conversations with commissioning and housing benefit. Setting up the charity was tricky and a lot of work. We were applying at the same time all of the Captain Tom stuff was coming out so it felt like the charity commission were very critical around that conflict of interest. We finally got it on the third attempt, if we hadn't we would have needed to pay someone to help. Another family had told us it was easy, turned out their barrister friend did it for them  - we don't all have barrister friends and that kind of set us on the wrong track.