FO Payments to Relatives

I believe policy is that FO checks shouldn't be written directly to a recipient or to a relative of a recipient. What should be done if the recipient is renting from a relative and needs FO assistance paying the rent?

You are misunderstanding the policy, but just barely. Whenever possible, the FO checks should be written to the service provider. Another consideration is that FO checks should not be signed by relatives of the assisted member or to the payee. If there is a genuine rental arrangement, I don't see any problem with writing a check to the member's landlord.

And, since the bishop authorizes all payments, if the recipient is a relative of the bishop, he should defer to the stake president to authorize the expenditure.

The case I'm speaking of is a son (the FO recipient) needing FO assistance to pay rent to his father (the home owner) with no formal rental agreement. My understanding might be wrong but I thought policy discouraged writing FO checks to close relatives of the recipient.

ckmcdonald wrote:The case I'm speaking of is a son (the FO recipient) needing FO assistance to pay rent to his father (the home owner) with no formal rental agreement. My understanding might be wrong but I thought policy discouraged writing FO checks to close relatives of the recipient.

You would have to check Handbook 1 on this. But unless something has changed from the old Church Handbook of Instructions I don't recall this being policy. The policy that needs to be met is the need of a receipt or invoice.

Of course this situation requires some scrutiny since there is no written rental agreement. The chance for impropriety is raised because of the relationship and the lack of a written rental agreement. Remember the first place assistance is expected is from the family as noted in Handbook 2, 6.1.1.

When Church members are doing all they can to provide for themselves but cannot meet their basic needs, generally they should first turn to their families for help. When this is not sufficient or feasible, the Church stands ready to help.

I would not withhold assistance only on the basis of the relationship and the lack of a written rental agreement. More information needs to be obtained to ensure the assistance is proper and supporting documentation provided. The bishop, as the responsible agent, will have to make the call on how to handle this. He may even need to counsel with the stake president.

Ultimately, the church teaches we should approach family for assistance first.

Where there is no formal rental agreement, and all involved are immediate family (and I'm assuming active members of the church), the Bishop may want to bring all family members in to discuss the needs of the son.