To think being able to use housing benefits as a mortgage is unfair?

Us too, I don't even understand why people in se use tenancies need to be able to buy their homes, let alone st a discount. Its private renters who have no security, regulation or hope of bettering their situation 😭

i hear you. We’ve paid out nearly £250,000 in rent. yet can’t borrow enough for a home

But that’s what they do, like there’s literally no solution to these problems none.

we need the land to farm to feed ourselves and we don’t have enough houses to house ourselves.
it’s a complete and utter disaster So kicking the problem up the road is literally the only option

We rent privately, we are on the housing list but a long way down. Our rent is just about affordable, we will never be able to save a deposit ... so; no housing assocation housing or mortgage for us. We are stick in a private rental with no hope of moving forward, perhaps its time to look at private rents in mortgage applications - 12 years of payments and never late with any of them but no mortgage because we can't get a deposit together, it hardly seems fair!

The other thing with more home ownership
less housing benefit needed when generation rent retire
anx something to pay for care.
currently that’s going to be an astronomical can being kicked down the road

Im beginning to think this has been deliberately engineered to stoke hatred towards social housing tenants as we approach the fifth anniversary of Grenfell

@LoisLane66 sorry, should have said we're not in UK.

She has a partner, he works. She also gets free medical, fuel allowance, school uniforms.

I don't begrudge her, it's just not fair.

This is the policy I wish the government would adopt. It's been suggested by various think-tanks over the last few years, but of course it doesn't benefit property developers, so the government doesn't seem to be interested. Make it beneficial for landlords to sell to tenants by knocking off the (frankly astronomical) capital gains tax they face when selling.
www.taxjournal.com/articles/cgt-incentives-landlords-selling-long-term-tenants-10102018

Ffs yes they will.

Speaking in Blackpool, the Prime Minister said: "We're going to look to change the rules on welfare, so 1.5 million working people who are in receipt of housing benefits, I stress working people, and want to buy their first home will be given a new choice: to spend their benefit on rent as now, or put it towards a first ever mortgage.

Doing so removes a significant barrier that currently prevents hundreds of thousands of families from buying their own home."

"To remove another [barrier], we're going to explore discounting Lifetime and Help to Buy ISA savings from Universal Credit eligibility rules.

"It doesn't mean letting anyone who claims benefits whilst sitting on a vast pension pot that they could be drawing on - that's not the people we're targeting.

"But making it easier for hard-working people to put away a little every month until they have enough for a deposit on their first home."

Until now, people haven't been eligible for benefits if they have savings above £16,000.

I personally think it would behove local authorities to allow certain people on benefits to buy instead of rent. The LHA for a 1 bed flat in my area is £1,050pm, far higher than any mortgage.

The 16k savings ceiling is dependent on various criteria such as age and benefits. I have a ceiling of 21180 as my pension was deferred without asking me so the lump sum
I received is disregarded for life and tax free. Most DWP errors are only disregarded for 12 months.
Read it up on the Government website. The CAB was very in the ball when I asked for clarification as the DWP were going to reduce my pension, in fact they did for 2 weeks, then reinstated it plus the deductions refunded.

@Grumpybutfunny
No. Help to buy ISAs will not be exempt.

Was he on benefits if so you would’ve been able to apply straight to the council to have the money paid into your account after two months of arrears. I actually prefer universal credit Tenants for entirely that reason.

Rents, unless you fall behind and are in debt, are paid to the tenant who is receiving the benefit, whether working on a low wage or not. How they spend it is up to them. The only time councils will interfere is if the landlord contacts the council to say that they are not getting the rent from the tenant. Only then can the council sanction direct payments.

@thelastshadowpuppet
Your friend must live in London to have such a huge LHA and have a lot of children to be getting £105 a week child benefit. It's currently about 20+ for the first child and 14+ for each subsequent child so she must have 6 children.
Of course, the lady might be divorced or widowed and she can't help that and the children must be looked after.

He's just doing it to stay popular, unfortunately some will buy it.

But the rent does not go straight to the landlord, as I well know having just had to evict my tenant as he preferred to spend the rent money down the pub, leaving me with 2 homes to pay for. I am not wealthy, it was the home I brought my children you in, and is basically my pension. Not all landlords are millionaires.

Look up the facts on MONEYHELPER.ORG.UK (in lower case) I capitalised it to make it stand out.
The site tells you what savings you're allowed to have when you receive various benefits. Some are on a taper system so that having more savings results in deductions from your benefits.

So what do you suggest an an alternative? That her children are inadequately housed, fed and clothed? Many of these 'unfair' policies are in place to ensure children have a basic standard of living, and sometimes this leads to their parents benefitting. But if the alternative to that is children being disadvantaged, what choice is there?

This

It's so desperate and doesn't even make sense as a policy. As pp said how would you get a deposit. Its a red wall northern policy.

Ignore

Councils used to do deals for right to buy customers to get their mortgages from the council, maybe that will be part of the new scheme. If I have managed to exchange my flat for a house when anything happens to my mum I'm definitely buying mine. I won't buy my flat as it will only be leasehold & still stuck under the rules & regulations of the council & they can force you to fork out for repairs for the whole block.

Same as my mum then, I didn't think I'd made it up. That's a very good point you've made actually.

I think it's unfair that my friend gets rent allowance of €2200 rent paid, 300 odd a week, 420 a month child benefit, can have more children and will eventually get a council house which will more than likely be a new build and I have to work two jobs to pay my mortgage.

My house will never be mine.

A lot of private rents are way over the cost of the mortgage payments for landlords. Maybe they could make less profit so their tenants could afford to eat.

In my area the private rents are over 120% more than council rents.

The Local Housing Allowance goes nowhere near the cost of private rent.

This is literally that episode of the thick of it when they scrape the barrel for distracting policies that no one wants or can actually make use of.