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

Boris' speech has done it's job.

It's got folk fighting online amongst themselves about benefits and entitlements.

this is not going to fix the housing market.
build more social housing. That’s it. That’s all they need to do.
Leave it as a state owned asset as previously mentioned. don’t sell it off

there would be slightly fewer renters which may free up those houses bringing the private rental market down. That would then turn people off buy to let slowly, and some landlords will sell up meaning you some of the families are able to buy.

we don’t need more people buying up social housing.

It’s a pointless sound bite and an impractical, unworkable policy. Yet another example of the chasm between the Blob’s version of reality and the electorate’s real lives.

For all those bashing people on benefits "cos the government are going to buy them houses" . You fell for it, the propaganda worked. They made you believe It's not the government that is making your life miserable, its other poorer people

In fact it’s really odd how the support and love for private landlords usually shown on this site has suddenly evaporated for this one group - but I doubt very much that any dislike expressed for private landlords will be tolerated in general.

I seem to remember that was much later on and something to do with the banking crisis, the policy that allowed people to remortgage rather than people who just took out 100% mortgage on a property that was three times their salary and paid it off.

i’m talking about people who took out 100% Mortgage is in 1994.

Its bonkers.

Its yet another fucking policy to increase housing demand, without increasing housing supply, all it can possibly do is make housing even less affordable relative to incomes by pushing up prices.

The only thing that will actually improve housing affordability is to significantly increase supply with state intervention (the private sector will not do it on their own, why would they erode their own margins?).

Some people will be able to benefit from this - if they can get parents to provide help with the deposit. I think it is a good idea but can see the limitations.

for those against it - as has been said. Many people in UC work full time and a lot of housing benefit is already paying the mortgages of second home owners.

Then it should go via a publicly-owned council house scheme. As already stated.

No one who works for a living, with no other means of income, who has worked their way through life against the odds, is going to happily stand back and watch their tax money being converted into assets for those that did not forever.

You should be more worried about the private landlords of those that do not get any support from the state.

@Nothappyatwork defaults soared. This is why the government had to bail out Northern Rock, RBS, Bradford & Bingley etc. Northern Rock was particularly exposed to high risk residential mortgages.

Oh dear.

This isn’t a group of customers anyone wants. The risk of delinquency is too high and with minuscule deposits so is the risk of the bank not making its money back if they have to repossess and sell the property. Having too many customers like this destabilises your lending book and puts the safety of the bank at risk.

Subprime all over again. As has been pointed out several times on this thread already but some posters seem to have their fingers in their ears 🤣

I can see it’s annoying, but in the grand scheme of things a lot of rental money is already paying a mortgage, the land lord’s. I’d rather see it go to the home occupier.

Delinquency is a term used in finance to describe the scenario when a borrower is behind on payments. It’s not a moral judgment. It’s used in commercial finance etc too.

This is what’s so frustrating because pre-2000 actually you could get a 100% hundred percent mortgage. I don’t have any data on what the defaults look like, but I know an awful lot of people who did put down between zero and 5% deposit pre-2000 and still own their homes now having climbed the ladder so it can’t have gone too terribly wrong for them. But it got them on the ladder and into their own homes.

Delinquency?? That is offensive as only those with good credit ratings would be considered in the first place.

I dont understand much about the housing market tbh. Dh and i are in our mid thirties and we are trying to get a mortgage to buy our first house- we have rented privately together since we were 18. (Many different houses!). We both came from backgrounds that meant we were essentially on our own as soon as we hit 18 so it was b and bs etc then a bed sit - you know the drill!

We have had a nightmare trying to get a mortgage. Dh works full time i receive carers allowance and higher rate dla for my daughter. Our combined income is around £80,000 and we are looking to buy a terrace that costs £160,000 we have 10% deposit.

high street banks refuses us because in 2018 we had a default on a mobile phone bill - it was a stupid mistake our daughters phone we moves didn't get bills and stupidly forgot about it! Apart from that we have nothing really terrible about us and we are only looking to borrow twice our income.

we had to go to a specialist lender we are now 10 weeks in and still waiting for a yes or no.

it has been so hard to find and buy a house - i dont know what the income level for housing benefit is but im guessing its quite low and i honestly dont know how any bank is ever going to lend to anyone!

we had to send letters confirming that the dla was for our daughter and why - even though this income cant be used as part of the mortgage affordability anyway. The banks will have a an actual mental breakdown at applications from people who are not working? and if people are earning very low wages surely even with higher multiples of income they would have enough to buy anything. For what its worth i think people on low incomes/ benefits should be able to either buy or at least have access to social housing a little more easily.

we have been on the waiting list for social housing since my daughter was born (shes 12 this year so im not holding my breath! )

This isn’t a group of customers anyone wants. The risk of delinquency is too high and with minuscule deposits so is the risk of the bank not making its money back if they have to repossess and sell the property. Having too many customers like this destabilises your lending book and puts the safety of the bank at risk. The policy that the government should be putting in place to help your cousin is to increase her salary, not a policy like this that could plausibly wreck the economy if it goes wrong.

It’s not an idea. It’s how it’s always worked.

I'd dispute that HB will only ever partly cover rent; it surely depends on the level of rent you set vs the maximum the LA will pay. My rent is completely covered by HB.

Personally I’d prefer people get support for a period like this than be forced to sell

The Prime Minister has also pledged to turn ‘benefits to bricks’ – changing welfare rules so that the 1.5 million people who are in work but also on housing benefit will be given the choice to use their benefit towards a mortgage, rather than automatically going directly to private landlords and housing associations.

From Gov.Uk today. Boris's latest wheeze.

Lumping all the benefits together under UC was a mistake, tax credits allowed people to work full time, receive a top up to a liveable wage and save for the future without penalty, it wasn’t viewed as a ‘benefit’. People were moved over to UC and automatically viewed as scroungers who shouldn’t be allowed to save leaving them trapped and poor. Wish the government would make up its mind.

I think it’s very fair. I’ve worked my entire adult life and never had to claim benefits, up until covid happened and we had our first child during the first lockdown. I was on maternity allowance (£140pw) and my husband’s income disappeared overnight (self employed childminder). We own our own home but have minimal savings, and relied on universal credit to get us through the first few months. I don’t think it’s fair that we didn’t receive help with housing costs. We have paid into the system, and our universal credit payout was only very slightly bigger than our mortgage.

We claimed for a total of 3 months before we were back on our feet (largely due to me having to cut my maternity leave very short). I think we are exactly the sort of people benefits should help- people who have been paying into the system their entire lives, and suddenly find themselves hard up. Are these posters suggesting I should have had to sell our family home because we were going through a rough patch?

The properties will end up being repossessed when DWP sanction the claimants.

It's a terrible idea for many reasons.