In hoping the benefits cap may prove to be A Good Thing?

Garlic- very well put. And incredibly true.
When I moved into my current Private rent, Landlord promised it was longterm, so we spent our own money on doing it up décor wise, re-plastering walls ourselves in some rooms. He never gave us any rent reduction for doing so, or paid for materials. We currently pay close to a thousand pound a month (and he wants to raise this too).
We've been here near to two years. No issues with rent/bad behaviour not a thing. In November he tried to give us 28 days to move out (which was illegal and luckily unlike some others we knew he had not a leg to stand on). He has now said he wants to turn our house into 6 or more rooms for single people, charging between £400 and £500 a month per room, sharing a kitchen and bathroom between them. That's 6x £450 (get the midway as he's not sure yet), or £2700 per month. Its no wonder he's turfing us out as he knows he can do that and squash as many people in as possible. He then tried to barter with my partner that we should re-do the front of the house and windows- which are both crumbling- and pave the drive at our own cost again, and they he may let us stay. We've told him exactly where he can go, but I bet there are those who get taken advantage of in the same way and, out of desperation, do what they are forced into. Its blackmail- either do costly repairs or be homeless. And all the while they (the slumlords) can do this as there is not one piece of legislation in place to help people renting from unscrupulous landlords. By contrast, if I fail to pay my rent, or damage his house, I'm liable to be dragged through court and forced to pay costs, damages etc etc.

I haven't read the thread for the sake of my mental health. This is for your OP, pp. (heh, a rhyme )

YANBU to think that's what should happen. And it will - after a fashion. Downmarket landlords will compete for the reduced rents, but they'll do it by cramming families into ever smaller rooms with ever fewer facilities ... slums.

It's already happening: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14837291

Landlords in the mid-range won't have a problem. There's going to be another wave of repossessions as people lose their jobs and discover the caps apply instantly. Those people, labouring under the delusion there are still jobs to be had, will rent normal places until they're forced to face facts and downgrade to a slum.

Sure, eventually the weight of tenants needing a shed to live in will bring down the average market rent. That will take several years, though, by which time the criteria will have been further tightened to reduce the "burden" of benefits on multimillionaires and the remaining workers.

It's 150 years since Dickens was writing his novels of shocking poverty & oppression. I give it just 15 years until we're back there, if people keep on passively accepting these so-called reforms.

Oh gawd nimbys yes

Village I live in (town but refers to itself as a village so it can ignore the big council estate over the hill- FFS) actually ahd a protest becuase of a rumour that someone might sell a field to a council for some affordable houses one day.

But most of them- pah, same old etc. I knew it was likely when they allowed the Sn provision to be cut yet took so much action over council not providing a festive tree that council had to back down. But... our VICAR, who is a socialist, was marching too. WTF? Not against placement or location- but becuase families like that would bring the town down.

they tried to elafelt for my support even though sucha ffordable housing would be a Godsend to us.

luie = live

I understand where you are coming from. It's a shame it is so difficult to discuss the subject sensibly - some people undoubtedly are racists, but others are only-too-keen (in my opinion) to shut down any discussion of the issue by denouncing any mention of immigartiion as being, of itself, racist.

My background is in economics so I look at many problems in terms of supply and demand. Housing costs are high because of high demand and low supply in very simple terms. High demand caused by many factors - change in composition of households (more people living alone, more families where the parents do not luie together), aging population, people viewing housing as an "investment" for the future or a way of funding a pension and, yes, high immigration. Low supply due to lack of suitable building land, NIMBYism (people in the most over-crowded areas also the ones who are least happy to see more housing being built), planning rules, no government policy to build more social homes and so on....

It's hard to discuss immigration on here without some idiot comingh on and descending into racism, so I know many of us try toa void that- interms of the population explosion that happened as a result of it, absolutely it is obvious that more jobs and houses and services would be needed, that's basic maths regardless of nationality of the end user but it can be so valoatile and I would hate anyone to come on and use it as a thread to vent nasty xenophobic bullshit (not that anyone is yet, but jheck I am from the days of daftpunk)

Trickle with you about the papers; Mum's used to have 7 pages not so long ago, I counted them (have back issues for souvenit stuff); now it's about 1/3 of a page of non jobs- train in IT from home / that sort of crap

The immigration issue is completely relevant, I think. Given that some 3 miilion immigrants have settled in the Uk since 1997, they have to live somewhere - and they are necessarily adding to demand for housing.

Three quarters of migrants settled in four of the nine English regions ? London, which took over 40%, followed by Yorkshire and the Humber (14%), and the South East and East of England (both 10 %). The two regions most heavily impacted by immigration ? London, Yorkshire & the Humber also have the most serious housing shortages.

Our local paper used to advertise on it's front page how many jobs there were on 'job day' anywhere between 650 and 900. They were pretty well spread out between no skilled, low skilled, skilled and highly skilled jobs.

They stopped doing this in 2009 when it fell to anywhere between 50 and 250 jobs, most of these are zero hours contracts, comissions based, franchise and home buisness opportunities with a few very highly skilled posts and a few low/no skills thrown in for good measure.

Most of the 'jobs' arn't really jobs, and I'm not ashamed to say I think people shouldn't be forced into low paid insecure jobs. Yes people have to do it, OH did these for ages before getting a 'real' job with employment rights and regular hours. People shouldn't have to struggle so much just so that CEO's, Directors and shareholders can skim their bit off the top and make a profit for the company based on misery.

mother - for your information i was supporting the argument that the system of allocating council properties was chaotic and illogical. the reason i mentioned they were immigrants was that it was likely they had only been on the list for a couple of years (i imagine you can't go on it if you live in poland). If you read the thread, rather than making biased assumptions, then you could give a more balanced comment.

Mother- I merely answered someone's question regarding what the housing associations are doing and why so many people end up on the housing list for so long. These where two genuine examples of how it works depending on who you are. There are financial incentives for housing immigrants.

Yes Trickle...where are the jobs we are all supposed to snap up?,(but don't 'cos too lazy, feckless, workshy,etc...)

There is a surpluss of council housng in my city, so lots of people could move here

Sadly there is a surplus because it is shit there is a very high unemployment rate and no one wants to live where there are so few jobs.

We're onto immigrants now?! Jesus.

dreamingofsun is your paper of choice the Daily Mail by any chance?

Oh wrt to immigrants, many councils have contractors in the private sector who house people on the council waiting lists that are non nationals.

We certainly ahd that abck home and everyone referred to it as jumping lists (becuase everyone called the houses council houses, including the resident) but theyw eren't, they were a form of private group landlord.

Dreaming- that happens all the time here. We knew of a family on our street of Portuguese origin. Had been here 1 year, no children, all fully able to work. All got a very nice flat very quickly. Whereas on the flipside, a young family I also know has been on the same list for 2 years with little interest at all. I think some councils are given financial incentives to house immigrants and sadly, drug addicts too. Everyone else is left to fend for themselves.

I've moved from one private rented property to another, each one slowly worse than the last. I've been on the list for 4 years and not had even one offer. In fact, my local council removed us from the list for quite some time as I took my ex-Landlady to court as I had an accident in her property due to how badly constructed the stair case was. Despite the Environmental Health team from the same council backing me up, the Housing department didn't want to know. I was apparently a Bad tenant until I won my case. To me, it wasn't about the very small amount of compensation I got, it was having proof that I hadn't been a bad tenant! Every house we have had has been steadily more expensive, and everyone has got steadily worse. Landlords don't have any legislation and can do what they like. We just scrape our rent at the moment, but our current Landlord now wants us to move out as he wants to convert our house into bedsits which he can charge £400 PCM for, you could easily get 6 in with shared Kitchen and bathrooms. That leaves us in a position where we will have to move in with family as we simply cannot afford rents in our area privately.

dreaming- points that giovern rapidity of move are allocated for lots of quite complex reasons so they would have been in receipt of extra points for some reason, even if unbeknown to you. Waiting lists also vary massively around the country.

Probably so Lesley; but regardless of who owns the house, LL or bank, silly barriers to economic productivity- aka working from home or for oneself- are surely going to need to go the way of the dinosaurs?

It's amazing how many times I have been told on here 'carer's Allowance is wrong, just work from home' oh if only! I'd LOVE to do some SN childcare once ds4 starts school this year. Not possible.

peachy - Most mortgage agreements ban working from home as well - with the exception of the odd bit of paperwork. This is why private landlords ban it, because their mortgage companies ban it.

we had polish tenants who left our rented house to move to a council house. They couldn't have been on the list for long as they'd only been in the country a couple of years. we were more than happy to continue renting to them as apart from the fact that we struggled to communicate they were excellent tenants. we were amazed - espec as we live in the south.

20something is right

i've seen people fall through the system- a family in temp accom (with 2 kids and the new baby brought 'home' to a one roomed flatlet in a unit shared with addicts where kitchen and loo facillities all shared) becuase when they got home from work one day to find a Bailiff there becuase their landlord had not paid mortgage they left,, thiniking they should- but as it wasn't the actual eviction, was serving of papers or somesuch, they were intentionally homless- tehy'd never missed a rent payment or anything. dad worked nights and could not sleep with the kids in the same room all day, and ended up getting sacked; have also seen people in B&Bs lose work becuase you ahve to be out between (typically) 9 and 6, so a few shifts and you are stuffed for a bed.

Then there was the single Mum removed from the list for refusing a property- a property next door to the parents of the bloke about to be released from prison for stabbing her and their daughter.

And my friend who did* get a house when her violent H was due to be relased from prison after a spell in for trafficking but 60 miles away so she ahd to apck in her job just to keep their daughters away from the man.

(* Friend got married to a lovely man on Christmas Ev who dotes on tehir girls, although ex is on the run after another conviction and she does live in fear)

Scary, isn't it?

Dear god 20something I seriously dont know how people cope with that. but thank you for the info - I honestly thought housing associations were more um, useful, than what you have explained.

Boschy the problem with Social housing from housing associations is that they don't get to choose who moves up the list into one of their properties and who is left lingering on a list in Private Housing or worse, with family or in temporary bedsit accommodation. Its the local council housing departments who decide and make up the rules, and my God do they make the most baffling rules ever known to man. If you own your home and are paying a mortgage, but one of you is made redundant/becomes sick and cannot work, and thus you lose your home, they class this as "intentionally" being homeless. As for those saying people should up sticks and move to where there is affordable housing- think again. Yet again, if these people go to the council for help, they will be classed as Intentionally homeless and told to go away for 6 months. I've also been told that, if you move to temporary accommodation, even if this means they can move you away from your current area-away from your child's school, your job, your GP etc, the council are happy to leave you there for as long as possible as again, you aren't classed as homeless. In Berkshire, if you are evicted through no fault of your own, you are forced to get your Landlord to first give you an eviction notice, then a court order than a bailiff order. Miss any of these out and you are, that's right, Intentionally Homeless. And when, finally, you get the final order, your points are revoked from you and you start again. You also, meanwhile, incur costs and not to mention animosity from your landlord.
They have a truly mind boggling points system in place, and, even if you cannot afford the rent on your home or are living in sub standard conditions, this makes no difference to them.
Councils sold off their properties to Housing associations, but unfortunately didn't also give them the rights to police who moves in, and also took away a prospective households chance of applying to several separate housing associations at the same time.

I wonder if 90 minute commute is allowed to include Bristol and a £6 bridge toll? Hmmm

TheReal- perhaps wrt to 12 year olds, i don't have one who is not SN ATM but whilst I might leave ds2 at home for a little while, if I ahd to work 36 hours plus say a 90 minute commute it'd be around 4 hours alone five days week; taking into account when i would be able to drop off others and what time his school finishes.

If they said 20 hours with a 90 minute commute it's undoable; someone has to be here at 8.30 - 9.00 for ds3's SN Bus pick up and 3.00 - 3.30 for it's drop off. Our plan is Dh can largely work from home to manage that but we are fortunate to even be able to attempt that; most cannot (not least becuase most private leases ban it)

And having read the report I agree with what trickle says about the working hour requirements.