Discrepancy between social housing rents verses private sector rents - how is this legal/fair?

And £360 a week in London for a 3 bed is absolutely the norm.

It is NOT that social rents are too LOW - it is that private rents are too HIGH. There NEEDS to be some process whereby Private Rents are not PAYING the LL's mortgage. If the LL cannot manage to pay the mortgage on their BTL property from THEIR OWN EARNINGS FROM WORK, then they should have their mortgage refused. They are PROFITTING FROM SOMEONE ELSE'S WORK. Which is immoral IMO.

BTL LL's should NOT be allowed to charge ANYTHING MORE than the SOCIAL RENTS (on the old assured tenancies) IN THEIR AREA for their property. If this means that they cannot afford it - then they shouldn't BE BTL LL's. It would VERY quickly return the Housing market to where it SHOULD be, due to repossessions, from LL's that CAN'T afford to be LL's, rather than house prices being artificially over-inflated in this way.

There would then be available housing for everyone. Rather than some people having 2/3 or more, while others don't have one at all. And it needs to be collectively remembered that a house is a HOME, and everyone NEEDS a HOME. A house ISN'T a pension, or a way to provide for your loved ones. It is a HOME. It's not 'emotive language' for the sake of it - it is the TRUTH.

Hunty Cat

1. What's with all the capitals?

1. So if all the private LL like me are not allowed to make a profit and sell up what happens to all those families then? If I sold up I would be making 12 people homeless

1. What do you mean by if they cannot afford it they should not be BTL LLs? Who is going to house these people then? I put up deposits for my houses I maintain them and house families who would otherwise be homeless.

As I have said I set my rents just under the Local Housing Allowance so my tenants are not forced to find anything further is they are on full benefit. I feel this is a fair thing to do and a good compromise.

Honestly, you have absolutely no grasp whatsoever of economics do you and clearly have no thought this through. Again this is much more about bashing a few BTL LLs and making them culpable for a problem started by Thatcher and about to be perpetuated by the New Tories. It wasn't even that they sold off the council houses it was more that they chose not to reinvest in housing stock.

I think yet again it is much more about you and others on this thread begrudging people like me their small portfolios as an investment for my children (and my pension as I have never been in a position to pay into one). I am not ripping anyone off, I am not charging too much and the other LLs I personally know are in much the same position. I cannot understand how people can be LL's if they only charge the same as Councils and HA's. I just cannot make sense and will shrink the market rather than expand it.

One of the iniquities of Right to Buy in my opinion is that flats that have been sold off are now in the hands of private landlords who are renting them out at vastly inflated prices. The student daughter of a friend of mine sharing a 3 bed flat at the top of a London tower block with 3 other people at a rent of £90 each a week excluding bills and community charge. This works out at £360 a week

I originaly took your statement to be a argumentative reply to mine OpinionatedMum. On reflection I may have been wrong, you may just have been putting forward a more pragmatic point of view, to which incidental I agree with, and your HuntyCat.

However I add the following link, and yes I know it is wikipedia but it relates to the statute of law enacted by the 1949 housing act, so you can go to the source if you or any one elses wishes to verify I spoke the truth, Beveridge address the 5 great giants in his "cradle to grave" vision, housing being one of the five "giants. It was always intended that after the 2nd world war the barriers between classes should be blurred if not broken down. Where do people think the idea of social mobility comes from?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_Act_1949
www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/bitesize/higher/history/labour/five_rev1.shtml

You CAN'T stop Housing benefit like Al0uise suggests, UNLESS you are willing to sacrifice a whole generation to out-and-out HOMELESSNESS. It has been shown through various studies that even if you abolished Housing Benefit today, it would take 20 YEARS for rents to stabilise at a level affordable to the LOWEST paid workers.

So that is 20 years of homelessness for those that cannot afford to pay for a HOME - despite being employed in 80% of cases. (80% of Housing Benefit claimants are IN LOW-PAID WORK).

What do you suggest we DO with these millions of people that would become homeless overnight? The Workhouse? Or just abandon them to their fate, if some die, it doesn't matter, it will all be alright in the end? In 20 years time.

Do you class a whole generation of people as 'collateral damage' for fixing the problem of rent versus income?

I fail to see how this can be a WORKABLE solution for a country that derides others in the developing world for their humanitarian records. Because this would be a humanitarian DISASTER, of unimaginable proportions.

And of course - those that are homeless will stop working in those NMW jobs. So they wouldn't be doing the shit-work like taking away your rubbish, or wheeling your hospital bed to the operating theatre, or looking after your SN dc at school, or looking after your elderly mother or grandmother in their care home. Most people in NMW jobs that I know personally would rather starve and be homeless than be made to go into a workhouse-type situation (and we HAVE discussed it, given the Welfare Reform Bill).

So there REALLY would not be anyone LEFT to do those jobs...

Pattimayo, social housing isn't means tested -yet. However putting your name down for social housing doesn't guarantee you'll ever get it as alllocation is based on housing need (eg homelessness and with dependent children, severe overcrowding, vulnerability based on age or physical or mental condition which would be allieviated by the provision of housing)having atested and it's likely that there will always be someone whose need is greater than yours. Homelessness doesn't mean literally not having a roof over your head. It could mean living in someone elses household There's no such thing as buggins turn when it comes to social housing

I'll just go down the garden to eat worms then...

If the government genuinely wanted to bring down the cost of housing benefit, they could re-introduce rent controls, making private renting affordable so people wouldn't need to top up their income and build more social housing.

They've refused to do this. Only conclusion is, they don't really want to cut the housing benefit bill, they just want to make life even more difficult for ordinary working people.

I work, DH works and we pay taxes. We are entitled to £56 a week in HB which we do not claim and have no desire to claim.

In the eight years we have lived in our home I have saved Bradbourne and chums in the region of £23,293 - why because as it is our rent is affordable if we make savings in other areas. Car-12 yrs old, we haven't taken a foreign holiday for over 12 years, we rarely eat out, we don't go to the gym, we buy all our clothing, furniture and household effects second hand, we mend and recycle and we budget for food very carefully.

Could OP and others claim to be so careful over their budgets and would you perhaps prefer me now to pay the full market rent-at your expense?

Exactly, OpinionatedMum. Pay rent on a 2-bed Council House of £450pcm, or pay rent on temporary accommodation of £1,200pcm...

And that is meant to be economically literate?

When wages meet housing costs, then Housing benefit will no longer be necessary. Until then, PEOPLE NEED HOMES.

You can't get the proles to do your shit-work for you if they don't have a HOME to go to at the end of it - that way revolution lies!

The reason Social Housing was originally started? To ensure that EVERYONE had a HOME that they could afford the rent for AND their other basic living expenses. And I think that this is even more pertinent today, when wages compared to "Housing costs are MORE disparate than they were when Social Housing was started.

The ONLY thing that raising Social Housing results in is MORE PUBLIC FUNDS BEING SPENT ON HOUSING BENEFIT. Which seems counter-intuitive to me when you look at the Government's stated aim for raising rents, as an austerity measure."

Well said huntycat. Council houses were flogged off at much lower than the market rate. Then no money was invested in building more. So WORKING people on low incomes now need housing benefit to pay their (private) rents. The housing benefit bill is massive. The government is slashing the hosing benefit rates but there are a less homes affordable on HB rates than HB claimants. So, some of them will end up in temporary accommodation which costs a mere £400 pw. Now that's economically illiterate.

I see no one has taken this back to it's roots and addressed this in anything but MONEY terms, originally social housing was developed to make sure communities were mixed and that social cohesion was achieved. In other words, see all those big estates with loads of chavs that Mn' ers seem to be so exercised about? Well that's what you get when you chuck all the poor in one place. It is also why many of the schools, social services, and employment starts to suffer.

It is a basic principle of right wing politicle ethics and hegomany that people should sink or swim by there own ability, this thread is as much about that as it is about the much needed discussion about building MORE social housing for rent. People may not like the fact that they were stupid enough to get mortgages that they cannot now afford but thems the facts. Like wise just because people took private lets for reasons to do with schools, work, better area, then tough titty no one forced you. Plenty people never get to make that choice and they work out just fine.

as i have said on countless threads about the housing crisis, IMO it isn't that social housing is too cheap its that private rentals are too expensive. actually scratch that - thats actually FACT not just my opinion.

and this is from someone in social housing.

Everyone pays tax, it subsidises all sorts of things, some of which you use, some of which you don't use, some of which you don't use yourself but should be bloody glad it is there. OK?

Now has no-one read my very long explanation of how we can use council houses and housing benefit in a smarter way? I'm not suggesting paying less at all, I'm suggesting being cleverer about how it works.

Bradbourne - Social Housing Tenants WORK TOO. Or are you under the misguided impression that all people who have council or HA homes are on Jobseekers allowance?

You DO realise that living in Social Housing is no barrier to work? If anything, it HELPS those who will only ever get NMW work to be able to AFFORD a roof over their head, or a HOME.

Someone on NMW is much more likely to be able to afford to pay 50% of £500 than they are 50% of £1,000. If you have a monthly income of £1,000, then paying 50% of that out on rent is going to make it impossible to cover your other BASIC living expenses.

Hence Social Housing. When NMW rises to the level that is able to pay Private Rents without recourse to Housing Benefit (or public funds) in order to be able to cover the cost of your HOME as well as your OTHER basic living expenses, then Social Housing Rents will no longer need to be any different to Private Rents.

The reason Social Housing was originally started? To ensure that EVERYONE had a HOME that they could afford the rent for AND their other basic living expenses. And I think that this is even more pertinent today, when wages compared to Housing costs are MORE disparate than they were when Social Housing was started.

The ONLY thing that raising Social Housing results in is MORE PUBLIC FUNDS BEING SPENT ON HOUSING BENEFIT. Which seems counter-intuitive to me when you look at the Government's stated aim for raising rents, as an austerity measure.

Which can only mean it is ideological, as it is going to RAISE EXPENDITURE, NOT CUT IT.

So WHY bring in the fact that private tenants are paying taxes to subsidise social rents then? The fact is that there are not enough houses available but there would be if some people did not own 2/3/4 or more properties (many ex council places) and profiting nicely from them.

Nope! Wrong, and selling off social housing was Maggie's worst decision ever.

And in my street most of the tax which the tenants pay comes from WORK and NOT just VAT!

Yes, yes, I know that most (if not all, if we take VAT into the equation) HA tenants are taxpayers. That's hardly a revelation.

Bradbourne STILL has not said if he/she realises social tenants may well be working and paying taxes too.

I'll illustrate with 4 families.

Remember we are talking about a house that at market rate would cost £800/month to rent, but currently the council rents out for £500/month.

Family 1
They have no income, the council has to completely provide for their accommodation costs.
Now: council puts them in a house and charges nothing: cost to council £800 (£500 housing benefit, £300 in lost earnings)
My scheme: they pay nothing, council gives them £800 housing benefit (enough to choose to rent a council house or a privately owned house)
Difference: nothing

Family 2
They have a small income, and have been lucky enough to get a council house
Now: they pay £200 rent, so the cost to the council is £600 (£300 housing benefit, £300 in lost earnings)
My scheme: they pay £200 rent, cost to the council is £600 (£600 housing benefit, they can choose to rent a council house or a privately-owned house)
Difference: nothing

Family 3
They have a small income, and have not been lucky enough to get a council house
Now: I have no idea what happens here - do they only get the same amount of housing benefit as Family 2? If so does that mean they only have £500 (their £200 plus £300 housing benefit) to try to find a house with? This seems just BAD
My scheme: they pay £200 rent, council gives them £600 housing benefit, they can afford to rent a council house or a privately-owned house just like Family 2
Difference: possibly costs £300 more under my scheme, depending on what actually happens now

Family 4
They got a council house a while ago and have a decent income so don't receive any housing benefit, but they have stayed in the house because it is cheap
Now: no housing benefit, they pay £500, cost to council is £300 in lost earnings. They is a strong disincentive to move because all the privately-owned houses cost a lot more. This family's accommodation costs are less than Family 3 even though they earn more
My scheme: no housing benefit - they pay £800 (this will have gone up gradually as their earnings increased so there was no shock) - cost to council - nothing. They can afford to rent from the council or privately
Difference: my scheme is £300 cheaper, which should pay for the possible extra housing benefit that Family 3 need

The logic:
1 - Anyone receiving housing benefit who does not have a council house should still be able (based on their assessed income) to rent a house that is as good as the council house that they would be awarded if there was one available.
2 - The subsidised-ness of your house (housing benefit, cheaper rent, whatever) should gradually decline so that once you are earning a decent wage there is no dramatic leap to be made, you have just gradually moved into paying the market rate

Iamweasel - they DO. If you are unemployed, you will get all of your rent paid. If you are a Lone Parent, working for NMW, they look at your wages first, then count the fact that you are paying for childcare (has to be proven), and take the cost of that into account, and pay all of your rent. If you are a couple with ONE person in NMW work, and therefore have no childcare costs, they will pay a % of your rent, based on your income. If you are a couple with BOTH people in NMW, they will take your childcare into account, and STILL pay a % of your rent.

It is done on a sliding scale (at least in MY council area).

It still works out that the LA pay MORE HB to a private LL than they do to themselves.

It is NOT that social rents are too LOW - it is that private rents are too HIGH. There NEEDS to be some process whereby Private Rents are not PAYING the LL's mortgage. If the LL cannot manage to pay the mortgage on their BTL property from THEIR OWN EARNINGS FROM WORK, then they should have their mortgage refused. They are PROFITTING FROM SOMEONE ELSE'S WORK. Which is immoral IMO.

BTL LL's should NOT be allowed to charge ANYTHING MORE than the SOCIAL RENTS (on the old assured tenancies) IN THEIR AREA for their property. If this means that they cannot afford it - then they shouldn't BE BTL LL's. It would VERY quickly return the Housing market to where it SHOULD be, due to repossessions, from LL's that CAN'T afford to be LL's, rather than house prices being artificially over-inflated in this way.

There would then be available housing for everyone. Rather than some people having 2/3 or more, while others don't have one at all. And it needs to be collectively remembered that a house is a HOME, and everyone NEEDS a HOME. A house ISN'T a pension, or a way to provide for your loved ones. It is a HOME. It's not 'emotive language' for the sake of it - it is the TRUTH.

Opiniatedmum - I read the article you linked to. "Economically illiterate" is how I would describe it.

bradbourne you DO realise that some of us council/HA tenants work and pay taxes too don't you. Even as a carer to a disabled child I manage that much.

I am fortunate enough to have a 2 bed HA house which I pay £377 pm for. Around here 2 bed houses are upwards of £650 a month! I only got this because my son is autistic and realistically my chances of earning enough to pay £650 a month now or in the future are slim.

I suspect this house is now paid off in terms of build cost so my rent goes into maintainence etc. the kitchen is dated but not due for upgrading until 2020. Even then. (if I am still living here) it won't be mine but will remain the property of the HA and continuing to make money for them hopefully.

If we go back to the OP who is paying three times more than her neighbour for a comparable property.... it is doubly unfair on her because she is not only paying more rent, but she is also indirectly subsidising her neighbour's reduced rent through increased taxes and so on.

Council housing (or now more likely HA provision), is cheaper because it is heavily subsidised by the working and taxpaying people. Yes - including by those same private renters and their landlords. They pay the taxes - income, VAt, stamp duty, CGT, inheritance, etc- which are given to HAs to build their homes cheaply.) Basically, they are given a huge upfront building subsidy which accounts for about half the building costs. In addition, they benefit from taxpayer-backed HMG guaranteed borrowing ability which lowers their interest payable. Which allows them to charge rents at about half the market rate - and also about half that of next-door privately rented house.

Yes, I'll admit that adapted houses for specific disability-related requirements are different, but that's not what the majority of council houses are.

The difference it would make is not to private renters in general but to people who need help paying for their accommodation.

Currently there is a massive gap between people who are in a council house vs people who receive housing benefit but have to find a privately-rented place to live.

There is also the issue of people who needed council housing at one point in the past but are now earning perfectly decent wages. It is very hard for them to move to privately rented accommodation because they are used to paying much less. The council is not collecting as much income from these people as it could be because the "rent" on the house is £500 rather than the £800 it should be.

If council house rents were charged at market rate, and if housing benefit was actually enough to pay for renting a house, then this would balance out with the increased housing benefit required, and the difference between "renting from a private landlord" and "renting from the council" would be much diminished.