Lifetime Social Housing Tenancies

I'll read this fully later. My mother in law had a mortgage and lost her home when her husband left and she couldn't pay it. While my mother had been happily plodding along in her council home her whole life even in periods of unemployment she was fine because welfare helps with rent.

There's just no denying having a social rental is way better and more secure than a mortgage with a private rental being even worse. Honestly the "asset" arguement only works if you're comparing a mortgage to a private rental which you could get evicted from any time.

You can claim help with a mortgage. The details are here.

https://www.gov.uk/support-for-mortgage-interest/what-youll-get

How's it a choice? You can't just choose to have a council home the waiting list is five plus years even for someone in the highest priority band Ie a bed and breakfast with their kids. And mortgages can be cheaper than private rent.

I was about to get evicted when the landlord wanted to sell and getting a mortgage was the ONLY option (I have kids they cannot live in a tent).

Stop trying to act like you've got it harder and the op has it easy just because she has a mortgage, I think someone already pointed out if you lose your job and have to claim welfare you only get help with rent if you have a mortgage you are pretty much fucked.

Yes, you would pay more than £50K in rent, but interest is just part of the picture.

Then why bring it up?

It is statistically exceptional. I'm not suggesting you're lying but just that there will be big losers around the average as there will be big winners (like you). It is best to look at averages to even this out a bit as focussing on exceptions skews the picture.

Yes, you would pay more than £50K in rent, but interest is just part of the picture.

You would also pay around £50K in interest over the term of the mortgage assuming an average rate of interest of 3%.

You’d pay a lot more than £50k in rent over a 25 year period.

I have no idea whether it’s an exceptional scenario or not. What I do know is that we paid £159k for it in 1999 and the most conservative Zoopla estimate of its value is currently £695k. Obviously you will now find some way of arguing with me again. As far as we’re concerned it’s profit.

The same applies to private rentals, the difference is the cost to the taxpayer is significantly higher.

The study included all areas of the UK and averaged the difference. London had an much bigger saving than £828 for SH tenants. I think your idea that you can rent a mansion in the north for £800 is outdated.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/media/press_release/living_in_a_social_home_is_over_60_more_affordable_than_private_renting_

Social Housing rents don't rise in line with normal economic and market factors that would ordinarily cause them to rise. This is why they are subsidised and a scarce resource that can't be scaled easily. This is also why giving lifetime tenancies to some whilst barring others from accessing SH at all despite being on a lower income is intrinsically unfair.

Social rents are not fixed; they rise when the costs of managing and maintaining the housing stock rise.

My rent has increased by £100 a month since I moved in 5 years ago. Also, again, London does not equal the entire UK. You could rent a mansion in some areas of the North for £828 a month. Very few people will be saving that much in rent outside of the London bubble.

Just to add SH tenants on average spend £828 a month less on rent than private tenants according to Shelter. If someone is given a lifetime tenancy then their rent will stay the same irrespective of their earnings. So say for arguments sake someone was living in SH for 25 years and was able to pocket the difference in rent (totally possible if they earned as much as the private renter) then this would equate to £248,000. If they put the £828 in a savings account paying 3% interest on average over the 25 year period they would earn an additional £115k in interest.

This massively outstrips the gains that an average house owner will make in 25 years and isn't far off your so called 'profit'. The SH renter would have had all the maintenance on their house paid for and wouldn't have to worry about increasing interest rates etc.

This is an exceptional scenario if you have genuinely experienced a 400% increase in house value since 1999 without doing substantial work (which is what you're suggesting!). This would double the growth of even the best performing region of the UK and unrepresentative of the average scenario for house owners who have experienced 200% growth over this time. Inflation has risen by 87%. This isn't contortion, it's economic fact. You would also pay around £50K in interest over the term of the mortgage assuming an average rate of interest of 3%.

So it's clear to see that the average home owner wouldn't be making such a huge 'profit' and this is including years of relatively high house price growth and low interest rates. Looking ahead inflation looks to be stubbornly high as do interest rates and house price growth is depressed. The so called profit will be even less for current buyers. They will also need to invest a lot more money into their house compared to SH tenants who can instead happily lock away any savings they make on monthly rent payments and earn 5% interest on this money.

You knew what I meant. Fact is, is that a lot of pensioners do have all or some of their social housing rent paid for them by the taxpayer. This will continue.

rent payments aren’t necessarily forever.

They are. What might vary is where the payment comes from.

It certainly does make a difference. You have a degree of security when you’re a mortgage payer, which you don’t have when you’re privately renting and living in someone else’s property. But you have even more security in social housing. And no, as I said earlier, rent payments aren’t necessarily forever.

It makes no difference which sector you rent in. Rent payments are for ever. Mortgages get paid off and you own an asset at the end.

Privately renting, comparatively yes it’s better to rent (if you can afford the deposit - £61k on average now, £11k in 1999 and repayments on 4 or 5% interest now with the average price of a house now £270k) but the picture is complicated when you’re renting in the social housing sector, as evidenced in this thread.

Bought in 1999. It’s made 400% profit. Despite your usual convolutions to prove black is white, we had to live somewhere and if we hadn’t made mortgage payments we’d have paid rent with nothing to show for it. However you look at it, buying rather than renting is the best financial decision if it’s possible.

When did you buy your house out of interest?

Have you factored in stamp duty, inflation and interest payments (including inflation here too)? As an example, house prices have risen around 95% on average in the past 20 years. However inflation has risen by 75% in terms of goods and services. Combine this with any interest you have paid over the period of ownership then you could quickly find that your so called 'profit' isn't a real profit at all and you have actually lost money.

RowsOfFlowers · 26/06/2025 08:07

Agree, but how is this helping the housing crisis as such as well? Social housing should be for those who need it. If you’re then in a position to buy or rent, then that you should do.

I know. Bloody annoying, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s fair either.

The profit is tax free. We can leave the kids £1 million free of inheritance tax and that’s more than the value of the house. It’s entirely tax free. There will never be a penny of tax paid on it.