Private renting so much more than housing association!

[Generationrenter]

Just moved to a new build and the rent is £1300pm, neighbours are HA tenants and paying £500 for the exact same house. We both earn around the same amount.

I’m not saying their rent should be more and think HA properties are great (I’ve been on a waiting list for 6 years as renting is bankrupting me so certainly not knocking it!) but surely efforts should be made within budgets that make HA rents so low to reduce private rents?

I know private renting has become so unaffordable but is there anything that can be done? £800 difference a month for the same house just seems insane!

Guess it is just a vent but it doesn’t make sense to me!

So are other things, doesn't stop them being taxed again.

Brand new tax, bring in more money (like the pay to stay idea that so many people are in favour of) which will go straight to central government. Make private rents not for profit like SH is. They're just providing a service after all.

We have just moved out of a HA property or I think a better word is forced out. We have lived in a HA house for over a decade but under an AST which is something a lot of HA's are doing here in the south/southwest. One local HA is building a lot of them and then letting them out as private tenancies for extortionate rents. It should work well in theory but with older housing like ours the HA just run it into the ground while milking every penny in rent for very little maintenance in return. Our monthly rent was almost exactly the average rent charged locally but every year the HA tried to charge more which we rebuffed with local rent evidence as per our AST.
When we left last month we'd had no running water for several weeks due to the boiler breaking down & leaking. With no timetable for sorting it out forthcoming & finding ourselves stonewalled we found a new house and moved within a week which has cost us £3k (which we've had to borrow).
When we left the property had the following wrong with it:

• no boiler
• no heating
• no running water
• windows so old/broken that they couldn't be opened wide enough to escape in an emergency
• infested with rats that came in through holes in the cavity wall that the HA refused to fix
• substandard electrics (installed by HA)
• substandard plumbing (again installed by HA)
• rising damp in the internal walls due to the leaky plumbing
• patio doors leaking and falling out (installed by HA)
• it stank to high heaven due the decomposing bodies of the rats under the floor/in the walls. We had constant eruptions of flies through the cavity walls into the house.
• substandard kitchen (yeah you guessed it...fitted by HA) with a floor that sloped at an angle causing floor tiles + units to crack/warp.
• a front door that had been made using uncertified parts (installed by HA) by a local cowboy double glazing company.
• cavity wall insulation that wasn't actually there - was put in by a different cowboy company that drilled the holes and put in enough insulation to fool a spot check and also used substandard/fake roof insulation materials.
• carpets that were fitted without underlay which is okay unless the floor was covered in dirt and small stones and the carpet just layed down on top which is what happened to us. The HA 'fitted' the carpet before we moved in and told us that mini boulders under the carpets were ok. Carpets now fraying badly as over 10yrs old.

The above is just some of the worst bits. We decorated very well and made it our home. We looked after it as it was our home. We suffered constant changes to our housing management and had illegal rent increase demands every year for the last 5 years as the housing managers have no clue about AST law and don't understand that private tenancies are different to social housing ones. In the end it just got so bloody awful that we had no choice but to move as our disabled child would have suffered and we were just so sick of it. When we left they couldn't even organise themselves to get the keys off us at the house on checkout day and in the end I demanded that they came to me to collect them.... they came a week later. The HA just doesn't care and sadly having done some research, it is not unusual. A lot of HA's see private tenants as 'cash cows' to be milked and as for shared ownership, I think it will end in a huge scandal eventually. We believe that the HA forced us out as they think that they can get more money by doing a quick refurb and then re-renting it out or doing it on a shared ownership basis where they set the price at over a third higher than local house prices.

The HA could have just issued a section 21 but due to the outstanding repair issues would have been difficult for them legally so instead they ran the house down to the point that it left us with no choice but to move - we could have stuck it out but in the end it just wore us down and we didn't want our DD hospitalised. We feel a bit humiliated really.

Dispatches has done an expose on another housing association.

Planned broadcast date................25th March.

www.radiotimes.com/tv-programme/e/hsxfk8/channel-4-dispatches/?fbclid=IwAR1LkqL40JMwmHzdiHm6xPdvKNEJHVBpN6WMD_b60zhpFFWuRrnrup_p5yg

Datshiane Navanayagam reveals the shocking conditions that tenants of one of Britain's biggest social landlords are being forced to live in. A year-long investigation finds that Sanctuary Housing left family homes in disrepair and uncovers evidence that this had a critical impact on the health of some of their most vulnerable tenants. As the housing association has grown, official channels of complaint have failed to force it to act reasonably, leaving residents feeling voiceless. In desperation they've turned to social media to share their experiences and offer support. Dispatches asks: are housing associations the new landlords from hell?
Cast & Crew
Reporter Datshiane Navanayagam
Director Lionel Mill
Producer Lionel Mill
Producer Kate Mead

What's an ast?

AST-Assured Shorthold Tenancy

MypetPorghasdied - that sounds awful.

Hopefully the new Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 will help all tenants in future and improve conditions all round.