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!

Just you’re the only one who’s used the term benefit scroungers.

People who receive benefits use that money to pay for food, water and other utilities. Are supermarkets and utility companies parasites of the public purse? After all food and water etcetera are all a human right. Why is housing any different?

Oh and no I’m not a landlord.

I can only assume that you’d rather have healthy people sit on their arses watching Jeremy Kyle in their HA homes between all inclusive package holidays to Spain while the suckers like my DH and I go to work full time to pay our mortgage and watch our taxes be frittered away

Your taxes.. you mean the grand total of a few quid that goes to the unemployed every year?

Go take a look at the figures.. come back when you realise that out if your tax you give around 10 times more to people in work and pensioners than the unemployed.

But I'm.not getting involved... I will post a picture I stole from another thread tho.

Here you go.. my oh my, look who gets the smallest bit of 'your taxes'...

Why is housing any different?

Man gets loan from bank, man uses loan to buy house, man rents house to someone, that someone can't afford the rent so gets tax payer cash to help, tax payer cash goes to landlord, landlord passes tax payer cash to bank, tax payer pays the loan bit the man gets the house and the renter gets fucked, hard, repeatedly.

But I'm.not getting involved.

23.4 billion isn’t a few quid,

But Wee the loans based upon the landlords circumstances and its the landlords investment and his/her risk and responsibility. The tenant pays rent to stay in someone else’s property. In some cases it’s the tax payer who’s paying the rent for the tenants housing. If the landlord refuses to rent to someone not on benefits, he will still receive rent. The profits the same.

I can only assume that you’d rather have healthy people sit on their arses watching Jeremy Kyle in their HA homes between all inclusive package holidays to Spain while the suckers like my DH and I go to work full time to pay our mortgage and watch our taxes be frittered away

Hyacinth Bucket rides again

@weetinkermonkey Here’s a fact for you, 2.2 billion was lost due to fraud in U.K. in 2016/17. That could have built three Queen Elizabeth Hospitals in Birmingham with spare change. Or send 67,000 young people to university (3 year degree). Or fund 27,000 primary and 22,000 secondary school teachers for a year (I’ll be honest, I don’t know how many teaching assistants it will fund but it’ll be a lot as they’re underpaid). Or 26,000 nurses, 12,000 hospital doctors and 11,000 hospital porters for a year.
There’s a lot better things to spend money on, and the someone who can’t afford their rent should be taught the skills to get a better job and provide a better life for themselves. And then he can move out of his HA home, allowing someone else to move in and begin the improvement cycle. That’s a better solution than simply giving him a home paid for by the taxpayer, especially when the taxpayer ends up with a lower quality of living than the HA tenant.

I’ve NC as I know I will get absolutely slaughtered for this but I have a HA I pay £420 a month it’s an end terrace 3beds.
I’m probably the exact person the OP and others hate because I have cheap rent, high income flash cars and several holidays abroad each year

It was given to me when I was a single mum and on benefits I am now married and no longer claim anything and haven’t for many years
My DH has a council house that he bought under the right to buy many years ago and now rents that out. He has over the years inherited a fair amount in both money and property . And I have inherited money when my gran died last year ago

We both earn a fair amount of money between us which allows us several holidays a year abroad and we have 3 cars which we lease for 3 years  .One car is for my DH business 

I know perfectly well that what we have is in part down to having very cheap rent and my husbands having the RTB and being very lucky in being in the right place at the right time but would I give it up
. Fuck NO
I have a secure tenancy and a lovely house that I have spent loads on over the years . There is no way on earth I would give up my house in order to make me feel better and help someone else .

I am planning to buy it next year but if I can’t my son who is on my tenancy with me will probably take it on if I died.

I realise that I am very lucky and also very selfish in that we could afford private rent which would be around 1250 a month for a similar house but why on earth would I want to pay an extra £700 a month. I would be crazy to do that and I don’t think anyone else would do it either no matter what they say .and if they did then fair play to them but no way am I giving up a secure cheap house in order to pay almost three times as much so that I can feel all warm and fuzzy

And if there was some sort of law that meant higher earnings means that I would pay more rent I would just reduce my time at work to earn less so that I didn’t have to pay more. And probably plenty led people would do the same
.
But it’s not my fault or anyone else that has a HA or Council house have cheap rent and secure tenancy

Its that private rents are so high and not secure . That’s what need to be adjusted and change, not charge HA and council tenants more rent.

@imissgmichael exactly - the landlord can rent to a private tenant whose isn’t collecting collecting benefits, and it’ll probably be easier for him. But then we’d get complaints of discrimination... landlords can’t win. I sometimes think that the communists on here would like to confiscate all privately owned property and allocate free of charge. scarcity and demand.

You’re right @sosayi you are exactly what I despise about social housing. And that’s why I said earlier up in the thread that tenants should be subjected to a regular audit.

You should packing your belongings and moving out tomorrow into your DHs property to give another person the opportunity to benefit from a hand up... but you and many others like you would rather suck the average taxpayer dry. HA should rarely if ever be permanent.

It does depend where you live - HA properties are often more than private rent here, especially the new builds.

Don’t worry soyasi you’ve got a lot of support on MN to continue your lifestyle and not pay a penny more - I’m sure you won’t face any bashing here.

They might even start you a go fund me page? If we all gave you just £3 a month we could fund your daily Waitrose croissant or something? Happy to donate since everyone has done a stellar job explaining why you so deserve your low rent and RTB rental.

OffWithThePixies

Source for your figure please?

The figures I've researched for benefit fraud put it around 0.4% loss due to overpayment and fraud.

Not hire connected but interesting to think about, most of the the jobs you listed, TA, nurses, Porters etc... Benefit claimants.

HAs are charities for the most part. How are they sucking the tax payer dry? Did I miss the memo where the tax payer now funds charities?

Also, not all HA's are the same. I moan constantly about mine, mostly about their lack of organisation when it comes to repairs but I'll give credit where it's due, they build new houses and invest in the community - not just their own properties but the wider community. They maintain parks, buy empty business and properties to let out to anyone who wants to start their own business or have the security of long term housing, they run their own help to buy scheme and they regularly run drop in centres and large rubbish collections free of charge to anyone who wants or needs them.

I was on the waiting list for about a week and I wasn't homeless or in dire need I was just sick to the back teeth of private landlords and couldn't face another minute dealing with one.

@OffWithThePixies -I thought I would be 😂
Luckily don’t care what you or anyone else thinks . I would be a total idiot to give up my secure tenancy just to appease someone else .

Imissgmichael

23.4 billion isn’t a few quid

Did you purposefully misread that in the hope noone would notice?

It's 2.4billion in unemployment compared to over 20billion just on child and working tax credits, which make up a significant portion of In work benefits.

£2.4 for out of work, £20+ for in work benefits. Yet it's always the out of work getting demonised and share on isn't it?

Not the cost.of living, or the tax dodging mega corps, or the dodgy landlords screwing as many as they can. Nope, kick the unemployed, the smallest of the benefit bill is obviously the one responsible for the other £215billion

@Generationrenter l don’t need a go fund me page . I am perfectly capable of buying and paying for my own food ,
Like i said it’s not my fault I have very cheap rent and a secure tenancy .
And probably most people would do the same as me and stay even if they were earning more . They would be crazy to move into private if they have a secure tenancy just because they now earn more

I don’t agree that anyone should have to move out of a council property if they earn a good wage, however, owning another property and renting a council/social home does seem very wrong indeed.

And FWIW I am a tax payer. I work fulltime. I didn't move into HA housing for cheaper rent. My rent is around the same as private rentals in the area give or take £20. I moved for security and so I didn't have to deal with private LLs anymore. While on MN they're all saints who provide a much needed service for the public while making peanuts, in the real world they're assholes who think they're doing you a favour and treat you like an inconvenience at best.

Agree frequency I have come accross some real asshole landlords. But in some areas the different in rental is a second wage.

As a side note - Child tax credits isn’t neccesarily an ‘in work’ benefit is it? When you’re an unemployed parent, child tax credits make up the bulk of your income I think. Also housing benefit contributes to the unemployed bill. It’s completely irrelevent to the discussion really but just thought I’d clarify on that.

@weetinkermonkey

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-2016-to-2017-estimates

I made an error, I quoted 2.2 billion, it was actually 2.5 billion wasted

Yes, it was interesting that I choose TAs, nurses etc They’re low paid and under appreciated... and I’d rather taxes were spent on those on contribute to society instead of providing life long tenancies to those like my neighbour and @soyayi I’d be delighted if the HA was housing a nurse or policeman or porter or binman.

But according to you, we should be grateful that people get lifelong HA properties while we get up every morning and spend 11hrs a day at work and commuting, to come home and study to improve ourselves using all our annual leave on exams and study... but that’s ok we can’t affird holidays anyway as we pay our own mortgage and need to replace our one 2011 reg car. But hey it means we’re right next door to feed the neighbours cat while they’re in Spain again in July. Silly me with my strange ideas about people’s responsibilities to support themselves with their own hard earned cash, I should have paid more attention to people’s entitlements to HAs,... but I was busy working to pay for it.

Housing benefit is largely an in work benefit though. It's a top up, paid out when landlords charge more than 65% of the recipient's wages in rent. As such it is very much a subsidy to landlords allowing them to charge more money than the economy can support through wages alone. This is why private sector rents are not market rents. How can they be, when the government has to cover £10 billion of what is charged every year?

How many nurses' wages would £10 billion a year fund? Are we happy that this goes to landlords instead?

And landlords do not "provide a service". They charge money for the right to have a subsidiary interest in a property.

Yep and tax credits are used to subsidise employers that don’t want to pay a fair wage. I get it. A mortgage would cost more than a HA rent though, so I would still say they are definitely BMV.