Keeping a UK Council property for life even though you no longer live in the UK

[Vintlet]

This story has just been released
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyxkeny8x6o
It seems so unfair given the lack of social housing in the uk that the First Lady of Sierra Leone expected to be allowed to keep her London social housing property as a pied a terre. Surely we cannot be expected to house the world. No one in authority would have realised given that she was still paying the rent if she hadn’t boasted about keeping it on a radio interview. I wonder how many people keep and sublet uk council properties when they no longer have a right to keep it.

You might be in for a shock as most council houses can only be passed on once.

Council housing is not at full market rent. In my area, a 4 bed council property is £95 per week, so about £412 per month. Looking on Zoopla, an equivalent 4 bed ex-council property is £1,150 per month.

Christ, what a mindset!

Ok this thread has made me realise I do not understand how social housing works (lucky me, of course).

Presumably there are checks reasonably regularly (once a year or so?) to check that the person in the house is still entitled to social housing? How does someone end up having a "forever home" that's a council house, unless they are entitled to live there forever due to poverty etc?

And she’s probably a Reform voter banging on about how immigrants are taking all the housing…

I can't see anything about the OP's son or his sister. I don't think you are talking about the same thing as me anyway. I'm not advocating passing a tenancy around the family I'm talking about people being able to invest socially in their neighbourhood and look after their council property by living there long term.

I agree. In London I've come across people in social housing who sublet and spend half their time abroad themselves. It's really common. A Spanish guy I'm friends with often rents cheap rooms off landlords like this. They're not necessarily foreign nationals though. His last landlord was a white English man - while my friend was at work the whole place burnt down. He lost literally everything he owned apart from what he was wearing.

He was referred to the local council to present as homeless, but he didn't get any help with emergency housing or belongings, as the landlord was subletting a council house and wouldn't pass onto him the details, so he could prove he was homeless as obiously he would have got into trouble... Also the landlord was reluctant to give him his deposit and rent back until I spoke to him.

Because of this my friend ended up sleeping on my sofa for a few weeks and I took him to the local charity shops to get him some clothes to wear, before having to leave London and his job to go and stay with family elsewhere.

There are lots of people taking the piss with council houses and they should certainly not be for life or sold into the private market. I know people talk about stability but to be honest most of us have none of that even if we're working.

@Imanexcellentdrivercharliebabbit is obvious rage bait. Why are people buying it.

it does seem unreasonable that she thought this was acceptable to do tbh.

Albanian asylum seekers? Are you suggesting that they were ‘given’ a central London town house? A council property?

Who is? @Honeyhonay quoted me but I'm not a racist Reform voter. I am a bit confused though.

The point is the rules are there, councils enforce, her property has been removed.

Oh aye they were. Ffs

Unlikely.

That's a shameful abuse of the system, particularly as you used to work in social housing. She got her flat as a struggling single parent - do you think there's aren't any of these any more? That your son - a singer adult male - is more in needed of subsidised housing?

I really hope she doesn't manage to pass her tenancy onto your son, even with your expert advice on fiddling the system.

Not you! The benefit fraud boasting poster

Exactly.

Social housing fraud is a huge problem. I watched a programme a few years ago and in South London alone there were hundreds of people living in properties that they had no rights to 😳

All this is linked to the endemic problem in UK public services - shitness.....!

You can see exactly why it happens. From the social housing occupant's perspective they have got something for free (or at least for a lot less than it's worth) so of course they want to hang on to it and benefit their family from it for as long as possible.

My biggest criticism of the shitness in UK public services is reserved for the failures in administration that allow this to happen.

But again you can see why it does. Evicting people is high profile, it might cost votes, politicians don't want to run that risk.

Checking and enforcing housing rules takes time and energy. If you are a local authority housing official you don't get paid more for doing a bad job than a good job. So why bother.

People talk about the "blob" and this is just another example. There would be a huge wider benefit to society in ensuring social housing only went to those entitled to it. But on an individual case by case basis for a housing officer in a local authority it's just too much trouble...

We need a revolution in how we manage our public services to make them properly efficient.

Before anyone believes the previous poster’s racist propaganda about Albanian asylum seekers, See below.

Also, this thread has proven that the biggest threat to the UK comes from those native scumbags looking to defraud the rest of us.

‘Albania is legally designated as a safe country by the UK, which means the government presumes it is safe to return you there.’

OOO it's been a while since a "bashing council housing thread" came along. The riots cooled down a bit have they?

I think if the government can get us caught up with amounts of housing built by councils, then letting people stay in them but adjusting rents as their circumstances change makes sense, but not to the extent that they end up thinking it's not worth getting a job. If they can fine tune the boundaries properly then stable communities and people from a whole variety of demographics living in houses where the landlord happens to be the council could work.

I know someone with a flat in a different part of the UK who kept it even after he moved in with his gf in England. Did this for over five years, plus his rent was paid as he was on disability benefit. Only gave it up last year, after he thought he would be outed in the press. Never sublet it even, just kept it for storing his stuff.

Maybe ‘used to’. Not anymore.

I think posters are referring to @Imanexcellentdrivercharliebabbit here not me or the OP.