Should people on a good wage say £40,000 pA give up their social housing home?

[Cheekychops84]

not a personal opinion would just like others views on this matter? Is £40,000 enough to save up to get a mortgage or privately rent if you have 3 children ?

*I guess we disagree there.

I think it's wrong that someone who qualified for social housing in the past and now earns good money should pay less for their rent than someone who hasn't quite made it into social housing and is struggling to pay their private rent*

But that's what I said wasn't it? Your proposal was completely and utterly based on sour grapes, and nothing more.

It would benefit absolutely nobody at all, and would push even more low earning families into poverty, reliance on state handouts and beaurocratic control over their lives just to punish the 0.001 per cent of council tenants who might be getting a bit of a bargain.

Let me guess where you read that report, it wasn't the Daily Mail by any chance was it.

I doubt that there are many people living in Social Housing that earn enough to buy a place as if they did they would purely to escape the SH snobbery.

If you think anyone would be pushed into poverty then you've misunderstood my plan.

Why wrong Vivienne?

Everyone has a right to housing, not just thise on low wages or benefits.

I agree that council/social housing rent should be charged at market rate, and if people can't afford it then that's what HB is for. With the cap coming in on HB, people will just have to move if they can't afford the rent, same as they do if they rent privately or bought.

Then those people who do have high earnings but live in council/social housing will be subsidising paying for new properties.

this is all part of the idea that any public sector, collective provision is for exceptional circumstances of desperate need, not to provide social cohesion. Means testing always stigmatises

put council rents up to market value !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yeah gods,most people want rents to go down who rent private (dont blame them)

buy to let landlords will be laughing all the way again (no reason to reduce ridiculous rents) would not help house prices either

i think a fair few that earn £40,000 will be of the mindset anyway to have a morgage or in the future will,so i really dont think the subject is that important

Yabu op the issue here is, is whay cant someone of 40k buy a home we have a council home and i would say were on a good wage although when i got the house i was a single parent on fuck all money

When we looked into buying they wanted 50k deposit and i live in london so even a one bed room rundown flat in the shitty end of town wasaround 150 way out of our price range

We then looked into part rent part buy the catch was the estate were the homes were based were to far out for oh to get to work

the issue here is why are people who are on national avarage incomes having ti live in council housing i would much rather leave buy and give it to somone else but we just dont have 50k deposit that the banks want

I haven't misunderstood your plan at all. You've just misunderstood the philanthropic intentions of the housing benefit system.

We are in the south and it's now £800 a month for a 3 bed council house previously £500 it's gone up £300 in a year ? £80" is quite steep as a friend of mine is in a privately rented 2 bed of the same price in a nicer street bigger garden etc . I also think it's security too tho how come ppl who rent cannot have security ? And if u were to get kicked out as u earn too much now what happens in u then private rent loose your job go back on the list for 5 years and start the whole process again ? U would b moving constantly ?

In two minds about this. Everyone is entitled to social housing, doesn't mean everyone should apply for it though.

We don't qualify for HB, but we cannot afford to pay market value for rent. If rent went that way, we would struggle. Would mean a £200 increase on top of our current rent.

someday - you're wrong actually, there are 34,000 in council and housing authority accommodation earning more than £60k and around 5,000 earning more than £100k - Bob Crow being one of them

The lack of social housing is a real worry. As are the sky-high rental prices in the private sector. And honestly, I just don't see what can be done about it, it seems like an impossible situation. There's no solution that I can see, except for putting a cap on private rental prices.

There are people who use benefits/ social housing as the safety net that it was intended to be. A single mother who is on income support may well get a degree and a good job and earn 40K in the future. However her childen may well be happy in the local school and she have no desire to move. I feel that kicking her out of her house is breaking up communities. Aspirational families who work their way out of povety set a good example for long term benefit claiments. They show that it is possible to get out of povety.

However someone on 40K does not need subsidised rent. I think they should be given the choice of paying the market rate or moving somewhere else. Or maybe they could be charged more than the market rate to encourage them to move.

Otherwise you are punishing people for working hard.

"I doubt that there are many people living in Social Housing that earn enough to buy a place as if they did they would purely to escape the SH snobbery."

Many council houses are in area which are 90% owner occupied as so many of them have been sold off. Having a mixture of social housing and privately owned housing helps to prevent gettos. Often the nice council houses are no different to the privately owned ex council houses up the the street.

If social housing was rented out at market value, it would solve the problem of non workers living in expensive areas, it would encourage people who are single or a couple to move out of homes that once comfortably accommodated three children, and it woudo mean that people who earn well would be paying a fair rate without being taxpayer subsidised.

Then people who couldn't afford those market value rents would either get HB to cover their rent, or they would have to pay some of their own income out to cover the cost of where they live, or they would move to an area they can afford to live in.

I honestly can't see what's wrong with that. Especially if elderly/disabled/sick people were paid a fair amount that actually reflects their needs, because then they wouldn't be negatively affected.

There was a thread yesterday where many posters posted about those who leave social housing can get lump sums given to them to put on a deposit for mortgage......

Anyone know how true this is?

id kick the lottery winners out though anything over £300,000 thats just micky taking

We own a house but don't earn £40k a year and brought house nine years ago at right time. However, we are now stuck we have two girls with SN who seriously need their own room but now cannot move because of dh cancer life insurance is mad prices. Most good mortgage companies won't lend without a policy

OK, I am prepared to be flamed here.

I live in social housing and between me and OH we earn a good wage. We pay rent, dont get any benefits other than Child Benefit.

If we rented privately we would pay about £100 more so the rent is not that subsidised.

I dont see why that as we are earning we should have to move out of our house. We cant get a mortgage as we are on limited contracts at work with no guarantee that we can get another contract when they are finished and a bad credit rating from unemployment a few years ago.

Also I dont want to go into private rent as I like the security that I have. Why should i move every 12 months? Long term rents are very rare round here and are mostly 6 - 12 month rents. I would love to buy a house I really would but we cant save the £30,000+ deposit needed. The cost of living has risen to the point that we are always skint for the last 2 weeks in the year.

And I dont live in a nice new build property in a lovely area, the house was a dump when I moved in and I have spend a lot of my own money making the house nice. And the estate has a bad reputation.

But when we first went into this house OH had been made redundant and I was working part time. We have worked our arses off to get to where we are now and should we really be penalised? Maybe we should have just stayed on benefits so we wouldnt risk losing the house.

yellow - I don't know if this will happen, but round where we are they've been building some flats as infill to areas that are not green belt or anything - so its ok to build - but haven't been used efficiently because of the old-fashioned way the streets are laid out. I would hope that might be one way to get more social housing because you are right, there isn't enough and there isn't enough good-quality cheap housing. It's not impossible - in the US they've made high-rise good quality flats aspirational, not cheap and depressing as a lot of tower blocks are. And victorian terraces are lovely to live in and go for a mint in some areas of the UK.

I thought Trills' post made perfect sense.

You earn nothing/very little = you get given a decent property and a low rent.

5 years down the line you earn a lot more = you stay in the same decent house but the council puts your rent up in line with what you can afford.

As you continue to earn more you begin to feel encouraged to move into a private rental/buy because it is worth your while (ie you haven't continued to get the very low rent so might as well move)

Very sensible.

I really hope that would continue LRD. There needs to be more social housing, it's a crying shame that there is so little.

It always amazes me when you walk past council estates how many smart cars are parked in the locale

omg @ this ^^

snobby twat

guess what, you'd hate me, i live in a council house, we have TWO car, one of them is a shiny new 12 plate. so stick that one in your judgemental pipe and smoke it :)

also, me and DH between us earn about £50k and we are still not going to live in private rented just so some cunt robbing landlord can pocket £100's a month for us to live in a shithole. and throw us and our kids out on the street on a whim like our last one did.

we have made our house lovely and spent a lot of money on it, which there is Just No Point Doing in private rented (see above)

so sorry but the only way we are coming out of here is in a box or if we can afford to buy. which it still is not feasible for us to do so for many reasons. and in my book that says more about the ridiculous state of the cost of living and the housing market (ie that buying is still unaffordable to average earners like us) than about whether we are doin the right or wrong thing. fwiw my estate is horrendous, full of really scummy people and the schools are dreadful, i fear for my dc when they get older and pray something will happen to allow us to buy so believe me although MY house is nice and yes the rent is affordable, it is not all sunshine and flowers in social housing believe me.

and why do twats people on these types of threads bleat on about "oh make those awful social housing tenants pay MORE RENT!! and kick em out of they earn more than the minimum wage, the scrounging bastards"

and as others have said, there would be no incentive to better yourself in life if the minute you did you were out on your ear having to rent privately paying twice as much for worse, less secure, accomodation

How about force private robbing landlords to stop ripping people off ffs! and make private renting more fair ie longer terms, more secure tenancies etc then people wouldn't have a need to get so goddam jealous of those us us in counci houses!

it it not enough that benefits are being capped,removed etc

now its start on the council,ha tenant

some people really dislike the poor (working or not) and wont be happy till they are all living in tents on scrubland on the outskirts of towns

disclamer,none of these matters will be affecting me so i have no vested interest

Thank you manic.

I live in a housing association house, but there is no way we could currently afford a mortgage.

I qualified for a flat 9 years ago when I was a single mum living in a damp felt, moved into a little place that I loved and got a job to pay the £55 a week rent. I then met current OH and we planned on saving up and then buying a place, however in the meantime I fell pregnant and changed my details on the register and was allocated a house. Baby was born and then the market went tits up and we didn't have enough for a mortgage so stayed put. I then decided to train as a midwife as the wage I was thn on wouldn't have helped us get a mortgage.

We now earn over the £40k stated. I work part time. OH full time.

4 years in education has unfortunately landed us with some debts we are paying off, once these are paid off we will then start to save and hopefully get on the ladder. Currently pay about £440 PCM rent. Live in a beautiful village and the school is brilliant, typical postcard village.

Sometimes I think staying here would be easy, but we don't have loads of room and I want the kids to have a bit more space eventually. Then I wonder of we'll ever be able to save 25k plus for a mortgage deposit. I would really love to own my own home, have a garden big enough to swing a cat in, and (hopefully) have nicer neighbours, but sometimes I wonder if it's really worth it. Private rent here is anything from £800 a month.

We do have the right to buy but I wouldn't do it as 1)space 2 ) neighbours (they aren't bad but if we wanted to sell I'm not sure someone would live next to HA families?

Incidentally I am pregnant with my 3rd child and someone (who lives on the close we do) at school recently said to me will I be having anymore, to which I replied no, as I don't have the space here and couldn't afford it. She then said 'well they would have to give you a bigger place'