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 ?

Trills, if our rent went up to what a private rental would be I'd have to think really hard about it. On one hand I would be able to hopefully have more space and garden, but the downside would be the security.

Our long term plan is to buy somewhere run down and slowly do it up, bit by bit as we can afford it. I really do like the idea of owning my own place, always have done it just hasn't happened for one reason or another.

Out of all of our friends were the only ones living in housing like this, most of our friends bought houses back in the day, Pre children, good mortgage offers, and lower house prices, and have nice places with mortgages lower than 400 a month. I do get envious sometimes.

Thanks for coming back and replying :)

Yes, I am also rather envious of people who just happened to be born 15 years before me and so own (and pay not-very-large mortgages on) houses that are nicer than I can afford to rent, even though we do equivalent jobs.

On the other hand they lived in world without Mumsnet, and I wouldn't really want to have lived in an earlier era (I know I did live in it, but I prefer living now).

tilly,thanks

Most of my friends are a bit older, but only 3/4 years.

They were in steady relationships, married, saved, snapped up houses. I was doing the opposite . I don't regret it, but when I met OH and we planned our future we were both really wanting to buy. It just didn't happen for reasons I mentioned.

Going to uni has Definatly pissed things up for us in regards to me being income-less for 4 years (although I tried to work bank when I could), and running up a student loan. My biggest outgoing when at uni was travelling (4.5hour round trip) and childcare costs. We knew this though and knew it'd be longer until we're on the ladder, but we'll get there now I've got s good job it'll just take longer than we had originally planned.

Unless we have a unknown rich relative that would name us in their will, or a lotto win

ReallyTired yes becasue all those carers, cleaners, retail workers and part timeers are long term lazy

I am not sure if the threshold of £40,000 works across the whole country but yes definitely people who are doing well and better off should not have the right to subsidised housing while others in greater need are denied it.

well with the UC system taking over the current welfare system, and the Localism Act things are going to change dramatically, there will be given greater freedoms to private investors in PFI schemes which will attract private monies to housing for poor people.

i predict in 20 years time, Social housing in England will be all but non existant and we will return to Ghettos o the poorest people who live in developments privately financed on a large scale.

Scotlands housng system is different, i think they have a better slant on things, more accountable to the electorate - even though they will have to follow the current welfare reform until independence.

but in the medium term, welfare reform means in real terms that social housing returns to fit for purpose only no frills.

I despair when people talk of homes in terms of resources - there is a bigger picture do to with planning, and developers sitting on land, there are not enough houses, so instead of actually doing somethng about it - lets just put poor people ina spotlight, and tell them, they are greedy for having a spare room or for remaining in their communities when they earn enough LORD NO, if you aren't poor anymore, leave your community, leave i tell thee - go to the private rented sector to get further squeezed with less security of tenure and a leek that they will only fix if the landlord feels like it.

Poor communities must remain poor - god forbid we have a mix of people

"More money would be spent on HB, but more money would be gained from renting out council houses at the market rate to people who earn more money."

1. If the rent on all council properties rose significantly, don't you think there would be inflation to the market rate?

2. Rather than raise the rent on social housing, perhaps we could control the rent on private housing better.

If I was in social housing, which I am not, but seriously considered applying for at one stage, I would not consider for a moment moving into private rental.

The assured shorthold tenancy, 12 months to start (if you are lucky) and rolling on a monthly basis (if your landlord is too tight to renewal annually through an agent), is an inefficient and unfair legal tool.

We rent, privately. 3Dcs. The landlord recently told me he would "have us out by the end of the summer" if I, inconveniently, asked him to fix (contract appropriate) leaking taps, kitchen cupboards, etc. And the gas hob, which does not have a gas safety certificate, and which has not been done the two years we have been here.

Now, do I insist on the gas safety (which I kind of know would not pass, because the kitchen is 30-years-old and was done by drilling a hole through the wall and attaching the gas cylinder and hob together) or do I risk making my family move? If I shop him to the HSE who wins?

The current rental legislation favours landlords in that individuals who move into an area build friendships, school contacts, basic life really. And they hold the life you have built up "on eight weeks notice".

Still, who was that actress (who was rude about Joanna Lumley) who lived in council housing and wouldn't move until ages after she was really successful?
She was taking the mikey and seemed to think it was her working class right.

My boyfriend earns minimum wage but is told by the council that there is no way he will ever qualify for a council flat so has to rent privately as cheaply as he can , £450 a month for a studio flat in the worst area of town . How is this fair when someone on £40000 pa can sit in a 3 bedroomed council house forever . And why are people allowed to swap council houses between areas ? A friend of mine in a council house here , lives next door to a retired couple who've moved to this area ( South coast) from the north and are now swapping again to go and live in Blackpool . What about local people who've been waiting for years for a council house and see people moving around the country from CH to CH safe from the realities of the market .

I just don't understand why the government doens't make social housing work as a commercial (is that the right word, probably not) business that actually makes money for the country. If they built decent quality social housing for people who can't buy for whatever reason or even, get this, choose not to - they could have council housing. So lets not call it social housing. This way, rents could be fair, but at the market value - tennants would feel so much more secure in their homes, scumbag landlords would stop leaching money from tennants like kate2mum. It is just beyond belief that tennants can be basically "got out" of their homes by their landlords just because they decide to sell or whatever whim takes them. Sure this would be better. Then people could choose to rent council housing no matter what their income ( i suppose the more affluent would choose to buy anyway) and those on a low wage would get subsidised rents, which would be buffered by those paying more (which is basically what is happening anyway as those on benefits are being buffered by tax payers - i have no problem with this by the way, as have been on benefits and still on tax credits now so im on benefits). There would be more revenue collected, council housing could actually be somewhere people choose to live, legitimately.

Fair enough then Yellow, and Nancy, if you don't agree with people who have profited from right to buy either.

It can come across like there are double standards on this site sometimes, because I have lost count of the number of times I have seen Landlords referred to as greedy, or in some other negative way. Even when there is no apparent reason for it in individual posts.

But I have never, not once, seen anyone criticised for profiting from the right to buy scheme. Which morally, I believe is worse.

Purple, I see what you are saying, but I wouldn't have a problem with people shopping council homes. It's just a straight swop, so if the swop didn't take place, it wouldn't free up any housing for either of the areas.

What I do have a massive objection to though is stopping houses and then applying for a grant for decoration or extension. I know one person who is doing a swop at the moment, she is moving to another borough but will only be about 20 mins away from where she is now. She is currently in a house that has wheelchair access, because her child has a condition that may mean she needs a wheelchair when she is older. The house she is moving to in a couple of weeks doesn't have wheelchair access, but it does have a garden and it's in the area where more of her friends live. She has been told she is likely to get a grant to extend the house so that it is bigger, and that the council will make it wheelchair accessible, even though the child is years away from needing it. I don't know how true this is, but she is banking on it being true, and she seems to know her way around the system. I think it's outrageous, and she shouldn't be given any more money when she already has a more than adequate house, which is actually closer to her family.

Yes, I know anecdote isn't data, but its still wrong. It's still money that is being taken away from someone who actually needs it because of someone who just wants it.

My goodness! Vodka Jelly thinks what I wrote was a rant!!

If your intention was to compare your £100 subsidy with a potential £400 subsidy, then I apologise for misunderstanding. When I read this, "If we rented privately we would pay about £100 more so the rent is not that subsidised," I understood it to mean that IYO £100 per month wasn't a big deal. Hopefully you can see past the imagined bitterness in my post and understand my point: £100 a month is a big deal to some of us.

I'm not bitter about this - in fact I feel very well blessed in my situation. I just wish I had the option of an extra £100 a month! It can be hard work making ends meet, whether you qualified for council housing early on or not.

On reflection, I really shouldn't even be surprised about unequal choices inherent in the System. Can't really see any way it can be fixed either, so maybe putting up with some unfairness is part of the deal.

of course. i'd make the limit £25000.

No they should not it is really difficult to get a deposit for a mortgage and why should they buy a house when they can rent and pay rent to a LA or HA, and 40k you wouldnt get a good mortgage IMO,

and I am not having a dig and people who get housing benefit, not everybody who lives in social housing gets benefits a lot of people pay rent, it is social housing not benefit housing ,

I remember now. Kathy Burke.

Anyway, the assured short hold tenancy is really only for the people who need that sort of short term security the least. Most wealthy people rent houses (not buy-to-lets, because the landlords are also wealthy, not just mortgage-rich) and insist on their own contracts, ie 5 years minimum and 20 years max.

Security in private renting only applies to council tenants and the rich - everyone else is buggered.

I mean security in renting, not private renting.

Outraged, I think it's a different situation, really.

Our HA's in this area have already put the rent up to match private rented Trills as I sed before a 3 bed is now £800-£900 a month that's HA same as private but ppl on low incomes jus shrug it off as they claim housing benefit anyway ? Plus those waiting for social housing are in private rented already having a lot of rent paid for them so really they only are going to want social housing for security not price well that's what's it's like here (Surrey/ south London )

Tough luck if you earn 40k and can't pay a mortgage. It happens. Nobody is entitled to own a house.

I live in Westminster. It's very nice but I couldn't rely on my neighbours to stitch wounds, teach my children, put out fires or mop hospital floors etc.

Most people can't afford to live here without social housing or shared ownership schemes so they go elsewhere.

I'd rather have subsidise the housing of someone bringing up a family on the princely sum of £40,000 a year than have staff shortages in public services.

Ours have gone up too, but my new house is only £139 a week. Not bad I guess

I had to laugh when somebody said social housing was for the vulnerable seriously, are people really that clueless about council housing