To think: if you can fly first class, you shouldn't have a council house?

[Mexxo]

Facebook friends of mine (friends of RL friends really) making lots of comments this week about their impending holiday to Mauritius on which they'll be flying first class and staying in a 5 star hotel.

This couple have lived in a council house for many years (no kids yet), though this year so far she has got a new (not brand new, a year or two old but still v nice) BMW and he has a new Ducati.

One of their friends has commented on FB "Wow, did you win the lottery?!" and the wife replied "no we just saved a long time for our dream holiday".

First class flights to Mauritius are £4k each. A week in a 5 star hotel must be at least £2k and probably more. That's £10k for a week's holiday. AIBU to think that if people can squirrel away that much money for a holiday, they shouldn't be living in a bloody council house subsidised by taxes from the rest of us?

So how do you justify taking someone's home away from them then HKat?

Goldship - If your partner can get a mortgage with £10k, today, I'm moving to where they live.

My deposit was 10k on a 100k ex council house

If I could get/afford a mortgage to buy a property then I would agree that would not be morally fair to be taking up a council house.

But to suggest I should go back to the uncertainty of privately renting when I have a secure tenancy is madness.

I would have no problem with the rent being means tested however, the security of the house is my priority not how much it costs per month.

Not sure about today. I'd still rather put 10k toward a mortgage than blow it on a holiday tbf

Quenelle, not sure you'd like to live here but it's Wigan :)

Op ..... A lot of your responses have been deleted so don't know what you have said?? Can only assume you have been rude and making personal attacks on posters..... Classy! Not

Problem is that down the road of "take the council house off them" (which I have some sympathy for, although paying market rents and allowing the councils to build acquire more homes would be better) you then get to;

Why should someone on benefits be able to live in an area that a working family can't? And so inexorably to caps on HB. Again, I have a degree of sympathy with this, as I feel that private landlords have - in many cases - been able to ratchet rents as HB (our money) is used to line their pockets.

I live in fairly normal working class/lower middle class area, and the only house we viewed that was less than £100K had anti climb paint on the porch and CCTV pointing at their garden shed. Um, no thanks.

Maybe more energy should be spent on giving tenants more rights and helping first time buyers, rather than trying to move families out of council properties?

Kim do something about it then and stop whining!?

Is there sockpuppetry on this thread?

I don't think I'd rather put 10k on a mortage rather than a holiday tbh.

You could spend all your life scrimping and saving to pay your mortage and maintain your house (which is a huge cost that I think renters often underestimate) only to have to sell it when you get old to pay for your nursing/residential care. You end up no better off at all than someone who has a secure tennancy, and you could well end up worse off because you have had no spare income to pay for anything else in life, and you wound end up with better old age care either.

Housing associations are more common than council properties these days as well.

And they offer the right to buy too.

I do wonder if buying is only lauded as the be all and end of all because renting is such a rip off/con in the UK?

BlackberryIce, what do you suggest?

easilybored obviously it differs area to area

If a council tenant should have to give up their home because their circumstances have changed, does this mean that a home owner whose house value has increased dramatically and children have left home should be forced to split their house in half and rent it (cheaply) to someone else?

Renting is no more of a rip off than buying is tbh. I have no idea why people are so fixated on buying. It is really not everything it's cracked up to be. It has as many pros and cons attached to it as private renting.

The lucky ones are the ones with council housing in an area they actually want to be in.

Perhaps a sliding scale where the rent increases to closer to market rates as their income increases or need for that particular house diminishes (eg. as children leave home but they'd like to keep additional rooms)

I dont feel rent should be increased - I think private rents should be decreased if they are too high, not the other way around. But inevitably on threads like this there are always shouts council house rents are too low. Me and DH work full time and have 3 boys and me and DH live in a 3 bedroom council house and pay full rent. I dislike a lot of the automatic assumptions that all people who live in council houses are on benefits or scroungers. You have delhicalling a little bit up thread calling this couple in the OP scroungers - why? Now there is nothing at all in OP about their financial circumstances, income etc - yet they are being labelled "scroungers"!

In my area private rents are few and far between, and I wouldnt be able to get a mortgage so if we were forced out of our house (yes its so easy just moving to a different area isnt it) we would have to give up work no doubt and end up on benefits, therefore costign the tax payer more in housing benefit.

Our local council is introducing a scheme in April 2013 though that I will imagine forces people on benefits who are "undercrowded" to move - not sure where to yet though!! Basically if you are undercrowded by 1 room you will have to pay a certain percentage of the rent - even if you normally get your entire rent covered by housing benefit - and by 2 rooms I think its 25% of the rent.

Should have added then it will force people to move because theres no way someone on benefits will be able to pay 25% of the rent - so therefore forced to move somewhere smaller. The part of this I do object is is it will include foster carers who have a spare bedroom for fostering.

Outraged - because its not 'their' home -it doesn't belong to them, they just live there. The same way that I don't own my privately rented property. Again, I'm not saying I don't understand the sentiment of not wanting to move out of social housing -I've been through the uncertainty of private renting and all the crap that comes with - but I do, because I cannot justify taking up a council property when I don't need it, however much I may want it. I think you're right in many ways Outraged, and the issue is a lack of affordable housing. But I agree with One More Chap too. This is a very emotive subject and naturally, will polarise opinion.

Our LA offers incentives. If you give up a three bed to downsize you could get £1000.

Anyway, where is the op? I thought she'd be pleased we're all having the reasoned discussion she so wanted?