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?

Surely it's not an issue of CH tenant is taxpayer or not?

It's to do with the allocation and pricing of social housing according to need and ability to pay?

I get the supply issues here and why everyone might not be able to rent a council house because there aren't enough. What I don't get is the prevailing attitude that people should not be able to aspire to a home that they can stay in and not be at the whim of a private landlord. There does seem to be an attitude of "you should be grateful you've even been "given" a council house at all. And if you have any spare cash at all you should then uproot your family and put them in a less secure rental situation. People don't expect me to move my family somewhere else and give the rest to the poor. The bottom line is that the government needs to sort out the mess left by its predecessors (not the most recent ones-the ones who sold off all the housing stock) and get more homes built. Then perhaps we could all stop berating people for taking up a council service. Of course that doesn't solve the short term housing gap and so people may be forced from their homes to solve it. That doesn't stop it being a huge injustice if they are. And I don't see people voluntarily queueing up to retire later, wait longer for healthcare, or take pay cuts. People, to an extent, have to accept that things are tough at the moment, but putting your family up as austerity volunteers-hardly.

Molehillmountain I think you're absolutley right.

We do need more council house; I didn't particularly object to Council Houses being sold to those who'd been paying rent on them for 30 years... I objected to the bigoted approach which forced Councils not to build with the receipts...

Similarly, I don't expect people to move forthwith - simplistically, if you ensure that market rents are paid - that increases the revenue streams to the Councils... if people can't afford them, you increase HB to the cap.

At that stage when HB will no longer support the rent; yes, the resident has to make a decisions. Just like everyone else. Of course, that also means that the private LL won't be able to get support for the high rents from the taxpayer and that might prove a drag on the rent escalator, too.

Very well put mountains

In the interests of research, I was speaking to the lady who was my homeless officer last year.
We discussed this thread (am quite sure she's had a look by now and I've totally outed myself) and the idea that if we earned more in the future we would be morally obliged to leave and go back into private roulette.

"and do you think you would be given another house if you found yourself in a similar position in the future?" whilst looking at me like this

"don't be so bloody daft"

Well said mountains

Your homeless officer lady is quite right terra

Its the attitudes some poeple on this thread have, the shock horror that someone (assumingly of of a lower class because they live in a CH) might have the bare cheek to travel ist class, even if they have saved for the last 10-20 yrs to pay for it, how very dare they!

Great post molehillmountain.

molehillmountain, totally agree. As a teacher who when on strike last year had lots of people say: "But you're lucky you even had a pension, lots of people don't." My standard response was "Lots of people are homeless, should I move out and sleep on the streets, or at least not complain when my home is taken from me." That's exactly what you suggest people do, move out of their family home when things get a bit better for them. Ridiculous. Private rent needs to be cheaper and more secure. Then we can create communities where people will stay a long time, have a personal investment there and anti-social behaviour will reduce.
And I also agree with the poster who said they should have ploughed the money raised from right-to-buy back into replacing the stock. I believe that money disappeared in the stock market crash of '87. (i may be wrong)

Private rent, in some cases, can not be made cheaper. The rent charged on the houses we have just about covers the mortgage (purchased in 2007 - not such a great time to buy!) and we would run into real trouble if something expensive goes wrong.

Agree more money should be invested in new social housing, big set back to remove the requirement to allocate a minimum percentage for this purpose in any new development.

To those saying private landlords should be more open to HA tenants we have had our hands burnt. We let our house to a family who pocketed the money the council gave them for rent leaving us to cover the mortgage for months. Was an absolute nightmare getting them to leave the property. Wouldn't go there again.

Where do you stand on allowing longer let's OBface? Offering tenants the choice of a short assured tenancy or a long lease with maybe a six month notice period?

Let's ? Lets obviously, damn iPad.

We only have 2 houses to rent and market both to students on a 12 month contract now.

In theory though I wouldn't be adverse to your suggestions, we're not looking to make a profit off the houses in the short term (bought as neither of us have pension so looking to long term) so if we had good tenants we be really pleased to have some stability. It's always a headache to rent the properties out each year!

I'd love to fly first class. I'd spend all my time giggling like a nun in a hammock.

OBFace that's fair enough (as a tenant myself)- the cases that get me are where someone has been renting fine for sometimes many years and then a redundancy happens and the LL is obliged by insurance to evict them; a redundancy or illness will not turn a good person into a bad person and will keep someone stable and housed whilst they get back on track.

A home owner has absolutely got the right to choose who they want in their home, it's the silly technical cases that I am opposed to.

Longer rents would be a Godsend. We've been here 9 years or so, our lease comes up every 30th September: I always spend the week before that as an emotional wreck wondering if we will be made homeless.

Excellent post Molehill.

The spare room tax will knock a lot of people out anyway: I talk a lot to people with disabled children and as there is no provision in that for families allocated an extra room to cope with disability (unless they have an overnight carer- unheard of in this age group IME) there are a lot of people wondering how they will even afford the council house that OT / SW / PT made them take. These people will often end up homeless, yet many will be incredibly vulnerable in emergency housing- imagine being in a B&B or hostel with a disabled child!

peachy tell them to applying via housing benefit for the discretionary housing fund who have been allocated several million extra quid to deal with this very issue.