Who really gets £500+ weekly state benefits?

[vivizone]

I find this shit so hard to believe. Reading the media, you would think this was a common figure on life on benefits.

Yesterday and today's Metro newspaper - people writing in saying they agree with the cap of £500 and why should people be sat on their arse and be rewarded by £500 per week. . Why should they earn £200 per week working and people are getting £500 a week doing nothing.

Seriously, who gets this £500 per week that is being peddled out of the media? I spent 7 months out of work after redundancy and I could not live on the pittance I received for me and my children. I do not know how people do it. I really don't. I had a decent redundancy package and that was the only way I could make it.

How many people do you know (forget the newspaper stories) that are RECEIVING £500 or more every week? I thought so.

How come if life is/was that cushy on benefits, not enough people are/were packing in their jobs to join a life of riley?

We have been had. Life on benefits is HARD and DEMORALISING. I have tried it and I can tell you you get PEANUTS.

The reason why stories run on people living in million dollar homes/getting thousands a week in benefits is because it is RARE. It is SO rare, that it gets reported on.

Hides thread too, misery breeds misery, get on with it.

hallelujiah...

Our tenant didn't get credit checked waste of time, or pay fees or have to worry about the mortgage company.
She and I signed a document that is based on trust and I had to pay £250 for that document to be drawn up. If she doesn't pay the rent I have to go to court at great expense to have her evicted, if she trashes my home and does more than £700 in damage I can pretty much forget about ever seeing that money again as it would cost more in court costs than I'd recover.
You're right it's not very equal or fair is it ?

misery breeds misery, get on with it

Or the day European-style tenancies are adopted.

Of course, it's not a public service, never said for a moment it wasn't, but don't bite the hand that feeds you or tar all those providing a service with the same brush.
If I left the garden step in my UK in the state of the one i'm renting I'd be sued should anything happen to my tenant (and rightly so), that's not an option everywhere.

whereas tenants always get the deposit back
btl mortgages are cheaper than 1st time buyers can get - fair????
and given to ll's on proof they can rent for 20% higher than mortgage - fair???
all paid in hb to ll

build council houses!

bite the hand that feed you???

jeez! you arent feeding anyone, you pompous muppet

' but don't bite the hand that feeds you or tar all those providing a service with the same brush.'

The hand that feeds you? Is that how you see your tenants, who are paying money to rent the space to use as shelter? You keep saying it's a business transaction and you're not providing a service, then going on about how this space is your home, you're the hand the feeds, etc.

Which is it?

If you've that vested a personal interest, why not sell up, invest the gains and then buy something when you return? Or is it because the property is no longer worth what you think you should get for it, in which case, there goes your whole premise that those who rent are feckless losers who made poor financial choices. I mean, getting into negative equity is hardly the result of good financial decisions.

Seeing so many echoes of the attitudes that caused the 70% crash in Irish house prices here.

Houses as "investments", check, interest-only mortgages, check.

If I hear "rent is dead money" or "my house is my pension" I am yelling bingo.

Mosman FWIW I really do sympathise on the neg equity, it is totally shit. There are many Irish people who made equally or more unwise financial decisions to the tune of hundreds of thousands of euros. In my experience (and I know seriously a LOT of couples in these circumstances) taking the hit is nearly always the best course of action. Amateur buy-to-letting is a headache and a money pit.

The wider question of whether intentionally becoming a buy to let landlord is ethical is an interesting one. Previously I'd have said of course it's okay, and I still believe that it's not really fair to demonise an individual trying to make the best choices for themselves for the implications of a society-wide problem.

BUT.

There is a massive and growing social problem where an older generation can get financing/release equity etc to buy another house and push up prices, pricing out a young family. That's a problem for everybody - including the older landlords who will at best see their own kids getting fucked by the high prices, or at worst, as in Ireland's case, see their "portfolio" crumble in value and leave them with massive debt in late middle age as oppose to the pension security they hoped they were getting.

Government policy (especially in Ireland but here too) can be blamed for causing a lot of the problem and ought now to be trying to fix it - for example, by taxing BTL profits more to discourage amateurs. And speaki of encouraging amateurs - a lot of blame has to go to the Location Location type programmes that basically encouraged eejits people to think BTLing was easy money. There's no such thing.

"but don't bite the hand that feeds you "

in her own words-even the LL agrees that the LLs have more power.

There is quite a lot to think about here. But there is no getting away from it that house prices are too high in comparison to average wages. And it is a point that if people made unsound financial decisions to buy to let when prices were high and now cannot sell because they will make a loss whose fault is that exactly. It's no different from buying stocks and shares and finding your investment loses money.

There is a huge problem with housing in this country but quite what the solution is I don't know. I read on a site that builders are stockpiling massive amounts of land they have got planning permission for but not building homes till the prices increase thus creating a shortage.

Vivienne that's the same thing oil tankers who hold up off shore for months do.

Hmm..I'm not sure that is very accurate vivienne. I work in the construction industry. It has been hugely effected, lots of large main contractors have gone out of business over the last few years. I think its mote a case of it not being economically viable to build now. Funding had been pulled from lo. Most builders want to be buildingts of projects

i cant imagine it's paying any builders to sit on land they aren't building on. are they just not doing any business till the price of property goes up? they'll be waiting a while and in the meantime have nothing to feed their families. i find it hard to believe any are doing it out of choice. alot of builders and construction workers in my family would love to have something to build.

I was surprised myself to read this. But apparently it is true. There is a lot of land lying dormant in the hands of property developers.

...because they have bought it, and now have no money to develop it/no one wants to buy it off them.....not because they are evil geniuses waiting to take over the world....

There is a company that owns a derelict pub on a large piece of land opposite me. They didnt get planning permission through in time to avoid new local legislation that limits the type and number of houses to be built in any one area at any one time. So for 5 years it has stood empty. Fine for us as we dont want a whole load of new houses on an already busy street, and we use the car park for overflow parking (another issue).

So it isnt always financial reasons that stops builders.

bogey that sounds financial though...if they had planned for x number of y type houses, but planning says they can only build a number of b type dwellings because legislation has changed...the reason they wouldn't go ahead is because either they cant get funding for those types of dwellings or its just not financially viable, i imagine

Its because they cant build any at all. At least, not at the moment. Its to do with making sure that the right type of houses are being built in the right places. Our part of the town was very popular with developers as it is amongst the more expensive areas so they could charge more for the homes. But there isnt the need for more houses here. There is a need in the much cheaper areas, so at the moment they own the land but cant do anything with it.

There seems to be a constant buidling of new houses and flats (sorry luxury apartments) being built here (Cambridge) Godmknows who buys them but they are going up everywhere!

Bogey - Are you saying they could build on the pub land, but don't want to have to sell them cheaper? It's a financial reason, then.

No, they are not allowed as no more housing is needed in the area i live in. Housing is needed in cheaper areas so the focus is on there.