to think the south east has started to expel the poor

[ubik]

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/13/london-council-relocation-benefits-cap

Basically Camden Council cannot cover the housing benefit for these families due to government cap on benefits. These families would have to find an extra £90/week to make up the shortfall. As I understand it, there is nowhere in the south east cheap enough for these people to live.

So they are considering moving them to a cheaper region up north, hundreds of miles away from their families, schools, jobs, friends, neighbours.

I find this incredibly depressing as someone who grew up in a normal family in London.
Is the south east expelling the poor?

Housing benefit is a subsidy to landlords, just as tax credits are a subsidy to emplyors.
This is very convenient for those in charge. It means that rather than paying people real wages, they get discretionary payments which enable them to survive, and they can be threatened with the removal of said benefits if they don't comply with what they are told.
The real problem is super low wages in this country (the wage for an admin job I did ten years ago is only about 2 k more a year than it was then) and insane rents.
And we should be pathetically grateful that our extortionate rented house has a bit of laminate floor and a £900 kitchen. Lets forget about the rising damp the landlord cba to fix (it's too expensive he says) which sets of your kids asthma and turns your furniture mouldy.

Landlords sponging off tax payers??

Really?

It's not the landlords that are claiming the benefit paid for by taxes, and the vast majority of BTL landlords won't take tenants on HB anyway because their mortgages prohibit them from doing so due to the fact that HB claimants are more likely to fail to pay their rent!

If the subsidies stop and interest rates rise the buy to let landlords won't cover their costs. Will be forced to sell their property portfolios and house prices will come down. That is the solution. Not subsidies, subsidies and more subsidies. Imagine if food was subsidised like this. A lot of people wouldn't afford to eat only people getting the subsidies. It's crazy.

It's a total myth that LL dont take HB claiments.
Landlords know full well that many many working people are claiming HB.
Given that more tan 60% OF ALL RENTERS claim some HB, it would be ridiculous to suppose that HB claimants are any less likely to pay their rent than anyone else.
Every time I move I never mention that I get (some) HB. They know I do. I'm a single parent. My rent is high. I don't tell and they don't ask. The rent gets paid, and thats that.

Where is the evidence that there are families where all adults have been unemployed for three generations? That would mean a family where nobody had worked since the Second World War. I find that hard to believe.

Yellow do you mean free? No of course not. But there are cheaper places to live than Inner London!

IfNotNow It's not just poor people though is it. Stop looking at life through your own narrow prism.

Some housing benefit recipients are some of the most vulnerable people in society. That's why Shelter and CarersUK are concerned.

If you think it's patronising to be concerned about whether all claimants will be able to cope with this change, I suggest you use your energy to write to the organisations concerned.

Did you bother to read the Shelter comment? It's not just about budgetting. It will mean landlords are far more reluctant to let to people on benefits, which will lead to more homelessness - thus clearing even more properties.

SecondComing

If you want to sponge off the taxpayer by renting houses to people on benefits

Well that problem will soon be sorted - see above. Will you feel happier when they stop renting to benefit claimants? There are plenty of people looking to rent in London and avoid the commute!

The government can buy housing and build new social housing. It usually finds it preferable to let private investors take the financial risk. But you can scarcely claim private landlords typically fleece tenants or get free houses.

having done fuck all (bar cobble together a deposit/tart it up a bit)
Well if its that easy why can't everyone just do it?

theSecondComing move to Russia?

This shows that many landlors view HB tenants as high risk.

This shows why, and also provides a link to balance itself out.

Last time I checked it would need at least a 30 percent deposit to buy a house to let. I take the risk of losing all of that equity. Plus prices are still high enough in many areas that I may struggle to cover the mortgage payment. I also eat the cost of any vacancies, repairs, refurbishment, etc. It's by no means a sure bet.

I work in Central London - cannot afford to live there. 2 families I had been working with have recently been rehomed from the borough I work in because there were no more 7 bedroom homes available. They made the decision to move to get bigger homes, rather than wait until any came available.

TSC....I know you made a serious point just then but "Ker-fucking-Ching" made me giggle,

thesecondcoming have you ever owned a property? Or had to take out a mortgage? You sound like you have absolutely NO idea what is involved in owning a property and the cost of the upkeep of said property. There's also unexpected costs like being unfortunate enough to have a tenant who damages the property or doesn't keep up the payments and then vanishes.Why would they have to rent it out without making a profit at the end of it?

No TheSecondComing sadly not.

But we live in a capitalist country not a communist one. Hopefully ...

TheSecondComing, if you can't recognize an expression of exasperation at a ridiculously simplistic statement, I doubt you'd have anything to say worth debating.

I have owned a property AND been a LL at one time. I still mostly agree with TSC though. A LL advertises rooms in shared houses regularly in our local paper with "Housing Benefit welcome" and ending with "deposits available from the job centre". Nobody can tell me that this is ONE landlord who knows the system.

I am not tarring all LL with this brush but there are some out there.

Woops TSC just read you are a property owner. Still don't get your argument about the free house though.

Agh....bloody typos. One LL who definitely knows the system.