To think that if your answer to complaining about Bedroom Tax is "get a smaller house", you are a bit thick?

[MarmaladeTwatkins]

Where IS this glut of smaller properties, just waiting to be filled by people being stung by the bedroom tax?

TWICE today I have heard supposedly intelligent people say "Well if they don't want to pay the bedroom tax, they need to move to a smaller house."

Fucking depressing. I think it earmarks you as being a bit hard of thinking if that is your solution. :(

runningchick yep. Exactly.

every local authority is different.....my friends marriage broke down,she had 3 kids. a local housing association bought her house from her and now rent it back to her...so she didn't move at all!!

HSS more support financially and socially. Seems life can be very lonely and frustrating for the most vulnerable.

Can you explain as I'm confused! I'm being genuine, not funny in any way. He was told that if they had been in a council property they would have received HB but because they had a mortgage this was not available.

Are you saying they were given the wrong information?

Hey soul sister - do you realise that help with mortgage payments rarely covers the majority of anyone's mortgage? It doesn't work the same as covering rent payments. The mortgage help scheme only covers 3.5% of the mortgage intest for a very limited period after the 12 waiting period. Renters can get up to 100% assistance from day one and for an unlimited time period.

Home owners are the ones that get shafted - they get little help towards keeping their home if they lose their job and when they get old they are expected to sell their home to fund their care fees. Tenants get maximum help both when young and when old because their care home fees will be paid if they have no assets.
But if all those home owners thought 'stuff this I'm getting shafted so I'm going to rent' then we would have a very real housing crisis to deal with.

we already have a 'very real housing crisis' to deal with.....wonder how many home repossessions happen these days?

maybe if we were all paid decent wages? minimum wage is very low

Thank you, runningchick, so it was probably because what was offered wouldn't kick in early enough or wouldn't come close to meeting the mortgage payments. I think their mortgage would have been about 1.5k if I remember rightly. His wife wasn't/isn't badly paid as she's a geography teacher but they simply couldn't pay their mortgage and meet all their other bills etc on her wages so they had to sell and rent privately. Their kids had to move school too. This was a couple close to 40, who had both worked solidly since university. Why, as a society, couldn't we help them out for the one and only short time they needed it?

The whole housing benefit system needs an overhaul, if you rent a house from the local authority your rent should be on a sliding scale so if you earn nothing then you pay nothing; if you earn less than the local average then your rent should be less than the local average; if you earn the average wage then your rent should reflect that; and if you earn more than the local average then your rent should be higher than you would pay in a private rental situation.

I have no time for the whole "but I don't want to leave my local area" as private owners/ renters cannot argue this at all. Can you imagine telling your bank that you can't afford your mortgage/ your private landlord that you can't afford the rent, but you will not leave the house as you like the one where you are?? Yes, it isn't ideal to move children in school, but you know what, lots of people have no choice at all, and the children survive.

As for the bedroom "tax" which isn't a tax at all, but never mind I don't think that it should apply to people who cannot downsize due to a lack of smaller properties, but I don't think those properties should necessarily have to be in the local area, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Even people who need a spare room for whatever reason, I struggle to see why their need should trump that of someone who needs a room for a bed for their children. Those people who are now under-occupying properties, at some point needed that size of property. i really don't think that I would object to someone with a greater need than I having the same privilige that I was once given.

We are under-occupying, but don't use HB. We were allocated a too large property years ago as it was the only one available and we had 3 children then (one since died). Our chance of swapping is zero, however, as this is a maisonette/flat that starts on the ground floor and has no garden and is in a rural area.

Therein lies a lot of the problem: families don't want flats.

Minimum wages are very low but lots of people manage because there are topics available to people on low wages. An across the board increase in wages raises production costs and living costs so nobody would actually be any better off. Increased wages means people can afford more and the cost of housing, food etc goes up.....it's a vicious circle without an easy answer.

That should say 'top ups' not topics.

Slight tangent, but successive governments keep trying to build huge numbers of houses and blocks of flats in the SE
'Because of the housing crisis' 'Because we need affordable housing'

I'd agree with that if every new build was under £150,000. Instead of which they build numerous homes at £300,000+ all over my area of Sussex.

Someone asked should only the rich have families. It might be better to ask if people should have children that they can't afford?

Of course they shouldn't and before someone comes along beating a drum about someone having triplets...you know that will only account for a tiny proportion. As a general rule, only have the children that you can afford.

If you can only afford one, well why should you have more and expect others to cough up for it. If you can afford twelve, have twelve.

If circumstances later dictate that you and your twelve children need help, have it and welcome to it but don't have a large family if, at the time of planning it, you can't afford it.

It's not rocket science. you might like a porshe but can only afford a fiat. It's just the same, if you can't afford it don't have it, whether it be a fancy car, country vicarage or large family.

Missmarple, your post should be the government policy. Eminently sensible and fair.

Thank you, runningchick, so it was probably because what was offered wouldn't kick in early enough or wouldn't come close to meeting the mortgage payments. I think their mortgage would have been about 1.5k if I remember rightly. His wife wasn't/isn't badly paid as she's a geography teacher but they simply couldn't pay their mortgage and meet all their other bills etc on her wages so they had to sell and rent privately. Their kids had to move school too. This was a couple close to 40, who had both worked solidly since university. Why, as a society, couldn't we help them out for the one and only short time they needed it?

In that case, they wouldn't be entitled to help with mortgage payments because his wife was working full time. The only thing he would have been entitled to is contribution-based Job-Seeker's Allowance. If he told you they would have received HB in a council property under those circumstances, he was telling rubbish. Loads of families in council properties pay full rent on one wage - often a wage far lower than that of a qualified teacher.

Thank you, Mary Katherine!

Cecily, maybe I misunderstood that bit. Maybe it was about time scale.

I still think they should have received help. They have paid into the system for nearly 20years and the one time they need help for a short space of time, it isn't there. How can we justify supporting some people for 20 or 30 yrs yet not others but a short period of time?

just re read to see that. so wife was on a full time wage and they couldn't afford the mortgage? why did they overstretch themselves in the first place then?

Presumably because they weren't over stretched with two incomes...?! That's normal. With just one salary we'd be stuffed too!

They weren't over stretched at all with 2wages. But as he went from earning more than her to not earning at all, it all became a struggle.

Thousands of couples up and down the country are not over stretched on their combined income but would be if they were to lose one of those incomes.

so they (those with mortgages relying on 2 incomes to pay it) shouldn't be having babies either then?

MaryKatherine, under those circumstances, I doubt it was about the timescale. If the state helped that couple with their mortgage despite one good wage still coming in, they would have to support every couple with a mortgage and only one good wage - which I can't really see happening.

HSS why? That's strange logic...?

The rule of thumb which everyone should try their best to stick to is: if at the time of planning a child, one can't afford it, then don't have it.

Or are some saying that it simply doesn't matter if you know you can't afford to have a child at the time of planning...go ahead and have one anyway?

What factors contribute to that conclusion?