to wonder why the bedroom tax gets more attention than the fact that private renters getting Local Housing Allowance always have to top up their rent?

[coco87]

The bedroom tax is constantly in the news and I understand that people feel strongly about this. However, I am a bit perturbed as to why the bedroom tax gets so much more attention than the plight of private renters and especially those who can only pay their rent with Local Housing Allowance but always have to top it up from wages/other benefits because LHA only covers a percentage of most private rents?

Why isn't anyone in government protesting against this excess which is normally much more than anyone currently having to pay the bedroom tax would ever have to pay?

For example, one of my friends lives in a flat and she gets £230 pw in LHA but her rent is £290 pw (this is London), so she has to find £60 extra to top it up. There are now more people private renting than social renting, so this should be a much bigger issue imo, although both are a scandalous.

GOBBY
I totally agree

Exactly what I wanted to say but you said it better than I could

"Private renters have the freedom, in theory, to move to a smaller property so they won't have a 'spare' bedroom. People in social housing have to take what they are offered by the housing provider."

Sorry but that statement is complete tosh. People in social housing have the the complete same 'freedom' to move to a smaller property as private renters. Even easier for them in fact when you think about the pacticalities of money etc.

Sorry, but that statement is ignorant and complete bollocks

No it isn't, according to THIS survey published earlier this week.

More than 19 out of 20 families hit by the bedroom tax are trapped in their larger homes because there is nowhere smaller within the local social housing stock to take them. This is shown by figures provided by councils in response to Freedom of Information requests by the Labour Party.For the 38 councils that provided full data, 99,079 families are expected to be affected by the bedroom tax, but only 3,803 one and two-bedroom social housing properties are available – just 3.8 per cent of the homes required to rehouse the families who are hit.

Lapsed - "More than 19 out of 20 families hit by the bedroom tax are trapped in their larger homes because there is nowhere smaller within the local social housing stoiesck to take them. This is shown by figures provided by councils in response to Freedom of Information requests by the Labour Party.For the 38 councils that provided full data, 99,079 families are expected to be affected by the bedroom tax, but only 3,803 one and two-bedroom social housing properties are available – just 3.8 per cent of the homes required to rehouse the families who are hit."

My point is that people in social housing have exactly the same freedom to move to a smaller private rented property as people already in private rental. Can you not see this? Do you think SH tenants are forbidden to move into the private sector?
In fact a lot of councils will pay tenants to do this and pay for moving costs, deposits etc.
Also it can be easier for SH tenants to do this as they do not have to rush so much and take the first private property that becomes available as the shortfall due a change of circumstances is a lot less.

I hate the bedroom tax, but to say private tenants have more freedom is just wrong.

I think the OP is against the bedroom tax too, she was just pointing out how it never seems to be talked about that private tenants have had to move to smaller properties for years if they couldn't afford the rent. And in most areas it is extremely hard to find a property within the LHA that will take DSS/Housing benefit.

I think the OP has a good point.

I used to get full HB for a one-bed flat in a provincial town, £460 every four weeks. This was in 2009, so not that long ago.

Now I've moved to London and am a lodger, my rent is £340 every four weeks, minus a £40 HB shortfall.

It's mad.

people in social housing ARE allowed to move to the private sector, but most don't want to private rent because its more expensive and far less secure

plus with private renting you need a big deposit then money for decorating etc and if you are on benefits or a low income then people havent got a spare couple of grand lying about

plus most landlords (round here anyway) dont accept "dss"

the whole thing is a shambles and a disgrace

The problem is the totally insane cost of housing in the south. Until this is tackled nothing will be solved. And it won't be tackled by giving ever more subsidised Housing Benefit. That's part of the problem. IMHO. People getting £900 a month HB. People on minimum wage barely earn much more than £900 a month.

This thread isn't private versus council/ha
It's about the fact that private renters get fuck all recognition for how unfair and hard it is for them

'It's about the fact that private renters get fuck all recognition for how unfair and hard it is for them'

Recognition? For getting fucked over? And again, the reason why is because many of those in power are BTL landlords. They have a vested interest in keeping house prices as high as they can be and higher, if possible.

But WHY are people getting £900 HB?

Because the cost of housing is disproportionate to wages. It's ridiculous. Rent on a 4 bed where I live is between £1200-£1900 a month. Average mortgage on similar property £1100 ish.

I'll say it again. Housing is a basic need and should not be an asset. The average working person shouldn't have to claim HB.

here come the landlord-haters...

Sorry to spoil the story, but: most landlords cannot get insurance to take on HB tenants. So no house insurance, and no legal expenses insurance. So if the tenant moves in and cannot/doesn't want to pay, it takes MONTHS to evict them. During all that time the landlord has no income and so possibly gets into mortgage arrears.

This has changed since HB was paid to tenants, not to the landlord. Government policy.

yes, there are dodgy landlords. There are also dodgy tenants. There are also people earning a small but honest living by renting out a property that they have worked to buy, possibly on a mortgage.

oh, and if you own a place you pay a mortgage to bankers. Why, pray are they less or more likeable than landlords? Could it be that your banker isn't known to you?

FACT: the government is destroying savings rates with the funding for lending scheme, giving cheap money to the banks in the expectation that they will then lend more cheaply/easily to small business. Bank lending has DROPPED because the profit-driven banks are seeing cheap money. No-one in government seems to have noticed.

I'm glad you brought this to people's attention. We have to top up our rent by £200 a month and now my dh's tax credits have been dropped so much its going to be impossible to live!

So where are ordinary working people who need HB top ups meant to live then?

Of course people have the right to earn a living, but it seems horribly exploitative to profiteer from what is a basic need and unaffordable for too many now because of it.

The housing market needs a massive correction, which will hurt home owners, or wages need to increase which will hurt businesses.

Either way MPs have their snouts in both troughs so neither will happen.

Oh, and pointing that out isn't 'landlord bashing'.

"The problem is the totally insane cost of housing in the south. Until this is tackled nothing will be solved. And it won't be tackled by giving ever more subsidised Housing Benefit. That's part of the problem. IMHO. People getting £900 a month HB. shock People on minimum wage barely earn much more than £900 a month."

Vivianne - the people on minimum wage earning around £900 month will be receiving HB. The vast majority of people receiving HB are in work. That's how terrible the housing problem has become in this country.

The cost of housing does need tackled - but what we need are more houses, and reasonable caps (or limited increases) on the cost of rent.

It is done elsewhere very effectively. In Quebec, for example, a private landlord cannot raise the rent by more than a legally allowed percentage per year (it is low) and only if they can demonstrate that they have made an improvement to the property. They can't jack up the rent charged to a sitting tenant for nothing.

Introducing this policy to the UK would be great. Unlikely to go down well with the homeowning/buy-to-letting contingent though.

I was just reading my local paper online and came across an article about housing in this area (north london) I quote

the charity Shelter estimated a family need to earn £72,000 to afford a two bedroom property in the borough.

How the fuck can that be justified in any way whatsoever???

In other countries where privately renting is the norm there are reasonable rent caps in place. People don't need HB to top up rent as their income will cover it. I think this is key, especially when we consider that somewhere to live is a basic human need.
If we had reasonable rent caps we wouldn't need the huge HB cost to cover rent and could probably reduce tax credits too.
There are LL out there who have had their mortgages paid via HB ....not all but a fair number.

I really dislike the argument that landlords have had their mortgage paid by HB.

As has been pointed out, many LLs cant get insurance for tenants that claim HB so stipulate 'no dss'. That's because too many claimants have shown themselves to be unreliable tenants who don't pay or who damage property, so you can't really blame LLs for wanting to reduce their risk of financial loss.

So which is it? It can't be both.

Even where a ll is receiving their rent money from a tenant who has claimed HB, it's the claimant that is taking the money so that they have somewhere to live, I can't imagine most LLs care where their rent comes from as long as its legal and on time.

I get that other countries probably do things more fairly, but we should have started with a better system in the first place. LLs charge rent in line with their mortgage or with the going market rate. There's nothing wrong with that, maintaining a property and paying the relevant insurances doesn't come for free, so LLs have a right to charge enough rent to cover their costs, including their time.

BTL landlords should never have expected rent to cover all or even most of their mortgage, insurance and maintenance costs.

The point of BTL was to be able to buy a house, with rent assisting in that process. The return comes when the ll sells up, hopefully (for them) getting lucky playing the house price game.

In other countries where privately renting is the norm there are reasonable rent caps in place. People don't need HB to top up rent as their income will cover it. I think this is key, especially when we consider that somewhere to live is a basic human need.
If we had reasonable rent caps we wouldn't need the huge HB cost to cover rent and could probably reduce tax credits too.
There are LL out there who have had their mortgages paid via HB ....not all but a fair number

• exactly

what sort of country are we living in when many people earning a perfectly good wage needs to claim HB as a top up? its a joke

Different councils have different rules about taking in lodgers. Ours is fine with it and it says explicitly on our council tenancy agreement that it is permitted, and we don't even have to ask permission first. We are planning to take in a student friend of DD's as a lodger from October and it will really help towards bills, as it won't affect our benefits at all. So if anyone is considering taking in a lodger to help pay for the bedroom tax, I would check with your own council/HA first and not just assume that all social landlords don't allow it. The rules in Scotland are especially different from England, and HA rules are different from council so not really possible to generalise everything from there. We still have lots of council housing in our borough for example, and have full RTB.

I was a LL - I wouldn't take DSS tenants. Not because I personally had a problem, but because it was a condition of BOTH my mortage and my LL insurance.

I do think it is important to remember - as specialsubject said - not all LLs are awful, not all tenants are good.

I know exactly what the OP means. I work in a low income job and receive some LHA to top up my rent. About 3 years ago the amount I receive was reduced. The reason? Because there's only me and my DS in a 2 bed plus box room 3 bed property, so it's classed as under-occupied and I now only receive LHA at the 2 bed rate. I could move but I don't have the deposit to put down and houses are so expensive to rent that a 2 bed place would be the same as or more than I currently pay. Also my DS is settled in the local school, it's near my family, not too far from work etc, so I don't want to leave the area.

I have a really good LL who's kept the rent the same as I paid when I moved in four years ago, he keeps the house maintained and I doubt he'd sell (although you never know). However I can't decorate it myself, I don't feel long-term stable and it's not mine.

The real killer is a colleague of mine bought a house a few years ago and pays about £150 per month less for her mortgage than I pay in rent.

The whole housing situation in this country fucks me off no end.