to think people are being deliberately perverse about Council/HA..

[fideline]

....housing?

1. Social (council or HA) rents are not subsidized.

2)Social (council or HA) tenancies are not a form of welfare benefit.

It's not that hard to grasp is it?

fideline yes that's what I mean. The tax payers are not really subsidising council houses at all - they just think they are.

I find it utterly depressing that someone who thinks that the basic necessity of shelter not be a vehicle for economically speculative behaviour, with such behaviour explicitly made possible by govt policy, can be considered dangerously socialist.

What I actually said was
It sounds like you'd like to socialize housing across the board.

Makes sense to me, absolute. You, unlike the BTLers with their £9 billion of public money handed to them a year for doing precisely fuck all, are a net contributor.

I actually think it should be illegal to profit from other people's potential homelessness. That we all have a right to a roof over our heads and why should anyone make money from that? It does seem sick when you see tory MPs with portfolios as rackrenting landlords, and they moan about housing benefit yet they make a fortune from it. I don't get why people don't find this obscene.

Ok Lets just say for arguments sake that because Social Housing are lower than market rates this means they are indeed "subsidized".

Who exactly is doing this subsidizing ? it certainly isn't me and you (ie the tax payer)

Most Social housing is now provided by private (not for profit) organizations so any "lost" revenue is not being subsidized by joe public.

Its like saying tesco's are subsidizing shoppers because they sell Heinz beans cheaper than the corner shop !

I live in the south east and a council house rent for same size (usually bigger rooms and square footage than my equivalent house) is approx half the rent I pay. My relatives pay £480 a month for a three bed non estate semi from the council. A friend from the school lives in a lovely 4 bed housing association house and pays £575 a month. I pay £1050 a month to a private landlord. A good landlord admittedly but I can't help feeling a little bit peeved that I pay so much more for less security.

'Socialize' sounds like a dirty word doesn't it. When their kids are grown up most people have to charge them something each week. Usually the idea is to cover their own costs, not to charge the most their can. This is not considered immoral in itself or communism.

Capitalism does seem to work better with human societies than pure communism, but there's nothing holy about it. It's just a method we came up with that mostly works.

It can be counter productive. On the face of it if you give me a national railway network I will ensure it works well to maximise my profits - that's the beauty of capitalism.

So far so good, but I quickly see that abandoning all the rural areas and concentrating resources elsewhere will make me even more profit. In fact if I don't replace old equipment, but just charge more for a smaller service my profits will be even higher.

So you have to step in because in the case of a service needed by everyone, maximising profits can not be the only factor considered.

Since everyone needs somewhere to live it is to the advantage of society as a whole that it works right. So I'd have a lot of council housing priced so they made a small to medium profit. I wouldn't ban private landlords, but if a large percentage of homes were council owned it would add stability.

floppyfanjo in the case of a private trust there's no ongoing taxpayer subsidy, apart from charitable status. There would be one-offs in the form of the tax break (lost tax revenue) that would have been awarded the donator in the event they should they have given it at less than market value, or the market value of the housing stock if taxpayer if was donated from the government.

I don't follow your tesco/corner shop analogy. Corner shops are more convenient & attach a premium to their baked beans accordingly.

I share the disdain of the housing benefit to private LL's, incidentally.

Sorry back I misread.

^"What I actually said was
It sounds like you'd like to socialize housing across the board. "^

Truffle In what way did I sound as though I wanted to do that? It's hardly as though nationalisation is the only known method for steering the housing market.

Don't blame you Vicki

Truffle In the case of council housing there is no on-going taxpayer subsidy either!!

It's scary to see people so brain washed they can't wrap their heads round the fact that 'they' the mighty taxpayer don't contribute to council housing where no benefits are used to pay for it.

I gather I am the "brainwashed" one?

Well that depends on whether you firmly believe that some of your hard earned money is earmarked for council housing with full paying tenants? Which by the way is a hell of a lot.

Well that depends on whether you firmly believe that some of your hard earned money is earmarked for council housing with full paying tenants? Which by the way is a hell of a lot.

I do not believe this.

Someone usually brings it up but where I live, council (or more accurately the ha to which the council stock was transferred ) and (less often) historically ha rents are higher than comparable private rents due to 'affordable rent' being set at 80% of average market rent for eg. a 3bed house in the area. If the area is too wide and includes more desirable properties than the estate council housing stock the council house ends up with an artificially high rent. I have a hunch that this deters applications from anyone who doesn't have a reasonable expectation of remaining on full HB long term.

In most parts of Europe there are rent controls which is why many Europeans rent...and can do so on normal salaries. Unlike here....

Ok another angle;

I have ILs in their early 50s who have lived in their private rental for 25/30 years, since before the housing 'reform' laws, since before their fashionable SE city was fashionable.

Because they have been in the same (lovely) flat since before Thatcher's changes, they still have a secure tenancy with their private landlord and their rent is subject to adjudication by the fair rent officer. As a result they pay a far lower rent than current 'market rents'.

They are in a tiny minority of course.

Who is allegedly subsidizing who in that scenario?

I gather the landlord is subsidizing their rent, almost certainly by some government inducement that equals or exceeds the subsidy.

No. The LL has no choice. He is obliged by law to honour the terms of their (pre 1988) tenancy agreement, which as was usual then, guaranteed them security of tenure and a 'fair' rent.

No inducements, no subsidy, just a small time warp of more civilized housing law.

This article discusses the approx 100,000 tenants in same position as my (v lucky) in-laws

Then there's no subsidy. They all entered into an agreement to fix the price; when rents increase the landlord loses. Equally if the prices fell your IL's would lose. Unless it's an asymmetrical agreement, in which case the LL would have to be induced in order to reasonably enter into such an agreement.

No agreement to fix the price. Just legal protection from run-away rent increases.

Neither LL nor ILs knew when tenancy was signed that Thatcher would 'reform' tenancies and fair rent laws in 1988. All rents the (early/mid 80s) had to be fair rents and were subject to adjudication (1977 Rent Act)

Most people lost that protection by moving on. ILs stayed put so retained their 80s era tenancy rights. It is UK law not private agreement.

This Is the official info on such tenancies

It's "fixing" the price to inflation.

I suppose I don't understand how you are trying to relate this to the point at hand - is it that you can have low rents without a subsidy? This is not a subsidy because the LLs were protecting their own interests when they decided to enter into such an agreement, and they lost. No one could have predicted how the housing market would behave. Had the market tanked & inflation skyrocketed, you'd have the opposite effect.

why is it so hard to grasp? LHAs HAVE to rent At lower rates because of rules they have to adhere to that private LLs do not. It really isn't that hard to grasp is it?