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?

I couldn't get housing benefit for the property I lived in. Even if I had kept it on as a BTL, I would have lost that income in HB while I rented elsewhere.

Did he move in with someone else? Confused.com.

The HB cap is not a solution - in the year after it was introduced, rents went up by 4% nationally and 7% in London. All that has happened as a result of the HB cap is more people not being able to afford their rent, leading to eviction and therefore more pressure on services dealing with homelessness. It has cost more money - homelessness costs money; temporary accommodation costs money; social services intervention in homeless families costs money etc. A rent cap would do the job - if you people to pay less money in rent, cap rents. But of course none of the politicians would do that, because they are all landlords and all of them - Labour, Tory, and the Lib Dems, are in the pocket of these moguls with their private property empires that we, as tax-payers, are funding to the tune of £9 billion a year.

They won't allow house prices to fall either - there seems to be this doublethink going on that house prices = wealth. Indeed, during the Blair govt days, local financial planning saw house price rises as a good thing, rather than a sign of householders being in ever higher hock to the banks. I do agree that house prices should be allowed to fall though, and people who are in negative equity as a result could be bailed out using the money that is currently used to pay HB, to pay for extortionate temporary accommodation for homeless families etc. Couple that with a proper programme of housebuilding, covering affordable homes in the private sector and a real push to build more social homes for rent (which pay for themselves many times over so are an investment), and we'd be sorted. Or at least a lot more sorted than we are. But nobody - not Labour, not the Condems, not anyone - will do this. And so we are fucked.

But hey, carry on sniping about people in council properties as though they are the source of all the problems. After all, that's what Clegg, Cameron and Miliband want you to do.

Spot on Rommell, spot on.

UKIP too, Rommell. Don't be fooled that there is a choice.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2008090-To-think-UKIP-shouldnt-have-appointed-Lord-Voldemort-as-housing-spokesman

(Though I'm not sure about your numbers, rents are not rising, in real terms to the best of my knowledge.)

Thank you, whineaholic. If only we were in charge, eh? I could do such things ...

And of course that sentence should read 'If you want people to pay less money in rent' - missed a word out.

Aga, I view UKIP as the BNP with a lobotomy. I don't think there is a choice at all. There are anti-austerity agitators trying to get their voice heard though, and there is still of course the old-guard Labour left. Unforch that doesn't translate into a choice at the ballot box.

Vivienne It is not just a case of it doesn't work like that (evicting council tenants whose circs improve) It just COULDN'T work like that. The churn would be immense. And expensive.

Under your proposal, within less than a generation only the wealthy minority would have 'homes' and security. Everyone else will have to pack up and play depressive musical houses every 2-5 years. Imagine all the community instability, psychological stress and sheer cost that would bring.

Council estates would become huge homeless hostels, utterly ghettoized. People would become detached from their communities.

I agree. Council estates should not become ghettoes.

I heard (a recording of) Bob Crow on the radio yesterday. He was defending his occupation of a council flat on £145K salary. He said he was the only person paying full rent in his street - everyone else was on benefits.

Now, the first thing I thought was that this street is in east London. Why the hell are people unemployed there? There is no excuse not to find a job in London unless you have a very good reason (disability). You can't pass a single shop without a hiring notice in the window.

Yes Iain I have Bob's "I'm the only one on my street paying full rent. So who's the mug?" earworming round my brain. Trenchant but interrupting himself to be beautifully courteous to the waiting staff throughout that interview. RIP Bob.

I love the argument further back that private LLs treat you like shit so therefore council properties are worth more and should have higher rents.

What can I say? Go tell your LL that.

A few points: HB is not available to anyone who owns or pays a mortgage on their home. It is for renters only. There is a limited amount of help paying solely the interest on your mortgage, for a limited amount of time (6 months?) and that is all that is available to help homeowners with housing costs. So it would appear that absoluteidiot is living up to their name.

Social housing is not just in demand in the south. I don't want to say where I live, but it's not in the south, and waiting lists here are huge. One of my friends was living in one room of her parents' house with her boyfriend and son, they were on the waiting list for a council house (and had been since she got pregnant, it wasn't planned but she was on medication that they didn't tell her would interfere with her contraceptive pill, not that the reasons behind it should make a difference). Anyway, her son was 4 years old and still in that single bedroom with his parents, and they were still on the waiting list, as they weren't actually homeless they weren't a priority. And her parents refused to make them homeless to speed up their application.

I understand that council housing was designed to be housing for life. However, I do want to stamp my foot and say it's unfair, because if you're not in social housing and your circumstances change, you change your housing to accommodate that.

I do agree with whoever made the point about, councils could charge market rates and then provide HB to make up the difference, everyone would agree it was a subsidy then, but as they have missed out the middleman and just reduced rents, apparently it's not.

No, chrohnically. The point was that HB is paid for people to rent a house from a BTLer for potentially DECADES, hence nationalise these houses rather than continue to pay HB forever.

Got it in one Rommell!!

Another thread about housing with a few posters insisting on a race to the bottom. What's new?

Oh, sorry, absoluteidiot said that her ex claimed housing benefit, which implies he is the claimant. But I guess they could have meant he is a landlord receiving HB money via their tenants. Looks like ledare was equally confused.

Even if that is the case, I don't think it would be quite fair to say 'claim for 6 months them we're having your house'.

Say I was unable to sell my house and so rented it out while renting a place of my own. My tenants' circumstances change and they become eligible to receive HB (which I don't know about as they opt to receive it directly and don't inform me of the changes). After 6 months, my house is taken, and I drop off the property ladder. How is that fair?

Any changes need to hit the 'professional' landlord who is in it for the profit more than the 'accidental' one. A rent cap would do so- as in the previous example the rent I receive doesn't need to cover mortgage costs as I could afford that originally, it only needs to cover my rental costs. With a rent cap, my income would drop but so would by outgoings, leaving me in the same position financially.

Found this link on another thread, but I think it's relevant here too:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/council-spending/9275686/High-earning-council-tenants-will-face-paying-full-market-rate-for-homes.html

Interesting, Chronically.

The rules will end what ministers say is an unfair system that sees taxpayers subsidising the rent of tenants who could afford to pay full market prices.

I suppose some of you believe that 'Spare room subsidy' is a reasonable name for the bedroom tax, too?

As opposed to a politically-motivated misnomer. Which it is.

I would love someone to explain how a cut can be called a (spare room) subsidy, actually.

Ministers say it is a subsidy because they don't want to take responsibility for completely fucking up the state of housing in this country, and they want you to be angry with council tenants and think they are getting something over on you through the mere fact of them being council tenants. And you are falling for it. Well done you.

Me?! Rommell??

I love how people get all uptight about it being called "bedroom tax" and insist on it being called "a cut in housing benefit" instead.

What that tells me is that they are not affected by it because anyone who was would not care about the terminology.

It's a loss of money that some of our poorest members of society can ill afford. And it isn't all "feckless single mothers" either (though how someone who has risen to the challenge of raising a child while the bloke buggers off is beyond me).
Those with disabilities who need the extra room for medical equipment are also being penalised.

So bedroom tax/cut in housing benefit/whatever. Yet again it is the poorest facing extra hardship.

No, not you, fideline! You are one of the sane voices of reason on this sorry thread!

Rommell if that was directed at me then you have seriously misunderstood my point

Just highlighting the way the tories are making a habit of misusing words.