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Original poster

OMG!! The Council House Giveaway!!

234 replies

HeeHiles · 12/02/2015 09:42

It's IDS again!!

So, if you live in a council house and come off benefits for a year the Tories will GIVE you your council house. Now even though I could benefit from this I still think it's a crazy idea......we need more CH not give them away!!

All for a few votes?? It's that damn Dame Porter all over again!

Anyone think this is a good idea?

OP posts:
Dawndonnaagain · 12/02/2015 15:20

You personally do not subsidise the children of others. Nice to see Marie Stopes is still alive and living on mumsnet.

Hamiltoes · 12/02/2015 15:21

don't mind housing associations, as long as they let at market rates. Any housing subsidies poor people get should be through housing benefit.

So let me get this straight, you want all rents set at market rate of private landlords who will get their rent by tenants receiving housing benefit from the state? Surely rent would just increase and increase as there wouldn't be social housing as a "baseline".. You'd get to the stage where the average home cost £2000pm to rent and £1800 of that would be made up of HB for the average earner, or am I missing something? Hmm

Dawndonnaagain · 12/02/2015 15:25

Oh, and Rich DFOD.

richthegreatcornholio · 12/02/2015 15:25

I could afford my first child, no problem, I sincerely hope you never have to stand in my current shoes

And I assume that for whatever reason your circumstances have changed and you have now had to take advantage of the welfare state and the safety net that it rightly provides. No issues there. However for those in that situation that's where I do question the choice to have further children that they can't afford and seriously begrudge them being subsidised by my taxes.

richthegreatcornholio · 12/02/2015 15:29

Dawn Answer me this - why should people have the right to have children that they can't afford and expect them to be fully paid for by the state? I really don't think that's an unreasonable question and just to clarify I'm not including those whose circumstances have changed.

Arsenic · 12/02/2015 15:31

(TOO concerned, damn me)

Labour proposed giving social tenants a % share in their homes under certain circs and that wasn#t taken up. This has less chance.

Arsenic · 12/02/2015 15:32

^wasn't

richthegreatcornholio · 12/02/2015 15:35

are you going to claim child benefit Rich?

No, nor will any of us be using state education or the NHS, with the exception of A&E

HappydaysArehere · 12/02/2015 15:44

Give IDS the sack. The words crackpot and desperate come to mind. The Government knows it won't work but believe we are all too stupid to work that one out. Anything for a headline! It makes the bacon eating Milliband appear quite inviting.............oh! how cheesed off I am with the lot of them. However, I will vote as it is my duty.....so big headache.
By the way did you see the BBC programmes on the workings of parliamentary democracy? I am now even more dispirited!

Arsenic · 12/02/2015 15:44

No, nor will any of us be using state education or the NHS, with the exception of A&E

Nobody likes the villager who only participates in the community when his house in fire Rich Wink

keepitsimple0 · 12/02/2015 15:49

The whole point is it's not a free market. One of the biggest con tricks in modern politics (worldwide) is the right wing hoodwinking everyone into thinking there's a "free market". Not here there isn't. Not in the US there isn't. How can a regulated market be free ?

no market is truly free as the government always has its fat little fingers about.

Planning red tape is a barrier. I just looked into changing a house from an HMO to a non-HMO. For fucks sake it's a mess.

and we want these people to be the primary driver of homes building? That's why we are in this mess.

QueenTilly · 12/02/2015 15:51

Call me cynical but perhaps to save the council money in the long term on property maintenance and repairs as presumably these would then become the expense of the resident?

I'm more thinking along the lines of "financially incompetent".

Tell me, if you owned a property and let it out, would you expect to save money long-term by giving it away to your tenant?

Many council houses were built before the average mumsnetter was born, so the cost of building them is long paid off and the money after maintenance is pure profit.

keepitsimple0 · 12/02/2015 15:52

I live in an ex council house. The previous owner bought it for £43k. 8 yeas later they sold it to me for £240k. She retired to Spain.

that's a massive giveaway to ONE PERSON when there is a housing crunch.

this country is mad in some ways.

Grumpyoldblonde · 12/02/2015 16:03

And I assume that for whatever reason your circumstances have changed and you have now had to take advantage of the welfare state and the safety net that it rightly provides. No issues there. However for those in that situation that's where I do question the choice to have further children that they can't afford and seriously begrudge them being subsidised by my taxes.

No I am not claiming benefit, I am slowly working through my savings to keep us afloat, selling all I can, and am facing having to sell my property, I am on the cusp of losing everything I have worked 30 odd years for. Point being, if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone, my bubble has been well and truly burst.

ihategeorgeosborne · 12/02/2015 16:15

I live in an ex council house too keep. The previous owner bought it from the council for around 8k and we paid 275k for it over 20 years later. It's quite depressing really. I try not to think about it.

Arsenic · 12/02/2015 16:21

House price inflation is quite depressing ihate. Unless you're a childless homeowner. Or very wealthy.

keepitsimple0 · 12/02/2015 16:39

I live in an ex council house too keep. The previous owner bought it from the council for around 8k and we paid 275k for it over 20 years later. It's quite depressing really. I try not to think about it.

Look at it this way. The government is funding someone else's plush retirement.

Oh, that probably didn't make you feel better.

Arsenic · 12/02/2015 16:44

Let's keep a sense of proportion, here. £267k was NOT handed over by the gov't.

Arsenic · 12/02/2015 16:46

You do understand the difference between RTB and the proposed 'free hose' policy, don't you simple?

You do also understand how much house prices have risen every decade for the past 35 years?

Arsenic · 12/02/2015 16:47

And free houses to go with the free hoses Confused

SnowWhiteAteTheApple · 12/02/2015 16:52

Ridiculous policy. So to bribe people to work they will give them a house. Which they can sell and make a ridiculous profit and then go back to claiming again once they have spent it all. There's no clause that they must stay in work.

I thought we were meant to be encouraging people to work and live within their means not throwing more money at people.

Why teach children to work hard at school when bring on benefits can pay more and there's a free house thrown in Hmm

QueenTilly · 12/02/2015 16:56

richthegreatcornholio

No, nor will any of us be using state education or the NHS, with the exception of A&E

Are you actually an idealistic 15-year-old with no life-experience? While private neonatal intensive care units (NICU), special care baby units, (SCBUs), and adult intensive care units all exist, how many beds do you think there are, and do you live within easy travelling distance of one?

The Portland, for example: Our three-cot Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and four-cot Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) areboth equipped with the latest systems availableto monitor and care for both Portland-deliveredbabies and babies, with complex medical orpost-surgical problems, from other specialistdepartments at The Portland.

Three cots. And four. Two sets of twins on the same day, and SCBU is full, and you are getting transferred to the nearest hospital with a space for a sickly baby. And I assure you, your biggest concern wouldn't be "can I go private so I'm not using state money?" It would be "get my baby to the nearest hospital!"

PausingFlatly · 12/02/2015 16:57

Remember the good old days when people got bribed to work by being, er, paid wages?

keepitsimple0 · 12/02/2015 16:58

Let's keep a sense of proportion, here. £267k was NOT handed over by the gov't.

well, let's see. let's say house prices have risen 5 times in that period. So, if that house was sold for market value to the original owner, it would have cost the original owner 50k +. So, the original owner was in some sense given 42k 20 years ago by the government.

If I was given 42k 20 years ago I would also be much wealthier now, say about 250k wealthier.

richthegreatcornholio · 12/02/2015 17:01

Nobody likes the villager who only participates in the community when his house in fire Rich

No, and I expect the £50k in income tax alone isn't classed as a contribution in your nasty little socialist village.