Who is unreasonable? Me or friend for saying that is the reality for many so suck it up?

[brownpaperbag2]

A friend lives in a very nice 3 bed semi in a great location, lovely commuter village in South East with good schools etc. she pays £370 a month for her council property, where as mp the average for a 3 bed semi to rent here is £1400 a month.

I have always told her she is lucky. She has lived there 12 years and has 2 cars, goes abroad every year, pays for private tuition etc. her husband earns £34,000 a year and she earns £4000 a year part time school hours. Her husband has just gone for a promotion to earn himself £45,000 a year.

This years budget means she is likely to have to pay full market rent, thus more than tripling her rent. She is freaking out and saying that it isn't fair as her family will suffer. She has 2 children and pays for tennis lessons, tuition, football club etc

I said that this is what other families have to pay, including someone 3 doors up in the exact same house so why should she pay less and have a better lifestyle than her neighbours who also have 2 children and both work full time.

Clearly it fell on deaf ears.

Oh for crying out loud.

Taxpayers do not subsidise SH rents via council tax.

I did want to add motherfucking, cunting and twatting to that sentence because it makes people sound like doilys.

Man a small part of me hopes this kicks in soon so doilys can correctly say SH is subsidised ... As it will be via those claiming HB.

I'm just a bit surprised at how low you have quoted for her rent - it is exceptionally low for a 3-bed semi HA house in the SE. HA rents have been creeping up for years, with many 'affordable' new builds priced at 80% of the 'highest' comparable private rents. Are you sure she only pays £370pcm?

If they have a family income of £38k and their rent is only £370 why on earth have they not been saving? Then they might be able to afford to buy somewhere and free up social housing for those really in need.

I wondered about the rent as well. Mine is £600 per month for a small 3-bed in a crime-ridden S.E shithole with atrocious schools.

Yes, the rent seemed v low. I pay only £2 less than that for a 1 bed first floor flat. Though I am in the North.

I am 100% sure of the figures. We live in a rural area, just over an hours train commute from London. However, it is extremely desirable. They have been in their social housing for 14+ years I believe. Would that make their rent low? They have a life time contract

They ARE subsidised via council tax. They might not have their rent directly paid from it, but the fact people who can afford it are not paying market rates is a subsidy because the rent they could pay is not available for councils to pay for other services so the cost of those services will be recouped as well.

Also, the cost of programmes to refurbish and renew come from the general council budget and outstrip rent. Because they are not being charged enough to cover necessary works, the works to keep their houses in order are paid for largely via council tax. So, yes, council tax does subsidise it because the rents are kept artificially low because money from elsewhere covers some of their costs so they don't need to pay it.

Anyway, I would have thought good socialists with redistribution of wealth etc would welcome people with a bit of extra cash being required to cough up more dough to cash strapped councils.

I don't think she will need to change her lifestyle much at all.

Assuming her husband gets his promotion, they will be £11000 (before tax) better off. They are already paying for the tuition, tennis lessons, holidays etc on the £34000 salary. The extra from the £45000 will cover the majority of the rent increase.

I don't see any reason for the panic.

No, you don't get lower rents the longer you have been in S.H. DC1 and I had a one-bed flat which was £360 per week thirteen years ago.

I shall have a look on the swapping website first thing, assuming someone in a lovely rural village would like to be able to score drugs or guns easily twenty minutes closer to London!

Social housing rents are NOT subsidised through council tax. Anyone sho says they are is an idiot who clearly knows nothing about either social housing or council tax.

Who told you that council tax subsidises SH rents?

You are aware that SH rents are ring fenced and create a surplus that our lords and masters were taking a hefty chunk of until a few years ago aren't you?

In fact (and this is a fact) that the almighty taxpayer is subsidising private rents in the form of housing benefit because they are high and the increase in rents for SH tenants over 30 grand is going straight to central government rather back into housing.

You may like to believe that council
Tax trickles into SH rents to make up a shortfall but in actual fact it isn't needed for that.

Bizarre thinking.

Not a lovely semi, not sure about the area, but look - £500-£600 per month

Lots on there in that price range without the enormous garden. I wonder why your mate's rent is so low?

Lazy no the rents are not artificially low, private rents are artificially high.

Not that I am slagging off that house, I like purple

But it isn't the county idyll for half the price I imagined from the OP.

She has been having a lifestyle far beyond that others on similar wages have and, ultimately, that lifestyle has been subsidised by taxpayers, including those others who cannot afford all the luxuries she has had. Sad though this is for her, that situation can't be right

It is pie in the sky to say we should reduce all rents. Morally and ethically right but it is never going to happen so all of us have to suck that up

It's not been subsided by tax payers , why can't people understand this?

All the semantics about whether and what taxpayers subsidise low rents is a bit disingenuous.

Council tax generally makes up less than half the council budget. The rest comes from the central government rate support grant. Whether rent is paid to Council or central government is all semantics. If the housing stock has a higher market rent than that being charged then that is a subsidy to employers in the local area in the same way as tax credits subsidise low wages.

If HB is paid to support the local housing market this is a subsidy to the area and comes out of the central SS budget.

In combination these 2 things represent a massive ongoing transfer of income from the poorer regions of the UK to London and the South East imo.

Where I live Social Housing rents are broadly in line with the private sector and if you have a FT NMW job you are very unlikely to qualify for HB.

Why doesnt she just get a job? That's how most people afford their rent.

"The coalition scrapped the longstanding system of funding new social rented housing in 2011, replacing it with a system in which landlords receive much smaller construction subsidies but are allowed to charge tenants up to 80 per cent of the local market rate, known as “affordable rents”." FT

Okay so surely if the state is giving the social housing landlords a subsidy that money comes from tax payers? It doesn't grow on trees. Why is that not a subsidy paid for by tax payers?

"In order to receive the funding to build new affordable rented homes, social landlords must also convert a certain number of existing social rented homes into “affordable rent”. More than 60,000 social rented homes have been lost in the past two years as a result of this policy, the UK Housing Review found. In some expensive housing markets — such as much of London — “affordable rents” can hit levels that are out of reach for the majority of households. Some London landlords are charging tenants in “affordable rented” housing as much as £269 a week, research published late last year by Social Housing magazine found — nearly two-thirds of the median take-home pay for London workers. By contrast, tenants in social rented housing pay on average 50-60 per cent of what private sector landlords in their local area."

The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that rents in the subsidised sector will rise by 14 per cent in the five years to 2018-19, compared with just 5 per cent in the private sector. "

FT

I don't by the way agree with the FT's politics as it is quite left wing at present.

Why doesnt she just get a job?

She'd be better off quitting all work and getting her husband to cut his hours.

They are not subsidised because they don't need to be.Any mortgage on the properties has been paid many years ago.
The amounts spent on improvements/ maintenance and staffing etc is less than the revenue received by rental income.

Cannot quite believe the rent your friend is paying. Also in the SE. Friend rents from the council a nice 3 bed terrace. She has been there for 30 + years. She pays £800 per month. The bought ones in her row that are privately rented only rent for £1200.

I think your friend should have realised nothing lasts forever and started saving instead of spending on foreign holidays, nice clothes, new cars etc.

They are subsidised. They could be sold to pay down the national debt or kept and used to generate income for UK plc at market rates. (You are using the same logic as BTL landlords with 50% equity who think they are "making money" when only just covering their mortgage costs).

What BathtimeFunkster said on page 1.

The thing about 'subsidy' though is that 1400 rent would turn in a profit due to lack of supply and large demand. It wouldn't cost the HA / council that much assuming they own the property .

Market rent doesn't equal Breakeven necessarily?