to think its a disgrace that Cameron is going to stop lifetime council tenancies

[sparklesandglitterxx]

and think that that is NOT the solution to the housing crisis?

the solution as far as i can see it is, lots and lots more council houses need to be built, regulation in private renting needs to be improved, and GENUINELY affordable houses to buy for those on low wages that wish to or are able to buy

fed up of seeing the great things about Britain being chipped away. Why punish renters? The whole Tory attitude towards council housing being a last resort for the destitute disgusts me. council housing needs to be brought back to what it was originally meant for...which is a decent secure home for anyone who wants one. i live on a council estate which is a mix of council, HA and bought. People stay here, they build lives here, generally it is a lovely community. i have never been happier or more settled anywhere i have lived, I have done well in my life and been able to have a big family. my children are happy and thriving at school and have lots of friends. My point is if these changes go through, they will end up DESTROYING communities like ours and so many others. The Tories just seem to want everyone either paying their landlord mates every penny they earn or pushing up house prices by buying. But not everyone wants to buy, and more importantly not everyone CAN buy, (I have friends on good money who are still priced out the market) and hardly anyone would actually CHOOSE to be in insecure, expensive private rented !! I also think that if more people are in secure housing, it will help peoples mental health (hence cutting costs in mental health services), it will improve childrens chances in life, as they wont have to keep moving schools and away from friends etc, it will encourage people to better themselves, it will cut the HB bill, and also with people spending less on their rent they will have more to spend in the economy, thus boosting it!

I also suspect it wont end here....while it will be for new tenants only to start with, i would imagine it will end up being everyone in council / HA

My privately rented house was subsidised -by the council -because I got some housing benefit. Now I don't. I cost the council less money because I live in a house owned by them (and paid for many times over ).
My rent is now fair. Private rents are based on supply and demand, and what the landlords can screw out of the tenants and the local authority. Just because my current landlord the council-doesn't charge whatever they could get away with doesn't make my house subsidised. And, as I said, I am subsidising them by spending £££ on bringing up to scratch.
If I live in my house for 50 years, I will pay the council approximately £250, 000 in that time. A lot more than my house would be worth if it was up for sale. When I die said house will then go back into available stock, and so it goes.

What makes a rent fair or unfair, though?

This sounds like a goady or unfair question, but it's not meant that way. I have a property. I want to rent it out. My mortgage is £x. How do I decide what to charge?

Sorry, £275, 000. Sums went wrong!

Anyone who gets housing benefits is subsidised, but that's what socialism is all about.

Is it?? I thought that's what making sure landlords pockets are lined is about. Don't forget, many many politicians of all stripes are also buy to let landlords, so the current system of paying people below living wage, allowing rents to skyrocket, and then milking councils for the extra is paying off nicely for the establishment. Fuck all to do with socialism.

Ifnotnow..
Do you think that we shouldn't help people out then?

There's got to be a better solution to the crisis in housing than this.

A joined up, better overall management type strategy, e.g.:

1. Allow monies from sales of social housing under right to buy to be ploughed into building more social housing
2. Allow lifetime tenancies but have sliding scales of rent according to income, so if salaries etc go up, rents go up (and allow profits to be ploughed back in to building more social housing). At some point it will become more sensible to buy than to keep renting at a higher rent...and plough that money into building more social housing
3. Join up both the right to buy discount and help to buy schemes, so people in both social housing and private housing have similar levels of help to get on to the property ladder, whether that is through a discount linked to years renting social housing or a top up to savings (or a mixture of both)
4. Ring fence stamp duty receipts from purchases of second homes and plough those into building more social housing and/or better regulation of the private sector
5. Introduce better regulation of both buy to let lending and also the running of the private housing sector, specifically around security of tenure, rate of rent rises and fair maintenance of properties.

If the private sector gets more secure, affordable and better maintained, then there will be less pressure on social housing. If buy to let mortgages are regulated, then there will be less pressure on first time buyers- similar, buy to leave is regulated (e.g. massive council tax hikes for empty properties- with you guessed it, the monies ploughed into building more social housing) .

Scotland has just legislated for the end of the no fault eviction at the end of a contract. So if someone pays their rent on time, does no damage etc, they get to stay. It's predictable that landlords will try to hike rents to get tenants to move on, and equally predictable that the Scottish Parliament will then legislate to limit rent rises. There is also legislation in Scotland around houses in multiple occupation e.g. shared flats- this need to meet certain health and safety standards and have to be licensed every few years (e.g. if there are complaints of anti-social behaviour by tenants from neighbours, and the landlord takes no or inadequate action, the licence can be lost). Many other countries (e.g. Germany) have much more extensive guidance on the rights and responsibilities of both tenant and landlord, not perfect but better than the sorry situation we're in here.

No. I don't think that. I think, however, that rich get the benefit and the poor get the blame, every time.
Sick of the propaganda putting have little against have less. Sick of the race to the bottom, sick of people hell bent on stripping away everything working people have fought for, every bit of security and dignity, so that we will all wind up back in fucking Victorian times. It's soul destroying.
So I have a council house, and now don't have to move every year, and my child can stay at his school. ( for 2k upfront don't forget)
That's a good thing, but surely that should be the base level-the bare minimum- in one if the richest countries on the planet??!

That's to redbinneo btw

I hear you IfNotNow

Jesus Christ Moonatic .....ive heard it all now. So its the fault of tenants that schools hospitals and the police have been cut back.

YY IfNotNow. Some of the people who will be working at Next at 5am on Boxing Day and mostly working to pay the taxi fare there and back on that day due to buses not running , will very likely be social housing tenants.

At the end of the day all anybody wants is a decent house/ flat to call home it's not the fault of social housing tenants the country is in such a mess not sure what the answer is .

Some people would instead say that "subsidised" is only the correct term if it is being supplied at less than cost price (which is not the case with council housing)

They might say that, but they would be wrong.

Jesus Christ Moonatic .....ive heard it all now. So its the fault of tenants that schools hospitals and the police have been cut back.

That is absolutely not what she said. Perhaps re-read the post.

Some of the people who will be working at Next at 5am on Boxing Day and mostly working to pay the taxi fare there and back on that day due to buses not running , will very likely be social housing tenants.

Well, they probably won't be, because they can't get one as none available.

Anyway, I think the point is that low-wage earning people should get subsidised housing. It's people on national average and above that shouldn't. They should pay the going rate for the house. Or move out and let someone who needs it have a chance.

propaganda works. It really does.

YANBU.
Council Houses were originally brought in to solve the housing crisis after WW2, when people believed in a fairer Britain.
In the 1980's they sold off the council housing stock to private landlords, which meant that Housing Benefit that used to be moved from one department to another is now paid out to private landlords.

It has cost this country a fortune.
the conservatives loath the 'poor' and the sooner they just come right out and admit it the better.

If the list price of tickets for a concert/Glastonbury/the 100m final at the Olympics is £X per ticket, and touts are able to re-sell them at £2X - by the logic of "council house rents are subsidised" people, anyone who buys a ticket at list price legally is getting it "subsidised".

I don't see many people campaigning for list prices to be raised to ticket tout prices to make sure no-one gets this unfair subsidy.

"My privately rented house was subsidised -by the council -because I got some housing benefit. Now I don't. I cost the council less money because I live in a house owned by them"

You are indirectly costing the council money because you pay a lower rent than the house could hypothetically fetch on the open market. cyh (and paid for many times over ). There is an opportunity cost to the council, in other words.

"(and paid for many times over )".
Paid for by whom? Not by you. By this logic, houses owned outright should be available rent-free.

"My rent is now fair. Private rents are based on supply and demand, and what the landlords can screw out of the tenants and the local authority."

Who says your rent is fair (other than you?) Why exactly should you be entitled to pay below market rent whilst tenants in private rentals pay more for a similar property?

"Just because my current landlord the council-doesn't charge whatever they could get away with doesn't make my house subsidised."

Yes it does. There is an opportunity cost associated with this in terms of the difference between your subsidised rent and the market rate.

"And, as I said, I am subsidising them by spending £££ on bringing up to scratch.
If I live in my house for 50 years, I will pay the council approximately £250, 000 in that time. A lot more than my house would be worth if it was up for sale. When I die said house will then go back into available stock, and so it goes."

How much would you have paid if you were in a privately rental property or if you had a mortgage?

Excellent post Fish.

"If the list price of tickets for a concert/Glastonbury/the 100m final at the Olympics is £X per ticket, and touts are able to re-sell them at £2X - by the logic of "council house rents are subsidised" people, anyone who buys a ticket at list price legally is getting it "subsidised".

I don't see many people campaigning for list prices to be raised to ticket tout prices to make sure no-one gets this unfair subsidy."

Thing is, if U2 (for example) sell tickets for a lower price than touts are able to charge and fail to maximise their revenue, then it is only a group of pampered multi-millionaire rock starts losing out.

When housing is offered at below market rates, there is an argument that it is the taxpayer who is losing out.

I should also have added that if there were a particular group of people who were entitled to buy tickets for a concert/Glastonbury/the 100m final at special low prices - lower than anyone else had to pay - few would dispute that that was a form of subsidy.

I agree moonatic; in this example the commercial price of the tickets (private landlord) is the list price. A select number of the audience (Council tenants) are getting the tickets at cost (subsidised) price and the band (taxpayers) are losing out on profits which would among other things enable more concerts (houses to be built).

Nurses are tax payers too. So are teachers. And a whole bunch of other jobs which you need plenty of in every city even ones where it is expensive to live.

What about the Olympic tickets example? In that, the tax payer was the ultimate funder as the government was underwriting whatever costs couldn't be recouped from ticket sales and sponsors.

They could have sold out all the most popular events at prices most people would consider prohibitive. They didn't because it wasn't right that the allocation of a limited resource (tickets) should be dictated by ability to pay, so the price was set at an affordable level and access was by lottery.

So it is with social housing. The ability to be adequately housed is not the preserve of the wealthy.

I agree that there is inherent unfairness in the system because there's not enough social housing - I posted on that earlier in this thread. I'm not arguing against change, just against the use of the word "subsidised" when the market is failing to meet society's needs. It's wrong that low paid workers who are tax payers who weren't lucky enough to get social housing are trapped in private rentals that cost 75% of their income. Resolving this wrongness by making council housing just as crippling would be perverse (though I would be all in favour of forcing council rents and private rents closer together by forcing private rents down, which was the subject of a previous post)