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Original poster

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

685 replies

sparklesandglitterxx · 17/12/2015 09:09

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

OP posts:
MojitoMollie · 17/12/2015 11:06

There is also a problem of families in temporary accommodation when single pensioners occupy family homes.

I agree with this - a relative is in her eighties and lives on her own in a three bedroom council house. I know it's harsh but she should really move to a single bedroom place and free her house for a family.

I don't wish to see lifetime tenancies abolished, but I would like to see those in the larger 3 & 4 bed houses being made to downsize to smaller 1 & 2 flats once their own kids have grown up so that someone else can have a turn in a cheap family home.

i've grabbed a few bits here, not picking on anyone in particular, but surely this is partly what the bedroom 'tax' was about? Obviously not every one in council houses is on housing benefit, but isn't it a similar thing - people using more (financial) resources than the country can sustain?

Should the council rents be means tested? and adjusted to income?

(prepared for flaming)

purplehazed · 17/12/2015 11:08

Perhaps the government should consider the royal family losing some of their homes. Buckingham palace for starters. Could be converted into some

nice affordable apartments. We're all in it together hey Dave.

EssentialHummus · 17/12/2015 11:10

There are 2 types of people that are bitter about people who live in council properties:
1) The people lucky enough to have a mortgage who think that people in council houses are beneath them/ don't deserve security because they haven't "worked as hard as them".
2) The people who are living in private rented houses who haven't yet got a council house/ don't meet the criteria for one.

That's just about the entire country other than those who have paid off mortgages, and cash buyers.

whatdoIget · 17/12/2015 11:12

I have a mortgage but I don't think people in council houses are beneath me, Essential. So I don't fit into either category

MrsJayy · 17/12/2015 11:13

Free houses, subsidised rents, pesky pensioners taking up family homes, get a job to buy your own bloody house, its all going on this thread. you know it took us 15 years to afford to buy a house we lived in a council house paid full rent AND council tax my parents are now pesky pensioners who pay full rent and council tax where have they to go ? they could never afford to buy a house they refused to buy their council house when everybody else was in the 80s so now they and many like them who had low paid jobs are lumped into no better than scroungers conversations.
Tenancy agreements differ fromeach local authority some new tenacy agreements are not for life but I do think social housing is a need for people and i dont think stopping these tenancy for life is going to solve anything it is just shuffiling folk about

x2boys · 17/12/2015 11:13

I was replying to comments about subsidies and below market rents and I only pay only slightly below market rent for my council house then private rent but in private you get so much more in terms of aesthetics, even so even when there is a thread about social hosing and the op points out they are not in London or the south [as in the thread yesterday] it always comes back to London and the south so there is never a balanced discussion because people always assume that because London has a shortage of social housing everywhere does. The uk is far more than london and the south.

redstrawberry10 · 17/12/2015 11:15

Those of you who want council housing to be a short-term last resort, do you think it is ok that this will result in lots of families having no security, moving schools, losing friends.

I don't understand why only council tenants deserve secure tenancies.

SSargassoSea · 17/12/2015 11:19

Well, people can tell us that they pay rent therefore their council house is self funding until they are blue in the face but the fact is that no builders want to build them and no councils want to build them so there must be a mismatch there somewhere.
It must be costing money to build and maintain social housing.

If it was profit making someone would do it. There is nowhere to invest these days to make much interest. If social housing did that then it would be where everyone was stashing their money, no one is so can't be worth doing.

MrsJayy · 17/12/2015 11:20

I agree the private market is a bloody disgrace people in insecure lets that they can be evicted from at a few months notice

SSargassoSea · 17/12/2015 11:20

And it's only a generation or so since the life expectancy for men was 65, now it's 80s-90s hence a house for life is untenable.

GoblinLittleOwl · 17/12/2015 11:20

Is he? Oh good!

MrsJayy · 17/12/2015 11:22

LA dont have the money to build yes they fix heating and the upkeep of the houses they dont have the budgets to do that these days there is no solution i Dont think

redstrawberry10 · 17/12/2015 11:24

It must be costing money to build and maintain social housing.

people claim they are not subsidised because they are paid off (councils often own them outright). So their only costs are maintenance, which is often covered by the reduced rent charged.

However, this misses the point that they could have rented them for higher rent. That's lost rent, which went straight to specific person. If that's not a subsidy, I don't know what is.

leaningtoweroflego · 17/12/2015 11:25

"I don't understand why only council tenants deserve secure tenancies."

Who said that?

This is a nasty, pernicious attitude, and part of the current race to the bottom IMO.

Everybody deserves secure tenancies. It's appalling that it's become the norm that people have such insecure housing.

We have two choices, we can either try to improve things.

Or we can make it "fair" for everyone by taking away any "advantage" the council tenants have and making it shit for everyone. That seems to be what's going on right now.

Also, if things are better for council tenants, it has a knock-on effect in the private sector.

If council housing was widely and easily available, then it would drive down the rents in the private sector too.

teacherwith2kids · 17/12/2015 11:26

Redstrawberry, I know that it shouldn't be a 'race to the bottom', but in the private rental sector, tenants often have only 6 months' security. What has been discussed on here has been a move to an initial 1 year, followed by a 5 year period.

I'm in my 5th decade, and have lived in a mixture of private rented and owned properties. I have lived in my current house nearly 7 years now - over 2 years longer than i have ever lived anywhere else, as we have always had to move for employment / family reasons. In some ways a 'tenancy for life' is as much a burden as it is a benefit, as it makes flexibility around moving for employment / change of circumstances so difficult.

LagunaBubbles · 17/12/2015 11:28

However, this misses the point that they could have rented them for higher rent. That's lost rent, which went straight to specific person. If that's not a subsidy, I don't know what is.

Councils can set the rent at any rate they like, its not lost rent at all. People who live in them either pay full rent then or claim housing benefit towards the rent. Im sick of this race to the bottom attitude that leaning tower above mentions - its not the councils fault that private rents are high in a lot of areas.

leaningtoweroflego · 17/12/2015 11:28

"It must be costing money to build and maintain social housing."

But they don't give the houses away - they charge rent for them.

Properly run and managed, a modern social housing scheme could make money for the tax-payer. It could be an investment, not a drain on resources. Even if it didn't run a profit it could save millions in money paid out to private landlords.

It amazes me that people always see social housing as a great government give-away (when in fact we could potentially profit from it), while ignoring the private-rented sector, which does indeed involve a massive transfer of public money to the private sector via Housing Benefit, with nothing coming back.

EssentialHummus · 17/12/2015 11:30

But while I am wholly supportive of the idea that 'we as a country should have some kind of decent housing available in the short to medium term for those for whom paying market rents will be difficult', I don't think it equates to 'people who at some point have met the eligibility criteria for council housing should be able to live in exactly that same building forever, regardless of their changing needs and position'.

This is exactly how I feel.

I always leave these threads feeling that the logical outcome of current policy is that I should quit my job, sell my flat, spend the money on hookers and charlie, seek out 16.5 hours of work at the local Nisa and hopefully thereby exacerbate my current (manageable) health conditions. Getting a good education and job, buying a house, keeping well... it's all down to luck anyway. Why bother, eh?

That is a criticism towards this government and all its predecessors, not council tenants. Council tenants are clearly smart or conditioned well enough to use this system, but I'd rather it exist for people who need it. Need, as in require something because it is essential or very important rather than just desirable.

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 17/12/2015 11:31

Or we can make it "fair" for everyone by taking away any "advantage" the council tenants have and making it shit for everyone. That seems to be what's going on right now.

I'm not sure that that is right though. They are not talking about chucking SH residents out on a whim - just re-assessing every five years.

So it means that instead of one person getting 40 years of security - even when they don't need it and seven people have no security at all even when they really really need it - you have 8 people each get five years of security during the five years that they need it most.

What is it that I tell my kids again - oh yes "sharing is caring!"

eddiemairswife · 17/12/2015 11:35

It's not just in London that there is a housing shortage. I live in a Midlands city and there are over 10,000 people on the waiting list. There are homes being built, but 'executive houses' and 'luxury flats' aren't going to fill the gaps. With reference to London: during the War empty properties were requisitioned to provide accommodation for people who had been bombed out. It might be an idea to do the same to all the unoccupied property that has been bought by foreign millionaires.

AppleSetsSail · 17/12/2015 11:53

Councils can set the rent at any rate they like, its not lost rent at all. People who live in them either pay full rent then or claim housing benefit towards the rent. Im sick of this race to the bottom attitude that leaning tower above mentions - its not the councils fault that private rents are high in a lot of areas.

The fact that councils choose to set their rates below market value doesn't mean that it's not forgone income. Your logic is terribly muddled.

redstrawberry10 · 17/12/2015 11:58

Councils can set the rent at any rate they like, its not lost rent at all.

if you can rent the same dwelling to another person for higher rent, rent is lost. That's not disputable.

I am not suggesting that this is an argument for removing SH or HB. But people insist on saying it's not a subsidy, when it plainly is.

redstrawberry10 · 17/12/2015 12:00

the council tenants have and making it shit for everyone.

or, instead, we can extend secure tenancies to the private sector.

We have very weak tenancy laws here.

LagunaBubbles · 17/12/2015 12:05

if you can rent the same dwelling to another person for higher rent, rent is lost

I think you are missing the point - they set at the rate they want. They arent "losing" any rent otherwise they would set it higher. All councils are different.

The fact that councils choose to set their rates below market value doesn't mean that it's not forgone income. Your logic is terribly muddled

No its not. Again its not the councils fault private rents are higher.

x2boys · 17/12/2015 12:07

I agree redstrawberry have laws about tenants being able to decorate hoe they want when i was in private rented yes the house was decorated nicely but i probably wouldnt have chosen it and private rented houses can never really feel like homes when you can potentially be asked to move out with a couple of months notice but what would be in it for the landlords?