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Original poster

Grenfell ex-residents should get a 3-bed house with a garden if that's what they want

999 replies

pingodolcepo · 11/12/2017 08:23

Daily mail outrage that some of the residents are asking for a 3-bed house with a garden. But honestly, they have been through a living hell that was caused by someone else's very bad choices.

There are plenty of people in London that have a 3 bed council house, why can't these people that have dealt with horrors get one also?

I know someone that got a council house in Highgate in the 80s, was a cabbie with a good wage, bought it when offered and sold it a few years ago for over a million and now lives in a fab place with loads of land and a pool in the south of France. If plenty of normal people got houses why can't these poor residents get one? They won't ever be able to afford to buy it due to the high cost of london houses now.

OP posts:
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5
OurMiracle1106 · 15/12/2017 11:45

Subletting a council flat is a breach of tenancy. The “tenant” should therefore lose their tenancy and not be rehoused.

Council can check that the legal tenant is occupying the property and ask to see utility bills as proof of this (back in 2005 my council did this to me- I happened to be away at the time but came back to a letter informing me of a second visit). But as it was me and my husband living there (he had added me to the tenancy) we had no concerns and was happy to show them what they needed to see.

Breach of tenancy is cause for a section 8, with housing shortages I wouldn’t be surprised if councils start evicting tenants who are subletting and rightly so as they have no need for the housing if they are living elsewhere.

OurMiracle1106 · 15/12/2017 11:54

And actually if tenant is claiming housing benefit whilst living elsewhere this is fraud so is also a criminal offence.

habenero20 · 15/12/2017 12:00

Subletting is impossible to police, ergo, we shouldn't try.

hmmm. Why would it be impossible to police?

Applebee7 · 15/12/2017 12:13

In Kensington & Chelsea & all over London we now have tenancy enforcement officers,

They knock on doors very early in the morning & the tenants have to show photo ID to prove they are the legal tenant,

The council need to employ a lot more of them & maybe take the “tenancy enforcement officer” off of the back of their jackets 😀

K&C can afford traffic wardens, I don’t see why they can’t pay for more enforcement officers,
Maybe council flats don’t make as much money as parking spaces

MuseumOfCurry · 15/12/2017 12:15

hmmm. Why would it be impossible to police?

I guess I could have better said, it's impossible to police without vaguely fascist tactics

They knock on doors very early in the morning & the tenants have to show photo ID to prove they are the legal tenant,

Eek!

habenero20 · 15/12/2017 12:21

I guess I could have better said, it's impossible to police without vaguely fascist tactics

well, it probably needs to be done, nonetheless, as subsidised housing is being offered and then being sublet at profit.

There should be more than a massive fine for this.

habenero20 · 15/12/2017 12:23

K&C can afford traffic wardens

given the price of parking tickets, I'd imagine they pay for themselves. Of course, one reason for not doing so, as pointed out, it might be politically unpalatable because it is a bit harsh to do so. But, there is a huge housing crunch.

makeourfuture · 15/12/2017 12:28

GPS enabled microchip.

Grenfell ex-residents should get a 3-bed house with a garden if that's what they want
mothertruck3r · 15/12/2017 12:29

I assume "Subletting is impossible to police, ergo, we shouldn't try." is basically because most Housing Associations who now own what were formally Council properties don't make money from rooting out tenancy fraud since they would then need to rehouse the homeless subletting occupants, would need to clean and refurbish the empty property and then would have to spend money trying to chase the actual tenant with the possibility of no money forthcoming (just a returned set of keys).

This is what causes so much anger, that because it costs money to enforce the law and everything is about money these days, many HAs (and Councils) don't invest in investigative technology or manpower as it would be loss-making and tenancy fraud only hurts tax payers who are an amorphous group who they don't really need to answer to and are forced to continue paying even if a law has no teeth.

makeourfuture · 15/12/2017 12:41

A less complex solution would be to just build more social housing.

Rebeccaslicker · 15/12/2017 12:42

And yet again make - where? And who pays for it?

You're American. They have shitloads of land.

This is London. It really really really doesn't.

BMW6 · 15/12/2017 12:53

You can't build more social housing in the most desirable areas (London) without it being high rise flats! There is social housing availability elsewhere in the UK but that is no use to people who need (because of work) or demand (because they would prefer) to stay in London....

MuseumOfCurry · 15/12/2017 13:03

That's right, mother. A system of enforcement for this level of fraud has to be at least somewhat self-regulating, e.g. a demand for for the recourse you're pursuing, some possibility of damages, and of course, a tidy way of actually gathering evidence.

Council tenants shouldn't have to live under the spectre of mandatory inspections in any case.

I have had a great deal of difficulty in clearing various KYC requirements in my dealings with financial institutions. If it's impossible to surveil arrangements in this way, I'd say it's not worth trying.

Applebee7 · 15/12/2017 13:06

Rebeccaslicker - where? Just one local example Young street w8,

Taxpayer owned car park pulled down & handed over to a developer to be build million£ apartments.

Who’s pays? Maybe Kensington & Chelsea council?
At least then the Taxpayer could earn out of it rather than a foreign investor.

MuseumOfCurry · 15/12/2017 13:12

Applebee I don't think I understand your post.

Applebee7 · 15/12/2017 13:18

MuseumOfCurry - it was an answer to Rebeccaslicker question to makeourfuture suggesting building more social housing .

Applebee7 · 15/12/2017 13:24

Kensington & Chelsea could build more social housing but they prefer to give tax payers land to foreign investors for some reason,

Kensington & Chelsea council have been on Private Eyes Rotten borough list for years

Fekko · 15/12/2017 13:36

Where build though? There isn't land going to waste here.

Applebee7 · 15/12/2017 13:48

Where build though? There isn't land going to waste here

Maybe We could stop selling off / giving away public property (Police stations Libraries etc) to foreign developers and invest in it ourselves

Rebeccaslicker · 15/12/2017 14:29

Applebee - that was a high rise car park. You could have built flats there. That's it. No 3 bed homes with gardens. It's just not big enough to solve the housing issues.

You talk about the council "giving away" the land but you provide absolutely nothing to back that up. No prices paid or market comparables; no section 106 agreements saying what the developers have to build for the community... you also bang on about foreign investors.

Yet the one example you gave, Young street, is actually going to be sold on leases and the council is retaining the freehold and sharing the income stream. It's also picked a plc to develop it:

www.19-27youngstreet.co.uk

Where do you get your "facts" from? Because at present sorry but it sounds as if you are either believing Chinese whispers or pulling them out of your own posterior!

Rebeccaslicker · 15/12/2017 14:30

www.graingerplc.co.uk

makeourfuture · 15/12/2017 14:51

Applebee - that was a high rise car park. You could have built flats there. That's it. No 3 bed homes with gardens. It's just not big enough to solve the housing issues.

I can't speak for apple, but I don't think she was linking the car park location to 3 bed homes with gardens. I'm not sure where you arrived at this.

The social housing need is far, far greater than just Grenfell.

Applebee7 · 15/12/2017 14:52

Local knowledge Rebeccaslicker not my arse 😀

the council will share the income but if they had invested in it themselves they wouldn’t of had to.

Rebeccaslicker · 15/12/2017 14:56

Well Applebee, I live very close to it, and it's sure not what I had heard! Local knowledge is really not reliable. Imagine handing it up to a judge as evidence. Not a land registry entry or a sale contract (also publicly available on the land registry) or a section 106 (available on the planning portal) but "well myrtle told me and she heard it from Charlie and he was on the bus when he heard these two councillors chortling about what they'd done..." rumours are seldom true!

Where do you think the council was going to get the money to carry out a development? It's a council, not a builder. And then you want that development to be handed over entirely to social housing... meanwhile ordinary people who live in the borough can just foot the bill?

Make - it's right there in the thread title. Dearie me, don't momentum give reading lessons?!

Applebee7 · 15/12/2017 14:57

Thanks makeourfuture,

That was just an example of the housing for profit situation that needs addressing