To wonder what would happen if every council tenant had their tenancy reviewed

[BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot]

Life time tenant or not. Everyone was reviewed and income taken into account when calculating rents. Would this free up housing stock for those in need?

Saucy
That is an important issue.
The management of stock. They are firefighting. In London you have to be desperate to be housed so you have people in extreme circumstances competing with others in equally extreme circumstances fighting for accomodation that just meets their needs.
That couple need a two bed. A long time ago they would have got one.
But lets face it if they got one now there would be a thread on MN whining about a couple with one child getting an extra bedroom

We are where cuts and propaganda got us. Where affordable rent and a secure tenancy is begrudged and envied.
What baffles me is why its the tenants who are blamed for this rather than those who caused the crisis.

We are where cuts and propaganda got us. Where affordable rent and a secure tenancy is begrudged and envied

Yep. It’s all ‘private renters have it shit’ and in the next breath it’s ‘if you’re earning a certain amount you should give up a secure tenancy and join the shit’. Boggles my head

I don't think it is as straightforward and easy as some would imagine. However, my sister was a single mum, not working, two very small children, no dads on the scene - this was back in the early 90's.
Got a lovely 3 bed house, all great, kids grew up safe, happy etc.
Fast forward to 2018, she's now married, both her and husband work, good income. Kids grown and left home.
She still has the house.
Should she perhaps be now privately renting or buying her own and freeing up that home to someone who was in her situation all those years ago?
It's an interesting debate.

@maddiemookins16mum I believe she should ..... it should be for those in absolute need not a lifestyle choice .

YY Gamer ...........it makes people sound really thick.

No one with an ounce of common sense would give up a secure tenancy with low rent to go into an insecure tenancy with high rent. . They would be really really stupid to do that

Also downsizing to a smaller place isn't always worth it especially if it's new build as they can often cost more than a 3 bed
Where I live a 3 bed council house is around 90 a week a 1 bed new build is approx £125 a week

So why would anyone do this and end up paying more money for a smaller place unless it was really convenient for them to do this

We have an abundance of flats in my area, but not many houses.
I know plenty of single people in 2 or 3 bedroom flats and maisonettes. No idea how long they've been in these properties. But me DH and our baby live in the smallest 1 bedroom flat.
The people below us are now expecting a baby.
Our 1 bedroom flats are attached to four 2 bedroom flats, all of which single individuals occupy. So weird.

Exactly Magpie

My rent for a small 3 Bed (dd’s Room barely fits a bed in it) housing association house if £140 a week, not much less than it is to rent privately but it is less. I wouldn’t move to a private un secure tenenacy, I have lived here for 6 years and I have right to buy on the property (which I hope to do at some point in the future), a lot of people think I am wrong to plan on buying my council house but there’s no way I could get onto the property lader any other way. There’s not a major housing crisis where I live, they are building more houses near me and I know several people that have been housed in bigger houses than they need, a friend who has 2 children under 3 years have been housed in a large 3 bed. The council here plan on building many more houses locally but the posh locals keep complaining and then they can’t be built.

Oh, goody, a council house envy thread!

YY Gamer ...........it makes people sound really thick

Heh yes! I see a hypnotist swinging a watch saying ‘private rent gooood’ ‘private rent baaaaaad’ so people are confused as fuck.

We have entered the world of peering into our neighbours bowl to make sure they don’t have more than us. Everyone has to suffer equally.

These threads make me sick.

I've just been given a HA house. I haven't even moved in (I can't move in it is uninhabitable atm) and already I've paid £347 for flooring for the living room. Am waiting on an exact quote for kitchen flooring but its expected to be in the region of £130. Re-turfing the garden after the HA ripped it all up to fix a well is another £80. All money I can barely afford to borrow much less pay up front.

That's before decorating, buying a fireplace after they deemed mine unsafe and ripped it out and boarded the hole with plywood.

My bedroom and the hallway will have to be carpeted/floored whenever I can afford it. It's dusty, cold bare floorboards right now.

If I'm to be turfed out once I start earning a certain amount, would I be reimbursed for making the house livable?

I'm not sure what people envision when they think 'social housing' but I assure you, it ain't all mansions in central London.

I've also paid £90 for the first week's rent, despite not being able to actually live there yet due to the state the property is in.

Just to say that not everyone who buys a SH property is playing the system. My parents had paid rent for 25 years on a Council House (as they were then) and took the chance to buy to have some security in their old age. They only got the house because their privately mortgaged house was subject to a CP order and the amount given in compensation
wasn't enough for them to get another mortgage and we would have been homeless. Ironically it now means that if they need to go to a care home the house will be sold to pay for it whereas someone who rents would get the care for free.

Same, my house was a mess when we moved in, had to put carpet down, decorate, fireplace had been boarded up (no allowed to use it) and the garden was a mess as the previous people used it to burry their rubbish in. I. Still trying to get a back door but the HA won’t replace it as the people before put the back door in so it’s not their responsibility. Most repares I have to do myself as they take months to come out and often do a rubbish job using the cheapest of products.

If you reread many of these comments but change the word house to home they read very differently.

These are people's homes, their place of safety and security where their memories are. Where their grandchildren come and stay and their children come back to when their relationships break down.

We need to build more homes and work towards ensure people have secure homes for life.

Most older people who own their own home do not sell up and move to 1 bedroom flats but poorer people are supposed to???? Why?? Do they not feel the same about their homes??

I'm all in favour of positive incentives but it should always be voluntary.

Our housing crisis is the fault of government housing policies and not ordinary people who want to stay in their homes.

These threads always makes me people go on and on about rent subsidies what about when social housing is comparable to private rent like it is in many parts of the UK we dont all live in London so where is the subsidy then? Where i live its not that hard to get a council house and anyone can go on the list .

It was a little old man who lived in mine. He loved his garden, according to the neighbours. We got a gardening magazine and a free packet of seeds delivered this morning, when I was round there waiting on a meter reader.

The garden was beautiful until the HA ripped it up. DD rescued three of his bulbs from the rubbish pile they left in front of the house and lovingly replanted them. The neighbours say he'd be gutted if he saw his garden now. He's living in a care home up the road.

If I did move out or was thrown out, current HA policy is that they'd rip out the £347 laminate flooring I've just paid for and the £130 vinyl in the kitchen as otherwise they'd be responsible for maintaining and/or replacing it for the next tennants, which is something they don't want to do. Any repairs that come up which might affect the floor I've paid for, I'll be left to pay to mend the floor once they're done.

Why would I bother doing that if my home wasn't secure for as long as I wanted it?

In some places building more social housing is a way of addressing both the lack of that and the ridiculousness of some private rents.

Here they have built close to 200 social housing flats in the last 6 years. LL's like me, who didn't charge ridiculous rents, haven't suffered in the slightest as we are near a hospital that gets a lot of students and there is always people looking for 6 months or 12 months to rent. The idiot who rents out two (badly kept) flats downstairs at ridiculously high rent has been forced to put his rent demands down because so many people have been given the chance to have a more secure tenancy at a better cost.

I don't know if they'll stick to it or not, but the HA have promised that the rents are going to be added to the pot of funding for building more. Lots of BTL LL's are going mental, but good landlords, who take care of their properties and tenants aren't struggling at all.

Oh I do love a good uninformed SH bashing thread.

Where I live (I've read all the bumph) the new build SH houses actually require a minimum income to be able to rent them. They're all built on mixed bought and rented estates. Here a family earning 50k pa can't buy outright, it's impossible unless the bank of mum and dad bankroll it

People who've improved their income shouldn't be turfed out to join the ranks of people who private rent (the likelihood is they'd need their rent topped up with HB) and lack security. That's just wrong. We need to sort the high private rents out and bring them inline with SH rents not the other way around.

Same here Slutty some of the social housing in my town is only available to working families .I always imagine that those bashing the most are sat in their spacious detached homes (nothing wrong with owning detached homes of course ) who in reality would be horrified to step foot on a council estate.

I always think the opposite, those very well off won’t care as much because it doesn’t affect them. The people who are most likely annoyed are the ones like myself in ‘the poor middle’ never thought to ask the Council for a house so ended up in overpriced rentals where I can barely afford to keep my head above water because of extoricinate rents but despite working my whole life am not entitled to any assistance. Yet for example my sister who got pregnant and went straight in for a Council house, now earns twice what I do and pays £1k less a month in rent because of it. And at the same time a friend who’s escaping DV is living in a 1 bedroom studio flat with her 2 kids because there’s nowhere available.

Messed up system. Those saying ‘bring the rents down’ yes it would be fabulous but ending buy to let would cause a huge economical crash and those I fear for are those who have purchased starter homes which will be too small and they won’t be able to afford to sell to move. Thus again getting the short straw because they scraped every penny to buy a shoebox instead of getting a Council house.

In reality if you can afford to not live in a Council house you shouldn’t live there, it’s not your god given right. Would you spend the night in a homeless shelter taking a bed from someone on the street because you didn’t want to spend £50 on a hotel room?

That’s what they are doing. These discussions do anger me, but I understand it’s all relative and in my south east town the Housing situation is appalling.

Yes I hope it would. I don’t think it’s fair that a couple, once their children have left home are allowed to occupy a large house.

My great uncle was ina large 4 bed family house right until his death and his last child had moved out 50 years ago.

The same way your allowance for bedrooms goes up, in my opinion it should go down and if you don’t like it then make your own arrangements and don’t rely on the state.

Lazing as I said above, in my area they want the families that are earning well above minimum wage to rent the SH homes. You have to prove your income as well and usually the minimum income allowed is well over 2k a month.

They don't give the houses to people on HB so your argument is invalid in this case. I'm south east btw too.

But not all council houses are more expensive than private rents depending on Where you live lazing? (As has pointed out several times now) I didn't ask the council for a house I applied to go on a list and bidded for houses untill I got one anyone can do that in my town provided they don't already lamb a house and they have a right to reside in the UK.