To think there ought to be a rule that social housing tenants can’t own other residential properties?

[Mightymucks]

A friend of mine and her DH were extremely poor about 7 years ago and she was pregnant. She managed to get an absolutely beautiful HA house for absolutely peanuts. Which is absolutely brilliant, exactly what social housing is for.

The thing is, her circumstances have REALLY changed since then. Her DP has gone from being in a dead end minimum wage job to an extremely good job which pays well. Off the back of that they bought one house and let it out. She’s now inherited some money so they’ve bought another house outright and are looking to buy a third, all to be let out.

I’m really shocked by this, they could easily live in one of the houses and still be paying down the mortgage on the other two as a nest egg if they wanted. The people they rent to are significantly less wealthy than them, and of course there are families stuck homeless in B&Bs. They were in that situation so I would have thought they’d feel morally obliged to give another family in awful circumstances the chance of an affordable, secure home but apparently not. They have no intention of leaving the HA house as it is cheap and means they can keep more of the income from the BTLs.

Apparently this is perfectly legal and above board and a fairly common thing to happen. AIBU to think this loophole should be closed and people who own residential properties which are habitable shouldn’t be able to block HA and council homes.

I’m actually quite shocked it is legal.

It's not legal in my area. If you own a property you're not eligible for social housing.

It's legal

It's not a 'loophole'

I think it’s bloody disgraceful when there are families living longterm in B&Bs and disabled people living in totally unsuitable properties.

I think the era of the lifetime tenancy is over, or rather it should be.

That’s legal?! How?

It's legal if they had a lifetime tenancy but it's unethical certainly.

God that's depressing...where are people's morals?

That shouldn't be legal. Social housing should be for people who need it.

Makes me wonder how many more of these occurrences there are

YADNBU.

Why are lifetime tenancies even a thing?

It's depressing that it's possible to do that. Guess that's the problem with lifetime tenancies. Morally wrong imo, think I'd struggle to be friends with someone who thought it was OK to do that when having so much personal wealth.

um, its not legal where i live.

It's not legal in my area. If you own a property you're not eligible for social housing

Yes, but that only covers when you apply. These properties were bought after they had the tenancy.

It’s really fucking shitty behaviour and I don’t think I can continue the friendship.

I don’t understand how you can go through homelessness and then do this. It’s awful.

This is outrageous! I had no idea that was allowed. What a total pisstake.

My dad lives in a HA property, a lady down the road purchased a cheap holiday cottage in France and got evicted from her HA property as she had somewhere to live.

I'm surprised it is legal. And you definitely are not being unreasonable.

Your friend is a bit of a Cf. Social housing saved their skins when they needed it. Now that they definitely don't need it instead of freeing up the space so that someone who actually needs it could have it they are buying up houses left right and centre and not even living in one of them.

Pretty sure this is not allowed. I bet they state 'No benefits' on their adverts for their properties, as if any of them were investigated for fraud, they would take a good look at the landlords too, and this is one area where neighbouring areas actually do co-operate.

Your friend is a bit of a Cf friend is a lot of a CFer
along with all of those that do 'cash in hand' to avoid a bit of tax

These tenancies should be means tested annually. People’s circumstances change. These homes are supposed for those that need it most not property developers

I was shocked that a Woman I know, who was letting out her house, after buying it from the Council, could buy her Mother's house with her discount, after her death, which was then let out. The Woman lived with a Partner.

YANBU.

Disgusting. Took the help when they needed it and rightly so, but now wilfully depriving someone else in need.

I know of a wealthy man who owns houses and rents them.out but lives in an H/A flat. I was shocked.

Good on them for improving themselves. Of course ideally they would give up their HA house, but then the concomitant of being handed free stuff is often a reluctance to give it back...

i'm pretty sure there is a rule?

Blanket means testing just wouldn't work. If you continually chucked people out because they earned the national average and moved other people in then there would be no community whatsoever and no incentive to improve their circumstances. It would also risk creating ghettos.

Social housing was never intended for extreme cases but for the working family. Yes this person is majorly taking the piss and needs to do the decent thing but the answer overall is to build more affordable/social housing (these are now somewhat interchangable).

Regardless of the legalities, this is utterly morally wrong. It's not what social housing is for at all. I do think long term tenancies are good to give people stability, and I do think that a blanket rule about owning other properties could cause problems (e.g. you inherit a house 300 miles away and become homeless, but you have jobs and ties in your current area). However, anyone who is renting other houses out for profit certainly should not be entitled to a council tenancy- especially if there is a waiting list in their area.

The last figures I saw put the numbers above 60000 for doing this.

If I remember right one was an MP. I'll try find some details.