Council Properties - people taking the pi$$

[contentedsoul]

I'm sure this has come up before.

Colleague I work with rents out a former 1 bedroom council flat, The owner has only owned it 7mths. It was her mothers and she bought it prior to her passing (£14k). Charges colleague £400pm. The other flats in the block are still owned by the council, they pay £360. Colleague has to pay cash and is not allowed to use the address for mail (so all mail is diverted to his parents) also has to pay full council tax and all utilities. The owner/landlady has just told him she's had her own house valued £650K!
Colleague then tells me of a mate of his, he managed to get a 3 bedroom council flat 8yrs ago. He has never slept in it once, still lives with parents and rents out the flat, his aim is to qualify for maximum discount and use the money he's made from renting to buy the flat outright!! Will then sell !!
Brothers girlfriend - never worked in her life, met brother, brother used his savings to buy her council house at maximum discount, moved out the same month and rents out, she claims single parent, and as still living in the house and keeps all the rent herself!!

Sorry, but this is ridiculous, that's three separate scenarios that I know of, multiply it by all the other people on here and those not on here that all know of similar stories...

When is it going to stop, I'm sick to the back teeth of seemingly everybody taking the proverbial.
Why dont the council all offer a anonymous means of reporting this and WHY doesn't the council be then be forced to investigate each and every report. If fraud is discovered the owner should be automatically be stripped of possession and face criminal charges of fraud.

No doubt most of the bloody councillors and MPs are already in on this scam themselves.

I'm pig sick of following the rules and getting nowhere whilst every other devious fuck is blatantly screwing the system.

Enough is ENOUGH

OP did not say the flat was worth £650k but a house the land lady owns

I work FT and am entitled to social housing because I live in the SE in a fairly rural area that is building a lot of new homes. Private rent is crazily expensive and to buy homes are £300k +. I was born here and my DC and family and job is here. I can’t just relocate to a cheaper area more than I already have (no train station in my village, public buses not the best!)

I sat on the list for 10 years I now pay the same for a house as I was paying for a flat (over £800pm) and they actually WANT people in HA homes who are in employment, solvent etc I had to declare all my finances and pass a lot of checks. To allow you to live in a £300k market value house they need to try to be sure you won’t abuse it. I have had home checks by the HA and it is completely different to the council. I think the council could run their stock a lot more like the HA to be honest and it may prevent empty homes/illegal subletting

Example 1 - she owns the house and can do what she likes with it
Example 2 - single man’s allocated three bed property, don’t believe it
Example 3 - unclear what’s going on with this one

It’s just another social housing bashing thread. As if there aren’t already plenty.

I know of a couple who both work full-time and holiday abroad every year because they are ‘entitled’ to social housing

And your point is? Everyone is entitled to go on the waiting list for social housing, but if you're adequately housed you'll get the very lowest priority.

We were on the waiting list for social housing last year as DH started a new job and the commute was 2 hours each way. We already lived in a HA house and we wanted to move closer. Luckily, there's specific government legislation that covers people in our situation, and gives you high priority. They put us in band B, second from top priority and we bid on various properties for around 5 months. The last house we bid on was a beautiful new build in a brand new development.
We were 7th in line so thought we had no hope, but low and behold I got a call asking us to come and view it as we were now 2nd in line. Turns out nearly everyone before us had failed the affordability checks as they were unemployed. The people above us thought it was too rural and turned it down, so we got to pick up the keys a week later. The HA did a credit check, affordability check and contacted our old landlord to check we didn't have any arrears or a poor tenancy record before we signed the tenancy agreement.
We pay a higher rent than most council tenants, but we can afford it. We couldn't however, afford to rent privately.

Anyway, off topic. Yes YABU, you're goady and you sound quite jealous. Report them if it's true, it can be done anonymously.

@Mitebiteatnite

I think people assume it’s as cheap as council housing, it is not. Council housing where I am is fairly old, 50’s and 60’s type housing and not well maintained by the council itself. When you live in HA you pay 80% of market rent rate you also have to adhere to the contract. I had a dispute with my HA as they came and took photos of a back gate with rubbish outside it that wasn’t mine! They put me on a warning and I have spent weeks disputing that the area belongs to me as it doesn’t. I had to send photos in and keep calling them

@contentedsoul, clearly you were hoping for nominative determinism when you chose your user name. I'm afraid it's not working.

@PookieDo

Yeah, we pay a much higher rent here but we benefit from that. We had a problem with our downstairs toilet a week or so ago, technically it's not a priority repair as we have another toilet upstairs, but they sent a plumber out within an hour to fix it. Same as the solar panel, which managed to shut itself down somehow. Called, they came out next day and sorted it. Council rents might be cheaper, but I'll take HA over that any day!

Anonymous tip off, it's illegal to sublet a council flat

We live in a HA house. Both work. We love our annual holiday. Tenerife usually.

It's a lovely property. 3 bed new build on a big estate. I have no fucks to give for people who think that because we live in a HA property we should be on the bones of our arse and never do or have anything nice.

For various reasons we will never get a mortgage. Social housing was the only way we could have any housing security. Like many people. That's not our fault and I make no apologies for it.

There should be a fuckton more social housing available. But it won't happen because then private landlords won't be able to charge what they do and will stop buying and start selling and that will impact on the property market.

In our area social housing is mostly HA now although some council stock still exists.

I live in a HA property and it’s excluded from Right to Buy which I am glad about as I wouldn’t buy this property even if I could afford to. It’s a home, at the moment it’s MY home but in the future it will be someone else’s home.

It’s illegal to sublet so by all means if you have accurate information that this is occurring then you need to report it.

And to whoever said it was “easy to fiddle the system” clearly hasn’t completed a PIP form which is a horror to claim,

@MauisHouseOnMaui what do you mean by those supposed figures on tax avoidance? I pay into a pension- that’s tax avoidance. I think that’s vastly different from benefit fraud.

Well n my area social housing is available to anyone who earns under £65,000 ( I think the limit is) there is no council housing anymore as all the council stock was taken over by a large housing association ,there are also other smaller housing associations that rent out homes ,I live in the Northwest of England and in my town there isn't a noticeable difference in private and social rent for comparable properties and yes for some properties priority is given to people that work, why shouldn't people who live in social housing go abroad holiday if they can affordit?

@LonelyTiredandLow why on earth is your friend choosing to live like that!

This is rife in Ireland op

Where on earth was a single, adequately housed man able to get a 3 bed council flat in 2011?? OP if you aren't making this up yourself, your colleague's brother's mate's dog or whatever is bullshitting you.

What financial benefit is it that you think local councillors are gaining when your brother's girlfriend commits benefit fraud? Fraud which you freely admit the council knows nothing about because you don't want to report it to them?

If you're unhappy with the rules on buying council properties (I know I would be if it hadn't already been stopped where I live) then why not get involved in campaigning to change them?

what do you mean by those supposed figures on tax avoidance? I pay into a pension- that’s tax avoidance. I think that’s vastly different from benefit fraud.

Why would they include paying into a pension? That's not at all what I meant, I meant those who exploit loopholes in order to avoid paying the level of tax on their income that they should be paying, such as the ones used by Jimmy Carr and Gary Barlow.

I’m more pissed off at all the OAPs who bought their homes at a huge discount, sold them for a fortune, spunked their money and now rent 1 bedroom flats off the council again

I think you must just move in pretty scummy circles tbh. I don't know anyone who does this sort of thing, certainly not in the numbers you do.

Unlikely @DoyouknowJo. And even if those people exist, that one bed flat would only be suitable for pensioners anyway. At least they’ll have freed up a family house.

It's amazing how many of these stories I hear of on MN and how much inside information the posters seem to have. If I were illegally subletting a property I certainly wouldn't be shouting it about, so either there are a lot of very stupid people around or there's a lot of exaggeration going into these posts.

Or a fair few Daily Fail plants.

If you buy your council house using the discount (discount depends on how many years you have been a tenant in that property) and you sell the house within five year you must repay the discount.

What BarrenFieldofFucks said.

Council / social housing should never be sold or sublet.

Selling it has created a totally unfair mess, not to mention severe lack of affordable and secure housing for people who need it.

@Frouby

Well said.

Allowing people to buy council houses should never have been started.