Council house sold to resident after just 3 years

[Zaane]

An aquaintence who acquired a council property to rent only lived there for 3 years and has now bought it with a 35% discount too! Cash purchase. This makes me wonder how someone in need of council house is in a position to actually purchase it just after 3 years. Isn't the system flawed ? I rent and am far from buying my own property. There are hundreds of people waiting for housing, council isnt building new properties, and they are actually loosing the one sthey could help the neexy with?
This makes me wonder if I am just jealous or this is unfair. AIBU to think its unfair?

GirlCrush
I know it's only an opinion, but I have never heard anyone having a different one around me! Everybody agrees it's a joke.

It's currently a way to buy a property. Hopefully it won't be for long. It took long enough for changes like the "bedroom tax" to arrive, more changes are coming. There's no money left for all that nonsense anyway.

Again, how is it costing the taxpayer? It's been said more than once so must be an easy question to answer.

Opportunity cost. Renting out a house for less than market rate provides a benefit similar (but less than) renting it for free.

For example, if your employer were to rent you a house at a discount, that would be seen by HMRC as a benefit-in-kind and you would be expected to pay tax on the discount as if it were being paid in cash. The point here is that discounted housing is functionally equivalent to income.

If the council charged full rent they could use that money to cut rates or provide other services. Alternatively they could sell the house and invest the money in public infrastructure.

My comment is not so much against the concept of council housing, but against the misconception that it is magically somehow cheaper than private housing. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, someone always pays.

@GirlCrush

i will be buying my housing association home and don't have an ounce of guilt.

you can all be as 'outraged' as you want to be, won't change a thing.

I'm far from outraged, it makes sense to buy your house if you can. Presumably you won't be able to sell it for several years but that doesn't matter if you like where you are. I suppose if you needed, or really wanted, to move somewhere else, you could let it.

Maybe 'the system' is wrong, I am not sure and it is easy to be theoretical, but it is as it is right now and nobody can blame anyone for taking advantage of it.

Over the years I have known people who have bought council houses and they have been so happy. They've done lots of work on the houses, improving them, taken great pride in their homes and gardens - they were the sort of people who already did that when they rented but could obviously do more as owners. Their children will benefit long term (some of the older ones already have when their parents died).

Good luck to them. I do not grudge anyone a bit of good fortune just because I have not had the same opportunity.

@EdwardTeach

Again, how is it costing the taxpayer? It's been said more than once so must be an easy question to answer.

Opportunity cost. Renting out a house for less than market rate provides a benefit similar (but less than) renting it for free.

For example, if your employer were to rent you a house at a discount, that would be seen by HMRC as a benefit-in-kind and you would be expected to pay tax on the discount as if it were being paid in cash. The point here is that discounted housing is functionally equivalent to income.

If the council charged full rent they could use that money to cut rates or provide other services. Alternatively they could sell the house and invest the money in public infrastructure.

My comment is not so much against the concept of council housing, but against the misconception that it is magically somehow cheaper than private housing. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, someone always pays.

So not actually costing the taxpayer anything at all then? Of course that's not what people meant when they say it costs the taxpayer, they just didn't have the cujons to elaborate.

The council do charge 'full rent'. The private sector is massively inflated in certain areas of the country. Where I'm from, private rents are not much more than council.

If the properties were mortgaged I may agree with you, but these are houses that have paid for themselves over and over again.

The problem lies in the private sector, sort that out and there wouldn't be so many sneery posts by people who haven't had any experience of SH and think they know how councils are bound with regards to how rents are used.

I can't get worked up over people buying their Council house with a discount. Most of them will have paid the discount in rent. A few are quids in for buying the minute they are able to but I don't imagine it'll be the majority. And this is from someone who bought on the open market.

The council do charge 'full rent'. The private sector is massively inflated in certain areas of the country.

it's supply and demand! They are not "inflated", they ARE the basic rates.

And selling the houses UNDER the market rate is a loss. The difference between the market rate and the lower rate is what cost us all.

It's time for people to face the fact that you should not be able to buy a property under the market rate, that you are not the owner of a property until you pay it in full, and long-term renting does not give you any right on that property.

I don't blame individuals, I am just saying the system is wrong and needs to be changed.

You shouldn't be offered a council property at discounted rate in the first place, and then to make it worst be able to sell it at market rate.

It's made it even worst by the shortage of properties for those who actually need them. The system is not working.

Anyway, it's also laughable that people are blaming Thatcher. She may have started it off but her government built MORE council houses a year than the Blair AND Brown governments did in 13 years. Damn those evil Tories.
But it wasn't "her government" building Council Houses - the houses were always built by Councils (the clue's in the name). Thatcher choked off the supply by ensuring as many as possible were sold off and by deliberately preventing the money being used to build more.
I am really sick of revisionist history (lies) on this.
Selectively quoting statistics is daft - Thatcher's policy was stop Councils from providing housing - it was quite clear. It is true that by the time that policy had become fully effective, Labour chose not to make the gargantuan and potentially unpopular choice to reverse it - but the fact so many Council house have been sold and not replaced started with Thatcher and was executed over 17 years of Tory rule.
Blair and Brown should have done more, but that doesn't mean Thatcherite policies (and therefore Thatcher and her apologists) are not to blame - they are.

So not actually costing the taxpayer anything at all then? Of course that's not what people meant when they say it costs the taxpayer, they just didn't have the cujons to elaborate.

It does cost the taxpayer. If you let someone else use your assets for free/cheap you are giving them a temporary gift. This is a concept most people intuitively understand when they are investing their own savings or renting out their own property.
*
The council do charge 'full rent'. The private sector is massively inflated in certain areas of the country. Where I'm from, private rents are not much more than council.*

"Full rent" is defined as what the house would fetch if anyone could rent it.

These are my thoughts which may be too simplistic but make sense to me.

For people asking how it’s costing the tax payer money when someone buys their council house, directly it’s not of course but indirectly it kind of is.

I think many would conclude that if you have enough money to buy your council house you likely have enough to go back into the private housing sector. You might not have enough to buy a private house but are likely to have enough to rent privately again therefore freeing up your house to be a safety net to someone else in need. You’ve effectively had a reprieve from your desperate circumstances and are now on the same level as many others out there stuck in the private rental system.

Now if you buy your council house, instead that person who needs the safety net has to go into a hotel/bnb that costs the tax payer a very large sum. Maybe some form of reevaluation of need for council tenants should happen (and yes I know it doesn’t at the moment). I suppose failing any form of reevaluation of need being used if buying your council house was banned but you could still stay, at least the rent paid is some money going to the council. I also think the house should be handed back to the council at end of life, this again allowing the council to house another person and therefore save money on hotels. None of this inheriting council tenancy, that’s just another form of inherited better opportunity.

I totally understand the people saying why shouldn’t I buy my council house, on a personal level I agree you should take the opportunity. Most people will take the opportunities that life gives them, there is no shame in that. The system is what is incredibly wrong and needs to be changed. It cannot however if people are unable to look beyond the individual to societies needs as a whole.

Phew, ramble over!

Let us be under no illusions here. The currrent inflated rents are fuelled by 2nd (or more) property buy to let investors whose own mortgage companies can insist that the rental value is 145% of the monthly mortgage payment.

Council house living isn’t a free service for the majority of us. It’s not a remit for taking advantage of a system that appeared in Thatcher’s great big Great British Sell Off. We’ve lived in our home for 23 years. In that title we’ve paid full rent.

The monthly cost was step by step with private rentals until Gordon Brown sold the gold & caused pensions to collapse & greater value in property as an pension fund - and the rise in buy to let mortgages.

And is our house, despite working hard & having this mythical lower rent, full of the latest kitchens and bathrooms and all the private rental niceties?

Is it buggery. In those years, we’ve had a kitchen refurbishment cancelled 3 times (likewise a bathroom replacement, we’re in the 3rd year of an 18 month wait for a bathroom more suitable to my disability. And that’s as a priority candidate.

Our new radiators? They booked a date & never turned up. Funds had run out. We have rads from the 70s that are Evers decreasingly patched up as they leak on the floor.

The only reason our house had a new electricity refit was because I worked as an electrician in a council leisure as facility so stamped my foot that 2 pin brown Bakelite outlets was fucking terrifying with 2 small children.

We’ve invested around £3-5k a year on improvements (with approval) to our property, just to make it safe. Council repair budgets have been slashed in real terms as they’ve been forced to outsource repairs to various 3rd party companies that put investor profits over value for money for residents.

Yes, there are those that employ the ‘squeaky wheel gets the oil’ method of getting council repairs (in my experience, the younger, benefit tenants to either side probably colour my view here). That drains the pot so major investment in older stock gets put off in perpetuity.

My house was built in 1958. And that’s the age of my bathroom, toilet &, if we hadn’t paid for & applied for consent, would be the age of my kitchen (which was 1 cupboard and a fold down table when we moved in).

Multiply that to the shambles of a garden so it was a safe space for my (then) children.

Also remember that if you live in any post War semi or terrace, the chances are you are living in housing stock that was - shock horror - once a council house.

Please don’t become holier than thou on council houses being benefit ridden scumbag holders. The majority of us pay full rent, have landlords with very limited budgets for refurbishment and - unlike private renters & you mortgage payers - we don’t only contribute to housing benefits through our taxation, but through our monthly rents as well.

For those of us that may get a sniff of a discount on a house, in the south, even a maximum discount (for a substandard house) is bugger all thanks to insane price rises of those properties around it.

So, in conclusion - greed has won. So don’t berate those of us ‘lucky’ enough to have a council house (because being homeless was so obviously bloody lucky of me with a 2 year old when I got my first council flat, wasn’t it? How lucky I was we slept rough!).

Rant over. Apologies, but this jealousy really makes me want to eat my own head in frustration.

@apooagnuandyou - here in the south east there is barely any council house stock. I've not known anyone to be able to get one. My friend was on the list for about 12 years.

My cousin in Birmingham was able to get a council property when pregnant as a young mum so it obviously varies by place how likely you are to get one.

Personally think its a disgrace its even allowed. A council.house should.remain just that. It's there to help people who need it, it hacks me off now end. Mum from school.os constantly going on about how she's skint but will be buying her council house. Has just bought a new car. Some people need this. I'm ‘lucky’ to be able to pay private rent, do I begrudge the cost and the fact I can't afford to.save for my own house? Yep. But I also believe that ‘cheap’ rent through the council should not come with an opportunity to buy. Mortgages are generally larger than council rent which begs the question why should you get a helping hand while someone else can't get somewhere to live because the housing keeps disappearing. It's disgusting.

I knew this thread would bring out the ill informed, envious and terminally full of shit.

Any thread mentioning council home dwellers, same story every single God damned time.

I am sick of telling the thick bastards the truth on here, so this time I am not going to waste my time.

@TheEvilThatIsBread

I knew this thread would bring out the ill informed, envious and terminally full of shit.

Any thread mentioning council home dwellers, same story every single God damned time.

I am sick of telling the thick bastards the truth on here, so this time I am not going to waste my time.

🤣🤣very true I find on these threads people pop along with rules they have made up in their own head about how council housing and housing association,s are run and who lives in them that they don't want to know how it really is.

@eeyore228 only thing that is disgusting is your attitude. So one mum from school has formed your opinion on all those that have been lucky enough to buy their council place.

Jealous much 🤣

@TheEvilThatIsBread

I knew this thread would bring out the ill informed, envious and terminally full of shit.

Any thread mentioning council home dwellers, same story every single God damned time.

I am sick of telling the thick bastards the truth on here, so this time I am not going to waste my time.

Well said!

@eeyore228

Personally think its a disgrace its even allowed. A council.house should.remain just that. It's there to help people who need it, it hacks me off now end. Mum from school.os constantly going on about how she's skint but will be buying her council house. Has just bought a new car. Some people need this. I'm ‘lucky’ to be able to pay private rent, do I begrudge the cost and the fact I can't afford to.save for my own house? Yep. But I also believe that ‘cheap’ rent through the council should not come with an opportunity to buy. Mortgages are generally larger than council rent which begs the question why should you get a helping hand while someone else can't get somewhere to live because the housing keeps disappearing. It's disgusting.

Maybe but it's hardly a new thing, people have had the right to buy council properties for yonks. I've known some who bought as far back as the 1970s, they have even died in their houses, and loads in the 1980s, so did many of their neighbours. They were grateful for the chance and not at all arrogant about it.

If the opportunity presents itself, who can blame anyone for taking advantage of it. It gives them more choices, eg they can move somewhere else if they want to when they retire, they have something to leave to their children. Who wouldn't?

I'm pretty sure if I had been in that position I'd have jumped at the chance but I didn't need to. I don't grudge anyone else doing it.

@Ellieboolou33 I'm not going sit and list the other people I know!!! It's an example but not the only one. And like I said it should be there for people to need it. No jealousy when it comes to those who need it. Poor parents stuck in temp accommodation because there are no properties available because people stay when maybe they can afford somewhere else.

Please tell me what is thick bastards about wanting to preserve our stock of council housing? I really would like to hear how that is a bad thing.

Just because someone works full time doesn't mean they can afford private rent though. I live in a large city which like most cities has the usual mix of desirable, run down and somewhere in between areas. My particular road and immediate few roads are on the edge of a run down area bordering the more run down part of a slightly more desirable area, if that makes sense. It is a mix of council and privately owned(all ex council), a 3 bed house rental is currently 1300 pcm. That is a lot of money to find for many working people

Thread's not about the affordability or not of private rent. Thread's about whether councils should be selling their housing stock at a discount. To anyone, whether they've lived in it for 3 years or 60 years.

@eeyore228 ah you know more than one? Well you must be even more disgusted then!

So when I was stuck in my one bed council flat, having spent several years in temporary accommodation with my husband and 2 children and was offered options of making our tiny living room a bedroom or being given £100k discount with the option of selling after 5 years I should of declined because of "those poor parents in temporary accommodation" 🤣 you seriously do not have a clue!

sweeneytoddsrazor: "..a 3 bed house rental is currently 1300 pcm."

That is actually not bad for a three bed with two adults (maybe a couple), sharing. If two people are working, that's £650 each.

A two bed would be cheaper of course and they could save the difference every month towards a deposit on a home of their own.

My nephew rents a three bed house (very small), on his own for £1,200 a month but he has been there a few years and his rent hasn't gone up recently. It's quite good because, where he lives, a two bed is between £1,150 and £1,200, so he appreciates living there until he buys.