Right to buy. What about everyone else?

[BrownieBanana]

AIBU to think that it's all well and good to bring in new policy that allows better saving for RTB for council tenants, but that it doesn't help people who REALLY need help? If you're in a council property it is still vastly cheaper than private rent (over 50/60% where I live). What about the millions of young people living with their parents into their early and mid 30s who can't afford rent (this is me), can't get a mortgage as a single person even on an OK salary. Am I missing the mark here? I'm not saying everyone in a council property has it easy, if course not, however I don't think it's the right way to deal with the housing crisis at all....

@Robinni yes absolutely, like I said if we were up north where I’m from, we’d be in a completely different situation.

HTB finishes in 4 months.

@Nothappyatwork

Your kids not being twats is your opinion. Given your idea of what a twat is then I'm not convinced. Your posts make you a twat IMO.

Wouldn't it be lovely for everyone to have spare money for shares, pensions, ISA's and to invest, savings. If you lost your job and had a mortgage then you got zero help towards the cost of that mortgage. Rent and you got help. Not being able to pay for the literal roof over your and your kids head, not being able to put food on the table, not be able to pay the electric/gas bill would drive a lot of people to suicide/suicidal thoughts. 🔔🔚

I rent privately. I will never be in a position to buy my own home. All I would like is the security to know that as long as I pay my rent I will be able to stay in my home. As things stand at the moment if my landlord dies or decides to sell or even decides he wants me out because he wants to massively hike the rent I will be out on my ear.

Perhaps if private renters had better security then the housing situation would not be so dire and people would not be so desperate to buy their own homes.

Exactly
This is the issue

Agree and I think it will happen, gradually. There are already moves towards this even by the Tories. About a third of households now can't buy and won't be able to in the future and just in broad policy terms it will become unworkable in the future to have such a large section of the workforce in insecure housing.

So I think that in 15 years'time or so we'll see a shift towards longer term security. It won't be state owned housing though.

That was the case for many when there was a stock of council housing. The problem with that for the government is that it costs them money and they don't want the responsibility. So they got rid of council housing in the whole and there was a huge increase in private landlords - in it for money and not bound by the kind of low rents, repairs and updates to properties and long-term tenancy a council was bound by.
Landlords have few restrictions - can buy as many properties as they like, charge whatever rent they can get and it's pretty easy to get rid of tenants, neglect properties if they choose to. If they sell properties that can be even more insecure and harder for tenants. The government don't care- they just want rid of the burden of any kind of social responsibility falling on the State. They are happy for their rich pals to exploit the situation.

The mad thing is though that on paper it may cost less but in practice it's ended up costing the state more because we don't have rent controls. So landlords can charge loads and the state tops up people's wages with housing benefit/UC. I mean that rent top up is billions every year. And it doesn't even go towards the cost of providing good quality properties because there's no requirement to provide good quality properties. So you have all the downsides of a free market but none of the upsides because we're still massively subsidising just without any quality control. So lose-lose.

Yes @Nothappyatwork . You should be miserable if you don’t have enough money, otherwise you couldn’t possibly consider yourself a good mother

Right to buy is inherently unsustainable short-term thinking. What we need is a policy that keeps a lid on house prices. Given that banks and foreign pension funds are currently buying up British domestic housing stock, which they then rent to people who have been priced out, the obvious policy is to restrict domestic housing sales to people and rental businesses registered in this country for tax purposes. It would also stop oligarchs and other super rich International types buying here without paying into the system. This would naturally dampen house prices whereas right to buy could actually inflate them.

Thing is you can't restrict the flow of global capital unless you dismantle capitalism. And don't get me wrong I'd be in favour of that but it's not going to happen. Agree there are measures you can take to inhibit the worst effects. Eg restricting property sales, stopping fucking printing money so that money is actually worth something and the rich don't have to buy up assets just to preserve their wealth ... Dunno how you'd stop all the oligarchs though. Eg Zelenskiy is worth £7bill that he funnels into the Cayman Islands and Mayfair properties but apparently he's the defender of bloody democracy. That ship (yacht) has sailed I'm afraid.

You can't have right to buy for private renters... their home actually belongs to someone else.

Council houses also belong to someone else.

Yup. To all of us.

But then land itself belongs to all of us.

Or no one I guess. It's kind of a mad concept that you can own something that just exists while you yourself are only around for 80 years or so.

@BlueTitSmilingAtMe

Fact check again

www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/04/20/president-zelensky-is-not-a-billionaire-so-how-much-is-he-worth/?sh=6dd3b6295bb0

Oh, the "taxpayer"?

You knew what I meant.

It was more in reference to the way people with serious mental health illness to the point of suicidality due to their living conditions were referred to as twats. Shameful.

@BlueTitSmilingAtMe of course you can restrict the flow of global capital. Countries do it all the time with boycotts, money laundering regulations, seizing proceeds of crime.

Fact check yourself

www.spectator.co.uk/article/who-is-ihor-kolomoisky-/amp

Thanks to Nicola Sturgeon abandon of the right to buy my family lost the right to buy their property stayed in for 40 years. Her parents still bought theirs at a big discount

And again

www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-oligarch-ukrainian-president-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy

And again

emerging-europe.com/news/why-ukraines-anti-oligarch-bill-is-so-problematic/

Paddington Bear he's not.

Nominally maybe.

Or do you think that London is owned by honest Russian small time fruit stall traders?

Meant to quote this