To think renting as single mum is horrific

[Blueysmum12]

My bff is a single mum to two young boys. She works in a nursery and gets universal credits. She has a small dog who she got when she split with her husband and is her baby.

she’s lived in the same house for 6 years, rent paid every month on time etc.

the owner is selling their house and obviously she has to move. Between us we have rang 40 properties in this town and surrounding villages. Not one will accept her because she’s either on in universal credits and she has a dog.

the council rang today and said they suggest she takes anything and rehomes her dog because they will put her in a bnb for around 8 months.

I would have her dog, but I have a cat and a dog and 3 kids already, my husband isn’t keen.

I feel so bad for her. She’s lost weight, she looks an anxious mess.

:(

How so? It’s relatively sensible advice to suggest waiting until you have some financial security behind you before having children and buying pets.

Yes, it’d be lovely for people if they could have four children a couple of Labradors a cat and a totally secure tenancy on a lovely cottage on minimum wage but that’s neither likely nor reasonable.

We all have to tailor our lives to our means, and yes, that can mean having children later, having only one, or possibly even having none at all if you aren’t in a position to provide for them.

Well I have enough equity in my house that I could buy something, somewhere, even if it wasn't in the area I live in now. And I wouldn't add to my costs and woes by getting a pet which I couldn't afford.

If you work in a nursery on minimum wage and have two kids I wouldn't add to the costs by having an expensive dog.

It really does. A single earner in minimum wage can buy a perfectly decent house in the North of England.

What you maybe mean is that you want to live somewhere where you can’t afford to buy a house on your wage, but that’s very different.

Of course low earners can have children but if they cannot afford their own home they need to respect the rules of their LL. If that means the kiddies go without pets then tough.

People like you really are horrific. A world where only wealthy people should have children? Yeah, fuck the people on low wages that do important jobs that you take for granted, like caring for the elderly, emptying the bins and delivering your shopping. They should just be happy with scraps and crumbs.

Er, no they can't, not if they can't afford to save for a deposit.

Bold assumption. The only mortgage protection insurance to be had then (and this was while posted by HMGov to the US) was in the event of death not disablement. Which we had. As well as the US legal (but U.K. illegal) PMI the bank charged us. Also had disability insurance and had paid extra into a private disability pension as HMG one is a bit of a pittance really. What I didn’t know was that U.K. authorities don’t really trust US doctor reports. So after shipped back to U.K. had to go through all the scans, tests, reports all over again to prove my injuries and claim my disability insurance and pension payments. 18mos all told.

Couldn’t hold on to a foreign property was in no state to be a LL from halfway around the world and not my fault the 2008 crash happened right after we bought the place. Beach house in Florida, good investment so they said.

Oh, we had/have lots of life insurance too. It hasn’t escaped me that with death being a lot faster and easier to prove, my DH and DC would have been minted if I’d been killed outright. You think you are covered until a perfect storm happens and you’re struggling to file proof to claim your coverage.

Here you go.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/126905924?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

Easily affordable for even a single earner on the adult minimum wage, a two bedroom house in Newcastle.

You do know the majority of people on UC are also working either full time or part time but rent is so high they still need a top up on be size of low wages?

That’s simply not true. Critical injury insurance has been around for centuries. It did not have to be linked to your mortgage, you just choose the amount of cover that you wanted.

Do you have to pay to participate.

I looked into joining bit was surprised from the emails I got that I seemed to have to pay a fee/s in order to use the site and contact dog owners in my area. I mean, I'm going to be walking them for free, why do I have to pay to even let owners know I'm available to?

So poor people can only live in the North of England in a few places?

so do you expect people who have lived in an area their entire lives where all their friends and family are to just up and leave to somewhere completely unknown to them, away from their support network in order to buy a house?

Wtaf! Over 50% of households are single fucking parent! Do they mean single mothers particularly (as is the usual resident parent) that’s sex discrimination and needs to be called out!

which lender is this?

just 5 seconds on the MN relationship board tells us that a lot of mums end up single out of nowhere.

Haven't RTWT but OP is in a situation that is becoming more and more common, at least in my area (small-town in the SW). I recall it being bad enough 20 years ago round here too - I won't derail with my own experiences but truly awful enough to never forget and maintain symapthy and understanding for anyone currently looking for a rental home.

Frankly, I'm starting to think that local protests, squatting 2nd Homes and Tent Camps on Local Authority property is the way to go.

My quickest fix would be to Compulsory Purchase/Lease any local Land Bank land and erect pre-fabs. And, convert any Planning Permissions for new-build Developments to 100% Social Housing.

It's been done before after 2 World Wars and can easily be done again.

I haven’t read the whole thread as I am disgusted by some of the comments I have seen. I can’t believe women (and possibly men) can be so horrible about this woman’s circumstance. She’s a single parent, she’s working in a low paid job (possibly providing child care so you can work), she’s claiming benefits which most single parents do as a single wage isn’t enough to live off. We don’t know her background, how she became to be single and homeless, she couldn’t foresee this.

The housing situation is dire, another thing worsened by the Tory gouvenment. It used to be that if you were made homeless and you have children you would be housed fairly quickly even if it was temporary housing but because of the high need for social housing (so many people unable to afford to rent privately on a low income) there are no houses. Being forced to give up a family pet to rent privately is just awful, it’s easy for others to say ‘just get rid of the dog’ but the dog is a part of the family. It is unfair as dogs don’t often cause damage….unlike humans.

OP, I hope she gets a break soon and someone can offer her help.

All renters struggle yes.

Tbf @Beezknees it's more about who gets to have pets than who gets to have children. And even then there are pets and pets, far fewer landlords will object to a hamster than a great dane.

The best way round the whole pets thing would be some form of pet insurance, paid for by the tenant, that covers damage. Or, as used to exist, a pet deposit. But even then, when so many want to rent so few properties, many landlords will go for the simplest option. After all, if you have the choice of a dozen potential tenants, why pick the one with the hairy, smelly thing with unpredictable behaviour?

We are SW, it’s very grim here isn’t it? The housing crisis is terrifying and I’ve seen so many families being forced into this situation recently and it’s just getting worse. We were in the same situation at the start of year.

@Blueysmum12

if you rent it should be the law you can’t turn people done for UC or one dog.

you should be able to charge say 30£ extra a month for the dog and have a dog deposit for any damage.

thqt would sort the situation but this government can’t even find its own ass!

This is so true! It's so frustrating when politicians and the like talk about making sure no families slip through the net and seemingly ignore the existence of single men and women. I appreciate why children are prioritised but it can be quite frightening for singles to be so low down on the list and pretty much invisible as far as the media, housing and agencies etc are concerned.

And some us us DID have big jobs with big money and for whatever reason or another have been through the ringer with abusive relationships, losing confidence and having to carry everything, work round wrap around care

shame on all of you who think being poor is people being lazy, or stupid, or not worthy enough

im not poor now, but I still remember how it felt to live in permanent fear that the landlord would give notice/put the rent up/car have a flat tyre etc etc. my son remembers too. We’re fucking grateful for what we have, count my blessing every time I switch on the news.

I won’t have this daily mail/channel 5/bigoted mindset get away with demonising perfectly normal people who are really struggling through no fault of their own.

get another job, move to fucking Newcastle… Wtaf?! Have you even thought of the logistics of uprooting your child from school, probably from the only family/friends you know and fucking off up north? Exactly what do you do first? How the hell do you achieve that? What if there is another parent close by who cant/won’t pay but will fight to keep their kid near them?

any fucking one of you with your high horses and pearls could become single parents at any time. Have some fucking empathy.

With regards to pets I think that regulations have recently changed about this BUT it's pretty inconsequential when you've got a minimum of 25+ prospective tenants to choose from. So a LL can easily disguise their preference for no pets/no benefits claimants in their choice of tenant.

I recall having to pay 6mths plus 1mth to secure more than one Tenancy - which were paid by Credit Cards - and that was 20 years ago.

I keep thinking you are meaning disability insurance? Because I had that, full name is Long Term Disability Insurance. As I said, took 18mos from filing my claim to getting any payments from them.

They don’t have critical injury insurance in the US? I did have personal accident insurance with my medical insurance package but that only paid out if paralysis or dismemberment or blinded. Not for TBI. At the time they didn’t even know about post concussion syndrome….

Don't pay too much mind to QQB, they've been on a wind up, their Mum is probably home now asking if they've done all their homework.