It’s not fair those renting get more universal credit?

[Bigbenbube]

I’m a lone parent on £31k-ish. I’ve worked out if I earn a few more K I Get no more universal credit, but a couple with two kids on £60k combined get £240 a week.

Well, to be fair, rents are often much higher than mortgages. Also, most renters are too poor to buy - no deposit, and unable to get a mortgage. So, I do see renters as more needy overall. I appreciate it isn't always the case.

Not really accurate. Yes technically people on UC with children won't end up on the street but they can end up being forced into one hotel room or a bedsit miles away from any other support if their landlord decided to sell up. It's not at all equivalent to the agency and security of someone with their own home and asset.

If you own a property you don’t live in then you wouldn’t be entitled to UC as it’d be an asset over £16k. Exceptions are made for interim period when separating etc.

I don't recall that. I know at one time people could claim mortgage interest payments through income support basically to hold the lender off from repossession, but not to cover the capital sum, only the interest. Which always seemed a good compromise to me.

Was it not clear that I was referring to a sitcom? I should have clarified it was the 1980s.

It rightfully wouldn’t be possible now.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/remembering-bread-sitcom-heart-could-20710724.amp

Asset wealth is wealth.
Funnily enough, I'm house sitting for a lady at the moment, who lives with a cat in a three-story massive posh house in the southeast. It's probably worth about £450k. She owns it outright. She always pleads poverty! A little difficult for me to listen to as a renter of a falling-down studio flat!
I realise that's an extreme example. But, even so, renters are (usually) in a much more precarious and vulnerable position than home owners.

What, another one? 😮We welfare rights people couldn't cope with the chaos if that happened.

We had ESA and tax credits introduced in the noughties, then UC and loads of other massive changes 10 years or so ago. The DWP have barely started migrating people from TCs to UC and, even when they have, that still leaves all the carers and people on ESA to get through.

As we were still finding the occasional person getting Income Support for children 10 years after the introduction of TCs, I can't see the migration to UC being completed in much less.

If there was another massive change before the UC migration is completed, we'd have 3 different benefit systems in operation at once. (Actually, 4 if you count pensioners, who still get HB for housing costs, not UC.)

This government will never invest in social housing. The housing element of UC lines the pockets of their voters (landlords) and keeps them in power. It’s clear as day.

I have no axe to grind and I am fortunate enough to not require UC and I have a mortgage. I’m disgusted that people in this country don’t have stable homes and that landlords are receiving so much from the public purse. If I was in power, I’d build lots of high quality social housing. It’s a big initial outlay but will pay for itself over. The more people in social housing will help reduce the stigma too, hopefully!

basially you tell the UC people your rent, childcare fees and income. They will give rent up until a certain amount, let’s just say £150pw. If your rent exceeds that, UC don’t care and max you will get is £150pw (as a calculation). Childcare you tell them how much and again there is a cap. Add those two sums together and minus a calculation for income - gives youUC entitlement

Build it where?

They built it and sold it of.

how will it make a return on itself when it’s the public purse paying rents and rents are capped

Why should the taxpayer buy you an asset?

I am lost.

So if there were two people, both had a child on the same day and both earned the same.

The one with renting would get assistance to pay the rent but the one who was paying a mortgage wouldn't? Is that right?

The UC housing element effectively acts as a floor for rents which means that anyone not receiving benefits has to compete with those who get the housing element and rents are held at a certain level (subsidised) by UC. If nobody got UC and rents were allowed to find their natural level (they would fall), landlords would receive a lot less. The whole system is disguised as helping those on benefits when it is actually a massive subsidy to landlords by ensuring they get a certain amount of rent and a free house, paid for by the taxpayer (that is why Conservatives have not really reformed it, because so many of them are landlords and love getting free stuff from the taxpayer).

A coupler on 60k combined will not get £240 a week, they will get nothing at all

I think if the state is willing to buy landlords their second/third/fourth+ homes I don't see why buying one for a family in need seems wrong to anyone.

OP, renters don't get the money, they hand it straight over to landlords. They don't end up any better off

I’m a lone parent on £31k-ish. I’ve worked out if I earn a few more K I Get no more universal credit, but a couple with two kids on £60k combined get £240 a week.

So it’s not a dead cert that a couple on £60k get £240 a week?

How much UC do you get?

Well maybe it’s because people who are renting don’t have increasing assets like those who own a house. And thatcher sold off all the council houses and private rents are astronomical etc.

Sort out housing and we wouldn’t be in this almighty mess as a society.

The UC housing element where I live pays over £300 per week for a two bedroom property which I would say is incredibly generous (extortionate) and not good value for taxpayers and those not on benefits who have to fund rent from their taxed income. You would have to be earning at least £20k per year (after tax) just to pay the rent if you are not entitled to benefits. That's a huge, huge entitlement.

The whole system should be overhauled. But I don't think people should get help towards paying their mortgage.

I know of a case where someone came into an inheritance as a child. It was placed in trust, and the trustees invested it in BTL property, which they were happy to let to people on HB.

As an adult, the beneficiary rented one of the properties from the trust for a while and got the rent covered by HB. They paid the rent into the trust, which was actually their own money. I've no idea if this was legal, and didn't know enough about the trust to research it, but I was pretty disgusted.

They've since bought a house with their (now massively increased) trust fund money plus a mortgage, and the trust has been wound up. They live elsewhere, and the house is now rented to a family, who claim UC for the rent...

You may think it's extortionate but it's calculated on the lowest one third of local rents. Ime many landlords set their rates above this in order to exclude benefit recipients without having to state that they are doing so

But what is they lose their jobs or become ill and have to give up work?

They shouldn't not get the same support as someone who rents.

So, to be clear.

You're mad that the government has to help pay people's rent to the tune of £300 a week.
Which is NOT set by the claimants or the landlords etc.
any one can look up the LHA rates for any postcode by the way...

But instead of looking up and asking,
"Why do working people need so much help? Who is benefiting from keeping the rents high and wages low?"
You'd rather look down on the people who need the help and would rather they didn't get it and thus be homeless...

Stop looking down at those with little. Look up to those stopping you, and everyone else, having more.

And fwiw. Local Housing Allowance rates are not in anyway enough to pay actual rent, they're more like an average of the housing stock of an area. If your area has a lot of high priced housing stock, LHA will be higher but it will be offset by the amount of cheaper properties.

It's very likely, your £300 a week wouldn't be enough to cover the rent of a 2 bed in most areas, £1200 a month sounds a lot, but in some areas, that's barely enough to cover a one bed flat.

and I note you don't give any clue as to where you are or where you got that figure...

A test..

Taking the postcode of Leamington Spa Train Station, for.no other reason as I travelled there the other day...

LHA Rate for a 2 bedroom property in Leamington Spa.
£172.60 a week
Multiply by 52 weeks = £9027.2
Divide by 12 = £752.26

2 bed rental properties with in 5 miles of the same postcode for a maximum of £800 a month..
0 results.

The cheapest is £875 and is in the next village over from Leamington.

So for anyone thinking LHA Rates are generous or some how something to dream about living with or aspire too, get real...

You don't know the reality of getting £340 a month unemployment element of UC and handing £100 of that to your landlord straight away to top up rent. Leaving you £240 to buy heat, light, food...

This problem is easily solved op. Sell your property, let your savings dwindle below 16k, move into rented then claim the extra UC. I hear they give out the goats and flat screen tvs on a Wednesday. It's funny how no one ever quits their job/sells their home to go and live the life of Riley on benefits.

You want the extra UC payment, but are not willing to give up your asset/future security of being a homeowner. You can't have it both ways. I'd glady take a reduction in UC if it meant I could own my own home.