Council houses owning brand new cars?

[TheCluelessMum]

I’m writing this post with the hopes of being educated, not slandered

however I completely appreciate I may be just completely shot down for asking this.

i live on a new build estate, 12 houses at the start of the estate are council houses. I don’t know this because I’m a snob, I know this because it’s clearly marked on plans when you buy those houses.

i see so much stuff online about how the UK benefits system is failing people, the higher rise of food banks. It’s absolutely abhorrent people are in this situation.

however, when entering my estate today I noticed that each and every single council house had a car newer that a 20 plate. Mercedes, Audi’s, BMW’s even range rovers.. there was not a single house out of the 12 which had an older than 20 plate car.

I am now confused as to why this is the case? Everyone I know (including those receiving benefits) continually speaks about how hard the cost of living is.

so could someone please answer how/why those in what we would presume lower income families, are able to afford such lavish cars.

but why a BMW, not, say, a Volkswagen Golf (still quite a price car compared to others) ...

does the calculation of disposable income factor in the excessive amount people pay for luxury cars?

Well, you would only Google if you were interested about a certain topic/scenario or wanted/needed further information. Which the OP was.

You can either do research on things or stay blissfully ignorant.

people paying for their own home, fully, means they aren't denying public resources for the needy. Should the councils spent all their money on subsidising everyone, leaving no money for schools etc? 😯

never owned 'outright' till paid off current (11yo) car on 4y financing..

Selfishly, yes. Bit it's morally disgusting to deny the truly needy of a home...

Bring back the work houses 🙄

Why not? I could afford a luxury car were my mortgage reduced to the social rent of the identical houses on my road. Easy to see how truly affordable rent, minimal maintenance costs and career progression could give someone a lot of disposable income.
Whether or not it should is another question....

So we give people council houses then if they earn a good living throw them out and bring in someone poorer?
The homeless are the most needy and would always be a priority with housing… so why are they still on the streets? Believe it or not a lot of them do actually choose that life as sad as that sounds

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need (n.b. Not a Marxist). There are relative degrees of need, no?

OP was no querying the difference, OP was asking about dissonance between subsidised housing and renting extravagant cars. Or am I missing something?

My point is that it absolutely should. Net income minus essentials (food, transport, electricity etc) should be considered as the ‘real’ disposable. Fancy cars shouldn’t be considered ‘essential’

I know the latter is true but, as well as that, there are many many thousands of families in temporary accommodation…

Earlier on she said:

plans say housing association. are they not the same thing? So was querying a difference between a council property and a housing association one.

I believe Marx was describing a model to be applied to everyone within a society, rather than to shame the slightly more fortunate working classes into sacrificing what they have to help those worse off, while others continue to live a life of wealth and luxury. Certainly the idea that a person who could afford rent should pay it to enable a private landlord to profit, rather than return it to the public purse via SH rent would not align with Marxist principles, so its an odd choice of quote to illustrate your argument.

The answer is Motability.

1 in 5 of all new cars bought in the UK is through people on PIP allowances.

Meant to add a link:

www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-03-04/how-auto-sales-giant-motability-cornered-britain-s-car-market

They don't own them though.

There needs to be more affordable housing, the answer isn’t to kick people out if they can afford a nice car. Most people in council houses work full time, they shouldn’t be punished because there’s someone currently less fortunate than them

Not the original post though?

And (as you probably know), that's because the Tories brought in legislation decades ago that sold most if them off - the actual cause of the massive private rent inflation we see these days.

Renting, OP, used to be relatively a lot cheaper because of the greater availability of council housing. Please don't begrudge people council housing.

Agreed re first point. But let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Public resources should be expensed on the most needy, is that fairly straightforward? Of course there should overall be way way way more affordable homes… rent and home ownership for sure too expensive (but at least with the latter you are accumulating equity… in the long run.

What’s your point?

You sound exhausting.

Why should the most needy get allocated the public resources?

Why is it expected that OP should have googled the difference between various types of social housing that OP didn’t know were distinguished before posting?