To think council housing is really unfair??

[Helpmechooseausername]

I totally get that some people need to be housed by the council, but AIBU to think that the system is abused - but it seems to be his the system works?

I know of two families who have lived in their council houses for years and raised their children there. They needed help when they first moved in, and so were quite fairly given council houses. But, now the kids have grown up and moved on. The parents both have got jobs, nice cars, holidays, go out for meals, etc., etc.. They can continue living in their council houses for the rest of their lives.

It seems massively unfair. Is it really not means tested?? Surely the houses should be given to other people who need them? How can it be right that they aren't told to move back into the private property market?

I feel a bit like when I stand in a queue in a shop, waiting to pay, while people come in and just take what they want without paying or queuing!!

And yes, I'll admit that I'm jealous! I can't afford to do any nice things for my kids and I, despite working hard, and it seems to be because I chose to own my own home and get a mortgage instead of getting a council house!

Also, depending on when they were built, the one bed flats might be as expensive to rent as the three bed houses.
My nan and my MIL both lived in council houses with their families, and then moved into one bedroom flats when they were about 60. I imagine that part of the incentive for that was that tent and running costs were much lower.

What's not fair is people being able to buy council houses and the councils not being able to build new ones.

Yes exactly. The rent isn't cheap. It is private rent that is expensive. SH is let on a not for profit basis. Private rent not so much.

The economy of scale helps. But when you are private rented you are not just paying the costs of the property (mortgage interest, maintenance, management) you are also paying for the purchase of an asset worth thousands of pounds.

So many private landlords moan 'oh but the rent only covers the cost of the mortgage and interest rates increased so....' The rent payments they expect also cover the capital repayment of the loan. Which results in an asset for the landlord.

Pathetic- for securing what many people seem to want according to this thread
ok well I’m sure he isn’t bothered about you thinking he’s pathetic

he can carry on being pathetic in his 400k council house with rent of around 400 a month

I wouldn’t call that pathetic I would call it pretty smart as so many people seem to want one

plus if he wants he can exchange it for a HA / Council house anywhere in the country

The problem isn't that social housing gives people secure tenancies and fair rent. The problem is that the private rental sector is so poorly managed that it doesn't.

A safety net isn’t a home. It’s temporary accommodation. We’ve already got over 165k kids stuck in that, because their families can’t afford punishing market rents.

A home is somewhere you can stay as long as you like, providing you meet the tenancy terms (rent, nuisance etc). Otherwise it’s temporary.

Do you think people who can’t afford to buy or private rent their family home should never have a permanent home? They and their kids should just keep being moved on? They’re born, live and die in short term lets, always anxious they’ll be turfed out?

If you don’t earn enough, and get into arrears, you’re out. But if you earn too much you’re also out? With your landlord wanting all your income data to assess that? Do you not think that’s horribly cruel?

Not to mention all the council officers’ time collating and assessing tenants’ income data to see who they need to evict because they earn too much. Instead of spending the money maintaining and managing the home? All the appeals to avoid eviction. People having to turn down pay rises at work to avoid losing g their home? Not a great incentive for people financially bettering themselves - they risk losing their home. Surely, you see it’s an unworkable and intrusive idea.

@llizziethe only way i’m leaving this house is in a box!
i would never be influenced by small minded (usually jealous) people who think social housing should be relinquished the minute you are ‘doing ok’.
i have a public sector pension pot so quite happy from that perspective. but in all seriousness that’s the only thing i think about is still having to pay rent when i retire rather than having no housing costs through a paid off mortgage. but i can’t change the past which meant i lost my mortgaged home because of an abusive ex and couldn’t get back on the housing ladder again.
i would downsize if my children were all able to live independently as adults (one may not be able to, too early to tell at their current age). if that was the case i know the HA would happily let me go into a smaller house on this estate to free mine up so i’d have the same terms and security.
these threads always have the same Daily mail style views trotted out each time.
if social housing was as it used to be and there was a broad range of people, backgrounds and incomes there would be less stigma and ‘problem’ estates.
i love to see people’s faces when they realise this is a ‘council house’ because our estate looks no different to your average new build private estate and people presume someone like me must have bought it.

Can we stop saying 'council house'. Very rarely do councils own any housing stock. They are owned by housing associations that are businesses there to make a profit.

They are held to account to make sure houses are maintained to a good standard - unlike the unregulated private rental sector, where landlords can run roughshod over their tenants.

Housing associations offer a secure tenancy with a good standard of accommodation. Who the fuck would want to give that up?

People who are under accommodating a property, will be paying the 'bedroom tax'.

Anyone who thinks people should be turfed out after being good tenants, paying their rent on time and having money left over to actually enjoy their lives, need to give their head a wobble. It's pathetic.

Yep, private tenants are paying off the further capital loans of the already rich.

Buy to Let: The biggest scam ever to take from the poor to give to the rich.

While everyone was wringing their hangs about inequality that evil policy was snuck through.

Everyone who’s got rich from it is complicit.

Why the economy’s stagnated. Poorer people spend their money (when they have it) in the economy: food, bills, social life. They can’t if it’s being spent paying off the BTL mortgages of the rich, who then hoard it in the buildings.

Or being able to buy council houses at all. Like being able to buy a school or a hospital.

Council homes are owned by local people for local people to rent on a not-for-profit basis.

It’s a fair and democratic Buy to Let scheme, if you think about it. Councils (i.e. local people, as the councillors are only their reps) were about to start getting huge returns from the rents on council homes. Because, by the 80s, the cost of building it had largely been paid back by tenants’ rents. That’s when Thatcher sold it off for a loss - a loss to us, the public.

Result: the rich could again profit from people’s need for a home.

A friend of ours had a council flat, his girlfriend later moved in who earns mega £££, they did right to buy (which i fundamentally disagree with), they did the flat up, had a couple of kids, waited the right length of time and then sold it for a massive profit to fund purchase of a lovely 4 bed family home.

I’m pretty sure that isn’t what social housing should be for and is the major problem in there not being enough housing.

Yeah but most council houses outside of London would ,nt make you a huge profittand we don't all live in london
Lots are in pretty deprived areas where no one really wants to live.

You get a 40% discount so immediately you’ve made 40% profit when you sell it to a landlord Who then lets it out for £200 more than the Council was and some poor bugger will take it because they’re not entitled to one according to the council, but they still need somewhere to live.
Nobody I know with a portfolio of 100+ houses I’ve bought those houses in London. They’re all cheap and cheerful areas where they’ve paid 60 grand per house.

Hi OP
Lets imagine a different world with plenty of state owned good quality housing at an affordable rent that anyone could access, regardless of high or low income, if they wanted, maybe with priority given to people who worked close by. This council housing would turn a very small profit for the state because of the rent payments so no taxpayers up in arms about it. And people could always buy their own house if they wanted.
Would you still be outraged with this situation?
Because the country absolutely could choose to have the above if we wanted. Instead we have chosen to force families into poverty because of high private rents and near bankrupt ourselves with housing benefit payments (that's only going to get worse as 'generation rent' retire) to line the pockets of private landlords.

Well you don't anymore
But even so 40% of not very much is not very much.

Cheap and cheerful in London?🤣🤣🤣

Oh maybe I misread your typo
.

"Cheerful" slum landlord housing anywhere in Britain is quite funny anyway.

Tapered rent with market value paid once a certain income is earned.
No more right to buy.
Subsidise moving costs of tenants who are downsizing.
Increase bedroom tax.

Yes social housing tenants are paying rent, but way less than market rent! It is not a right to be subsidised for life.

The reason there’s no availability is because the houses are being occupied by people whose families have grown up and who no longer need a house! What’s needed are more smaller properties for older people to move into making space for families. It’s not bashing older people. It’s real life.

The reason there’s no availability is because they keep getting sold off and not replaced.

Right but currently there are not enough of these smaller properties to house elderly people under occupying their large homes.

Bedroom tax…only paid by benefit claimants who under occupy not the rest of us who work and don’t claim housing benefit!!

The point is, you did get 40% off
And 40% of 120,000 is a very nice discount
It’s a house deposit by anybody standards and if you’ve actually paid off some of the Mortgage as well, it’s a nice chunk.

It was a nice little racket for the baby boomers yet again.

Agree with all of this. In fact, subsidised moving costs is very generous.