To think social housing should be means-tested annually like benefits?

[EqualLedgerJay]

Situations change, why should lifetime tenancies exist if income rises? AIBU to think fairness cuts both ways?

If scaled up social housing were effectively a national landlord, no longer subject to the market forces which drive that horrible precarity you experienced, and simply existing to provide warm, low energy homes instead of an investment cash cow, there would be less of a downside to renting, and less pressure to buy property.

This would realign the property market - focusing less on accumulating wealth, and more on ensuring everyone has a decent place to live.

I'd be all for that.

It's just strange to pretend that there are no advantages to buying within the current housing system. That's why people who can afford it tend to do it.

I agree with you, sorry if I wasn’t clear - the compulsion to buy is due to the improved stability it gives, and the sense of the house being an asset and not just a home.

I feel like “home” is far more important than “asset”, and as a great nation we should prioritise homes for everyone.

Fucktons of them 😁

Completely agree!

Unfortunately I don't think it will ever happen though.

I guess campaigning and voting would be the way to achieve this.

Parties who provide this approach would be gobbled up at the ballot box. And would create a national legacy on a par with the NHS.

We could go fully communist with everyone in the country living in SH, then no one would need a mortgage either.

A middle ground would be my ideal. Link rental costs on social/council housing to income/savings.

If you have nothing you get the full support, if you have X you get 50% and if you have Y you pay full private market rates. No one gets kicked out of a house just because they are earning a little more. I would also make sure it was set up so that everyone is always better of earning more.

No cliff edge like with chid benefits at the £100k mark. If your take home goes up £200 per month maybe the rent goes up £50. You are still £150 a month better off so are encouraged to earn more.

Yes, housing requires stability.

Precarity in having a roof over your head should be illegal. A good country is not defined by GDP, it’s defined by how well it looks after those who live in it.

Or we could accept that everyone is entitled to a safe, secure, warm, and dry home, and when we are in the situation we are in, where there are not enough of those to go around, housing is not a commodity to exploit for profit and be hoarded by a select few; it is a basic need.

We need to stop selling to overseas buyers who have no intention of living in them, cap private rents to x% above the cost of managing and maintaining the property, and heavily, heavily tax second homes, empty homes, rental profits, and Airbnbs. And although it will be painful, we need to work on bringing the cost of housing back down to a level that matches average incomes.

We could, but I think those who choose to buy their own home via a mortgage should be free to do so if they like.

But there really should be beautiful social housing available for anyone who wants it, with careful and protective means testing around subsidising rent for those who need assistance.

And what a lot of home owners dont understand is that SH tenants cannot employ our own contractors to fix things like electrics and boilers. Its a breach of the tenancy agreement. But many many times ive seen home owners say to SH tenants on here when they have rightfully complained about poor or even dangerous workmanship, if you dont like it pay for it yourself. And this includes responses to complaints about dangerous workmanship These attitudes are still ingrained even after Grenfell.

Absolutely. This whole area requires gigantic reform, and it would benefit all of us in so many ways.

This.

I've actually just got off the phone with my HA about my bathroom floor. Apparently, the issue is a cleaning/decor issue. There is no leak, and nothing needs to be repaired.

The limescale is there because there are always puddles on the bathroom floor, no matter how many times a day we dry it, because the floor is not level, and water drains from the shower to everywhere. There are also holes in the floor.

When you shower, the water streams out of the shower and gathers behind the toilet and around the sink. We do dry the floor immediately after a shower, but it's not easy to get a towel or mop behind the sink or toilet, so 5 minutes later, the floor is wet again. I dry the floor every time I go to the toilet, and I WFH and have a very weak bladder. It is wet in the pictures I just took for my strongly worded email to the complaints team.

We've tried everything from Harpic toilet cleaner to industrial-strength kettle descaler to clean the floor, which is scrubbed and mopped weekly. The limescale is so built up due to the leaks, dips in the floor and puddles that it cannot be removed. This "cleaning and decoration issue" has now ruined the kitchen light fitting. I'd also love to know what the fuck they think we are doing in the kitchen to cause the "cleaning and decoration issues" on the ceiling, because to me it is plainly, 100% water damage from the leaking bathroom. A toddler who watches Bob the Builder could tell you that.

The hole in the picture is actually in the shower itself. The other corner of the shower is the same.

If I were allowed to pay to fix this myself, I would. I'd rip the entire bathroom and kitchen out and start again with my own money.

There is no light in the kitchen because it exploded about a month ago. I'm also not allowed to pay to fix that myself, even if it could be fixed, which it can't because the bathroom is still leaking.

My Dad is a retired builder; he spent his entire life building extensions, refitting kitchens and bathrooms, etc. I used to spend summers working with him. DD's boyfriend is a plumber, and another child is also dating a plumber/bathroom fitter. If I were allowed, I would gut the whole house down to the bare bones and start again, but I'm not. Instead, I have to put up with living like this.

Interestingly the only country to pretty much do this well is very capitalist, Singapore. Bought homes though, not rented. But at heavily discounted rates, built by government.

Great idea, well executed.

Thats fucking horrendous This kind of shit makes me so angry My late Dad was also a builder and site foreman and he was horrified at HA issues that i told him about

This idea does not need to conform to any economic philosophy, it’s about making sure everyone can have a safe, warm home regardless of background. It’s the one thing we really all need, and it would indirectly solve about 90% (pure speculation) of our other woes.

My Dad is the same. I know what all the issues are in the house because he tells me constantly (the roof needs redoing, the pointing needs redoing, the bathroom is not fit for purpose, the kitchen ceiling needs to be ripped out and re-done and all the floorboards need taking up and either replacing or replaying because none of them are level and the gaps between them are too big and the wiring needs to be looked at because of the potential damage from the damp). He would do/help me do all of this if we could, but we'd be evicted if we tried.

Trouble is often the smaller places are more expensive Ñ

And because of an aging population, and more people living alone, oversubscribed as well.

Add loneliness and that moving can be fatal to older people, it’s not the quick fix everyone thinks it is.

That’s not strictly true. I grew up in a council house and my parents replaced the kitchen.
Spent thousands in the 80s which wasn’t exactly a great return on investment but it was necessary
Nobody battered an eyelid

Are HAs very different to Local Authority landlords? I ask, because in two councils where I worked, tenants could apply for permission to put in their own new kitchens, bathrooms etc.

DH lived in a council house in the Eighties and did repairs himself But he/we arent allowed to now. Rules and tenancy agreements have changed in the last forty years............when we were actually in a different century. And you are talking about a council house not a housing association house. The former was housing provided by the state. Housing associations are private companies.

I don’t see what that has to do with my point or this thread though. It’s a separate (and important) point you’re making. You don’t need to try and fight home owners though, that’s not our fault.

I am talking about the social housing availability in this country and housing system.

I've asked the HA. When I moved in, they'd fitted "safety floor" aka cheap vinyl to half of the kitchen but not the other half, because the other half is apparently not part of the kitchen and is not their responsibility. I wanted to pull it all up and lay a new, matching floor because I couldn't find any to match, and they could not tell me the name of the supplier (?) After a bit of begging and back and forth and offering to pay for the floor to be redone in "safety floor" if I moved out, I was told, in writing, that if I touch that floor, I will be served notice. Ditto the electrics, I wanted to pay for extra sockets to be fitted. But again, if I touch the electrics, I will be evicted. All work must be done by a registered electrician, and apparently, I can't be trusted to contact one myself.

Possibly, if I'd done just done it and not asked, they wouldn't have noticed, but I made the mistake of trying to do the right thing by getting permission.

NO you pointed out what a lot of SH tenants dont understand so i pointed out what a lot of home owners dont understand Its the same principle. Why is one allowed and not the other Its not SH tenants fault either but the tone of a lot of this thread says otherwise