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?

Coucils or housing associations

@CatladywithoutacatCompletely agree. One household can ruin the lives of a whole street.

In my area a family was moved from one borough to mine, straight into another council house. They didn’t changed and were a plague on the area for many years.

The main culprit robbed neighbours, robbed hundreds of motorbikes and even the local children’s centre. He was killed last month on a stolen motorbike. I wouldn’t wish death on him but if his parents had behaved themselves, he might still be alive today.

Nobody should be forced to live amongst awful families like this, they should be evicted and banned from social housing for 10 years.

Look I am’socialist and I believe that everyone should have access to decent affordable housing but seeing as historically government grants were given to build them ( in part) and often on publically owned land then run by councils or not for profit housing associations there is an element of subsidy by society. Which is absolutely fine and I wish there were more available. However I don’t think it’s too much to expect that people living in them pay rent according to their income. If you treble your income while living rhere good on you but surely paying a bit more wouldn’t hurt? If your income suddenly drops it could always be adjusted again.

Perhaps we should apply that principle to all rents. Just to be fair.

They are. Every single new development (unless tiny) has to have 20% minimum social housing. Look on the site plan on the website of any development local to you and you’ll see some properties greyed out. They are social housing. I know as I live in one!

Hmm seems developers around our way wangle out of even building the " affordable" housing they are supposed to be never mind social housing

My partner worked until very recntly for a large housing association and doesn't recognize this happening either

I don't think it should be reassessed every year, maybe every 5 or 10 years. Or more realistically when any dependent children reach adulthood. Parents of adult children shouldn't be able to keep a family size home once their kids have flown the nest. Or if the kids stay post 18/post higher education, the rent needs to be upped so they're contributing a fair amount. The current bedroom tax is a weak attempt at something like this. But that only affects families who receive benefits and even then isn't much of an incentive to downsize.

Alternative to that is that rents are reassessed regularly based on household income. So if the tenants circumstances change (and it's not unusual to earn more money as your kids grow up and you can work longer hours), then they pay more rent, up to open market value. The extra rental income that the housing associations receive this way should be ringing fenced and put towards building new social housing.

At the moment being a social housing tenant is a golden ticket for life. Maybe not such an issue if there wasn't so much need to social housing. But the rest of us are still subsidising it.

I want to live in my council property for life, even if my circumstances change. I signed a lifetime tenancy.

Where I live you put your name on the housing list and are allocated points based on need. When you reach the top of tge list you will be offered the next available house in your category ( eg 2 bed flat / 3 bed house). If you refuse the property you are allowed one more offer before you lose your place in the list. No idea how a bidding system works, we don’t have that here in Scotland. Anyone can go on the list but you could wait 10 yrs if you aren’t in a priority group. Many people end up in private lets as they can’t wait donkeys years for a council house. It was much better in the last century when you could get married, get your name on the list while living with family & have a secure tenancy within a year or two.

You are so naive if you think social housing isn’t subsidised by the taxpayer, it is a benefit for people who live in them and pay far less rent than they would do privately and sometimes get a lifetime tenancy which you would never get in the private sector. No wonder they are willing to wait ten years to get one and rarely leave. It should just be temporary accommodation for homeless people and a stepping stone back to private rent not a place for life.

Not always.

Remember that not everyone lives in or near London and not every area is in demand so that private rentals have been driven up.

I pay the exact same amount of rent for my SH than I did when I moved from my private rental. I live in a cheap town up north.

Also, the only reason I'm in SH is due to having a disabled child. The private rental was deemed unsuitable for his needs, as would 99.9% of private rentals because they aren't adapted properties.

Do you understand what subsidised means though?

subsidised means sold to the customer at less than cost.

social housing rent is not less than the cost of providing the property.

you can’t compare it to market rents. Market rent doesn’t reflect the COST of providing the property. It reflects the maximum you can command on the open market.

compare to a sandwich in a subsidised cafe

cost to make £1.50

sold in subsidised cafe £1.25

sold in pret (open market) £3.75

see the difference?

in this case social housing would be sold for £1.50- the cost of making. No subsidy

Why do you think private rent is a step up ?

We know social housing isn’t subsidised by the taxpayer. The rent is the actual cost without profit. That isn’t a subsidy. It’s actually private rents where the tenant claims housing benefit that’s subsidised by the taxpayer.

But that's paying the correct not for profit cost. Just not paying profits to private landlords who have far more money thAn their tenants

And take housing benefit for example. People don't seem to have as much of an issue with someone getting £1000 a month to pay a private landlord bit moan. If they are paying £500 rent themselves in social housing. Because apparently SH is subsided!!! Tbh looks like the private rental tenants have more subsidy

Have you lived in SH (council housing) yourself?

But where do the councils get the money to build social housing? Is it coming from thin air? No.

It is coming from tax payers. The SH rent that is paid is not enough to build more SH homes. Otherwise there would be more. Council tax and tax paid by tax payers is only just covering the other things in society.

No, it’s factored into the return on investment. It takes about 15 years for a social housing property to pay back in rent.

housing associations build social housing from their reinvested profits and borrowing money on commercial terms from lenders.

A long time then.

Councils and NFP (not for profit) housing associations use capital, to build an asset, a house. They own that asset. They then rent the property out, to get a return on their investment. The rent then goes into a pot, called a Housing Revenue Account in councils, and something similar for NFPs, and that pot supplies the funds for repairs, maintenance, staff costs. The rents are set to cover costs, and to plough any excess back into improvements. Where is the subsidy? Unless we are social housing tenants, it costs us, as taxpayers, zero. Nothing. 0.

A private landlord does pretty much the same, except he/she wants to make a profit. Hence market rents, and possibly less attention to repairs etc.

If anyone else can make it clearer please do!

Yes the right to buy has stopped in Scotland which is fine if the HA maintain their properties which they don’t. The one we rent from is so focussed on building new ones (great) but their old stock is falling into disrepair, my kitchen and bathroom are 25+ years old, kitchen cupboard doors fall off in your hands and there is next to nothing to fix them back to, rough casting falling off in huge chunks, fences blown down that they won’t replace and it’s such a fight to get any repairs done, if they can shift it to us to do they will and we do what is within our skills, we just keep getting told there is no money. In my opinion if they don’t want to maintain their older properties these should be sold once enough new have been built to replace or be forced to maintain

on the subject of lifelong tenancies though no people shouldn’t be moved on for bettering themselves. Due to us paying affordable rent I was able to return to uni and do my nursing degree which we couldn’t have done had we private rented, if we had been threatened with eviction I wouldn’t have bothered or bothered taking more hours and my DH wouldn’t have bothered doing well at his job either.

making it just for those in need when lets face it it’s a lot of drug and alcohol users and a lot who don’t work (at least around me) has turned many areas where I am in to ghettos of run down estates where the police are never away. The mixture of families etc is needed and they need at least a portion of people working and paying rent to keep things going to some degree

there is also the common misconception that we are subsidised, no, any payments due on our house by the HA are long since satisfied so the rent is low due to their being no mortgage or loan to pay, the newer builds rents are higher

Who cares? It’s their money. Do you care that Barrett homes take 15 years to get return on their rental?

Personally, I don’t hate the idea. People who buy often aim to ‘better themselves’ (for want of a better phrase) get better jobs and buy nicer/bigger houses. Why wouldn’t someone in social housing want the same for themselves?

A year’s notice would be fair to allow the current renters to find somewhere but also to free the home up for people who are currently homeless.

NC

My DH and I live in social housing. We pay approximately 3/5 of the market rental rate for a nice house in an excellent school catchment. This village is too expensive for us to afford the type of house we'd like, so when the kids finish school, we'll look elsewhere.

I moved in here when I was a single mum, and it's definitely been a lifesaver. The lower rent means that we've been able to save a much heftier deposit.

So I should be penalised and made homeless, just because I’ve worked hard and managed to increase my salary?

I live in a 1 bed flat. It’s hardly going to benefit a family if I move out.

Christ, I really really despise ignorant viewpoints like this.