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?

this is a complete myth - there is absolutely loads and loads of empty space. Hardly any of the country is built on. There are approximately 25million dwellings in the UK that cover just 2% of the land and at current building rates it would take over 20 years to double that (and that's assuming that all the existing remains in situ).

We need more social housing.

Temporary accommodation doesn't always mean B&B,s
During the pandemic we were moved out of our house due essential work that needed doing the housing association moved us into a different house for a couple of weeks which was furnished and really comfortable,
After we moved back into our house they said they would continue to use this house as temporary accommodation.

The government needs to do everything within it's power to increase the stock of social housing to drive down the cost of rent. The lack of social housing is a huge social ill and a major contributor to the benefits bill, because local authorities with a statutory duty to house are having to pay exorbitant near market rent in the form of UC. As housing costs are the biggest component of the cost of living I'd really say this was our number 1 political issue, the root of everything.

I don't have a good understanding of what is actually feasible but ideally this could be things like:

• Restricting property development so that all new houses are destined to become social housing / belong to local authorities
• Put an immediate halt to "right to buy" social housing
• Becoming a landlord needs to be much less financially rewarding. Owning loads of housing which you then rent at exorbitant rates just shouldn't exist as a business model, or if it does, it should be publicly owned. We all need a place to live, and that's what homes should be for. They should not be investments
• Along the same lines, any steps to halt and then gradually reverse the inflating price of housing, slowly / over several decades to avoid too much pain for home owners. For example potentially actually capping sale price (where this is purely down to the value inflation rather than because of improvements) - and I say this as a home owner in my 30s, it would hurt to be among the last generations to get truly fucked with a massive mortgage but I would accept this injustice in order to reap the massive and lasting societal rewards of reducing the cost of housing. It's driving inequality & the main beneficiaries of the current system are mortgage lenders and property developers
• Removing short sighted tax arrangements such as stamp duty altogether, so that there is no disincentive to move around into more suitable housing as your needs change
• Restricting all property ownership only to UK citizens

I'm sure there are major flaws in my thinking I just can't understand the approach we currently have of making small tweaks whilst the entire system in it's current form is very obviously the root of most of our societal and economic problems.

I do think that you should need to downsize once you no longer need extra bedrooms, not when dc are at university and may come home but once they are no longer in education and not living at home. I know some people find that a tough approach but it’s what people who own houses often have to do too especially on retirement

Lifetime tenancies on private rentals? Someone can't have their home back when they need it? Or need to sell it? That's just beyond ridiculous. I rented my flat out when I couldn't sell due to leasehold issues and needed to move to London for work. I made no profit on it. I actually made a small loss each month once I had paid letting agent their cut, the mortgage, the service charge, the constant repairs needed by the tenants as they didn't have much common sense. When I sold it 7 years later to be able to buy a home in my new location when I was pregnant it went up by maybe £10k, much less than I had spent doing it up plus losses on tenants not taking care of my property. Many responsible landlords don't make much profit.

Why would income threshold stifle ambition? If someone earnt 1000 more a month and therefore had to pay £50 extra rent. Are they really going to go 'nope, I'm going to turn down the chance to be £950 a month better off just on principle of not paying the HA an extra £50'.

If there is something suitable though.
My parents are in a house with well established gardens. They would not want to live in a block of flats with no access to a garden. They have a dog for starters.

Or even a nice bungalow, although I realise they take up more room no one's saying they'd have to be massive, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen/living area, compact and cozy and yes a small garden to be able to sit and take in the air.

Where is this?

social rent is set nationally by the government. It does not vary by the tenants income.

There are some small one bed bungalows across the road from me thet have a small garden for retired and disabled people.

Right to Buy might have worked for the common good if you were only allowed to sell it back to the Council, at an agreed non-market rate profit, or rent it out through the Council?

Why not? As long as landlords are aware what they need to do to comply with the law, it’s then their decision whether or not they want to go ahead and be landlords isn’t it?

it’s not unreasonable at all to suggest a professional landlord shouldn’t be able to “get their house back” when they want it.
even your language drips of entitlement and professionalism

Have you ever lived somewhere, where the community constantly fluctuates, is mostly made up of people on a very low income, people come and go with little warning...

Its very unstable, chaotic, in shared houses its generally unpleasant - on housing estates it tends to lead to anti social behaviour, crime, which then makes it a place no one 'nice' wants to live, which means the 'not nice' people get dumped there more and more...

Which is why giving people lifetime tenancies (as long as they stick to their tenancy agreement, break it and you can be evicted) and encouraging a mix of financial backgrounds works better. You get a much stronger community, the bad uns have a desire not to shit on their own doorsteps, the good uns want to improve the area, keep things nice...

Putting peoples rent up because they have more income will absolutely stifle ambition, yep. They feel punished for trying harder/doing better. That may not be the intent but it absolutely will be the effect.

I remember why both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair went all in trying to off load council properties

The people didn’t form this stable community you are talking about. The only stable thing you could rely on was that if you didn’t run to your house when you entered the estate especially when it got dark was the risk of violence, even for those who lived on the estate

There might have been some who did look after their properties but most people didn’t

What a difference a few years and people buying their own houses made.

Are you looking at these estates where people who rent from the council are mixed in with those who own and thinking it is the renters who are making this a stable community.

I am old enough to have firsthand knowledge of what Government owned Social Housing, Train travel, Gas and Electricity looked like and it was not good

Trying to keep it all running would have cost more than it was worth

@Bushmillsbabe you gave someone a home when it suited you, and took it away when it suited you too. I personally don't like that. I believe the tenant should decide when the tenancy ends (assuming they are a 'good' tenant). Radical, but that's my view. Don't fuck about with people's homes. It stopped being your home when you left it, at that point it was merely an investment vehicle for you.

Why would income thresholds stifle ambition? Look at the huge amount of evidence out there already that they do. And we weren't talking about an extra £50 were we. We were taking about people losing their home altogether at X salary.

I think rent should be increased according to how much you earn .

I don’t think annually no, not at all.

i don’t know what to think actually. A few years ago if we didn’t already own a flat, I think we would have been eligible for social housing. Now, 10 years on we have a combined income of 100k.

Should we still be afforded social housing?

But I do see the arguments for not having a limit.

What if your income fluctuates?

People on UC that work already have trouble with a system like that. Not getting any UC at all when a 5 pay day month happens for example.

A similar system would be a whole lot more admin and probably cost a lot more to run than it would save.

What happened to the 1.5 million houses Angela Rayner was going to build ?
Government must be so far behind on their targets , maybe they are going to build them all the year before the election
we need to stop selling off social housing, build more houses to drop the overall value to help supply and demand

There aren’t enough properties available. I know 2 people who tried to do this but weren’t offered anything by the HA for years. One elderly woman got housed eventually by the council but the other woman can’t get a one bed flat. There aren’t any. In addition, many large HAs have sold off their one properties on the open market to generate income to pay repairs on the others. I don’t agree with it but these are the facts.

I’m reminded of the trade union boss who was earning £150k a year, had been earning very well for quite a while, and was still ‘on principle’ in a council property. This must be at least 10 years ago now - he died some years ago.

2% is a lot.

Seeing a few green fields from your window doesn’t mean we are not hideously overpopulated.

We are only behind the Netherlands and places like Vatican City in the whole of Europe and that’s because our stats are distorted by the Highlands.

Our wildlife is dying, our air and water are polluted, we have relentless flooding, we have far far far too many people and houses.

What does that one case show?

Eddie Thingy is also in a council flat and on a six figure salary

Did you expect 1.5m houses to pop up in 18 months?!? 😭😭

That’s a tricky one though, my son moved out for about 8 months and then he split with his girlfriend and came home, should there have been no bedroom for him he’d have been homeless at 20.
He also moved back temporarily once after renting a room in a shared house when it was sold and try as he might he couldn’t find anything within his notice period.
In this day and age it’s not uncommon for children to move out and struggle and need to come home.
He is nd and tries hard but having a room here as a safety net is important.
He is only renting a room now with a 6 month tenancy and can only hope it’s renewed after.
I moved back to my parents house several times too, before I had secure housing once after a job loss and once after an abusive marriage and was grateful to have somewhere to go, my parents owned their house but I think there are far too many young people who’d be vulnerable if their parents had to downsize the minute they moved out and would probably make them hesitant to try.