To think an annual property tax is incredibly unfair?

[Itchthescratch]

I come from an area with low house prices. It is great! My friends can generally afford houses even with lower salaries as the earnings:house prices ratio is better. Rents are also lower so they have proportionately more disposable income.

I have moved to a more expensive area where house prices are higher and people have really had to push themselves to buy a property. Salaries are higher but not high enough to make up the difference. They have had to pay more stamp duty , pay more interest and have less disposable income each month.

I am really struggling to understand why my friends in the South should also automatically be paying more property tax under the new proposals being suggested by Burnham supporters? What is the justification? They would love to buy a large detached house for £300k like my friends from home but this isn't possible. It feels like they are being double penalised.

Just to add house prices haven't risen in real terms in the area in live in now for 20 years so the value of my friend's houses is simply money they have paid in.

Yes it’s a bit odd to say facts matter when it’s incorrect.

OK so facts are “red herrings” now. Renting a property at the level required to cover its costs is not a subsidy. Rents cover the costs of maintenance, administration and sometimes an element to contribute to repayment of any loans the landlord may have. The reason market rents, ie private rents are higher is because there’s a profit involved, whether that’s paying the landlord’s mortgage, generating an income or both.

It’s not incorrect.

A one off grant is a subsidy. People get things wrong, see maintained schools definition.

Just to hopefully put this crazy debate to bed, the national government has committed to spending £39 billion in grants over the next 10 years to build SH. This is the enormous scale of the subsidy, on top of other cheap government back credit sources and other measures that will assist in building SH. This £39 billion is coming from the taxpayer and yet you keep insisting it's not subsidised. What the hell are we paying it for then? If the model works without subsidy then let's redirect this money to defence or education.... Except I think you do know that the SH model depends on subsidy.

Thank you. Nuts debate indeed.

Yup. If that’s not a subsidy what’s it being spent on and why?

That £39 billion includes 120k affordable housing properties for shared and complete ownership. Are you now saying that the taxpayer is subsidising mortgage holders?

https://www.housing.org.uk/our-work/building-new-homes/the-social-and-affordable-homes-programme/

At least 60% will be for SH. The other 40% will have some element of subsidy but it won't be as high of a subsidy as those charging a social rent.

Misdirection again. If SH doesn't depend on subsidy then why do they need these grants? You have tried to wriggle around local ring fencing and affordable housing being included in targets and yet you have no answer for this.

The other 40% will have some element of subsidy but it won't be as high of a subsidy as those charging a social rent.

The article doesn’t say that.

The information is all readily available.

Lets rewind a few years.
The fairest form of local taxation is precisely that, per individual.

Known back then as the Community Charge a.k.a. 'Poll Tax'
Due to an agressive backlash, it was dropped. So we've continued with an inapproriate property tax with no relevance to the take up of services.

The derail about SH is daft. Always the way... "you are in SH so you get a free house"... it is bull.
SH rents etc washes its face.
DM has been in her council house for 40 years. In what way is she being subsidised? (she claims no benefits apart from state pension)

I think it is a good thing at billions are being invested in SH. We need more of it, and inthe long term, it will bring the welfare bill down.

Why would the government need to invest billions in SH if it genuinely washed its own face?

Do you agree we should be spending the billions elsewhere and let the SH pay for itself?

The existing SH washes its own face.
More money needs to be invested because their is a serious lack of SH.

But seriously, what do you have against SH in general? I get the feeling you are not for it at all.

Now there may be plans to introduce another inappropriate charge, where the Government effectively pretends you have sold your home every year and taxes you accordingly. Every single owned home, every single year.

😂😂😂. SH rents do not even touch the sides of the costs to pay for and maintain them. You are delusional.

But if SH washes it's face then it should be able to funded like any other housing. The cost of build and how it's funded is part of it being self sustaining. It's like someone giving you a mansion and you saying that you aren't being subsidised to live there because you're paying all the bills and for all the maintenance. The fact you haven't had to pay towards the mansion in the first place means you've been hugely subsidised and prevents it from being replicated at volume.

I'm not necessarily against SH but I think people living there should be paying towards local services they use. I also think this is especially true when it isn't means tested. 130,000 households earn over £70k and live in subsidised SH and under this proposed new policy won't pay anything towards local services. How is this fair or a good use of limited resources?

Of course they should

nothing against SH if it’s freely available to all those who want it. It’s unfair that some people in SH pay far less than market rate when others pay full market rate as SH is unavailable to them.

Nothing against SH it serves a role in society, as does private renting etc but it does attract tax payer money.

According to last year’s figures average SH rent is about £490 per month or £5880 per year. The average cost of maintaining a unit of SH including maintenance and repairs of the individual property, the common area and the management fees is estimated to be somewhere between £5K and £6K.

Rent is going up by 4.8% since these figures.

Social housing washes its own face.

And who’s paying for the actual building? That’s free of charge is it?!

This. If someone else pays for a new house it’s much easier to cover the yearly charge so it ‘washes its face’.

It is obvious that I was addressing your comment that ‘SH rents do not even touch the sides of the costs to pay for and maintain them. You are delusional.’

Various people are having a discussion, as yet unresolved, about what the contributions of government to the initial costs are. There is a complete absence of hard data, so claims mean nothing I have just shown that on average the ongoing costs are covered by rent.

Someone calling another MumsNetter delusional should at least provide data to back up her rudeness.