Limited council tenancies

[Biscuitscoco]

Council housing only for two years Guardian report

Surely this is wrong?

Its very wrong

Anything to enrich BTL landlords after cutting HB.

Sorry, but I think it's ridiculous. So they get into a property, set up their life (job, school for their children, surgery, transportation sorted for all of that) and then the council decides two years later "okay we're going to evict you and you'll need to start all over again." Which could mean that while they were financially coming up, it might drop them right back down again, depending on whether or not they can find affordable and suitable housing nearby. In the meantime, they'll end up on the bottom of the council list again soon, as they will probably end up financially worse off and the cycle means they will just keep spiralling down and down.....

Yes Triggles that just about sums it up

How can people make a home if they can be moved out after such a short time?

All very well if housing was affordable and people could buy, but this just means tenants in the rental sector will feel even more precarious and subject to whims of private landlords.

Of course, none of them has any idea about the state of most council homes when you get them. How many tenants have to spend wodges of cash just to make them habitable. In many, there is not a single shelf to put anything on, no white goods, no furnishings at all whatsoever (including curtains, light bulbs or light fixtures), floor coverings of any sort, etc.

Bunch of wankers.

I think it makes sense. If you enter a tenancy agreement knowing that it is finite then you can plan accordingly. If, after a fixed length of time, your circumstances haven't changed then you would stay put. If your circumstances have changed then your needs would be reassessed. That could just as easily mean being moved on to a bigger house because your family has grown as it could mean downsizing to a smaller one, moving on into private rental or even home ownership.

So if you want to keep your home, make sure you don't get a job.

Genius - what a great way to build communities.

How about we BUILD MORE FUCKING SOCIAL HOUSING instead

They will have to be employing more public sector workers though to do all this 'checking'.

I thought they wanted to get rid of half of them.

Maybe 'Big Society' volunteers will means test and evictkindly assess the council tenants?

On the one hand surely it's wrong that once someone gets a Council Tenancy they have it for life, indeed for longer than life as they can pass it on to their children? We have families rammed into homes that are two small while older people rattle around huge four bedroom houses, I've seen a number where they just live downstairs and the upstairs rooms were left empty.

However on the other perhaps the two year limits it too short, wasn't five the number originally discussed?

One thing they will pull with this is that people without social housing are used to this kind of insecurity and short term tenancies. At one point it will be said that why should private tenants who live like that anyway pay taxes to give people a more secure tenancy at a lower rent than they could ever get?

I'm not sure that I totally agree with that, but it will be rolled out to get public support for this.

"How about we BUILD MORE FUCKING SOCIAL HOUSING instead"

That would be a genuine help, that and not having sold it off in the first place...

so basically you could end up with a more "secure" (obviously not tenancy terms - but in length you can stay there - many people do stay in their privately rented homes a long time) tenncy by renting privately.

I wonder what the "level" will be that they dcide you don't need social housing......I can quite imagine this costing them more if (when) they dont think it through and realise that many of those people that are "financially better off" could probably well end up claiming housing benefit for their private rental........

what i want to know is about this means testing.

are they suggesting that social housing should only be for benefit claimants?

let me think, if i was a benefit claimant, and i got offerend a job, imporved my circumstnaces to a point where i was working at sainsburies 40hrs a week, and the only help i recieved was WTC. i am them assessed. and the assessor says that i now earn enough to rent privately and i must move.

i think i might not take that job for fear of losing my home.

ridiculous.

i do think that people shouldnt have lifetime tenancies, i do know that in brighton and london for instance, we have some rich people in social housing properties, famous people sometimes!

if you can afford your own yacht at brighton marina, if you ring in informing the housing association ( as is the required policy) informing them that you are visiting australia for 3 months. then yes, the likley hood would be that you are earning too much

i think if you have a joint family income of over 50k thats a decent threshhold.

there currently ( asfar as i am aware) isn't a threshhold.

i also think that there are an awful lot of people who live inproperties for 20 years - their kids move out and they have a three bed house.

i think its right to move them to a more appropriate property and the LAW does allow for housing assoications to do this.

it isn't implimented becuase its seen as rotten practice - no one in the sector does it and as a soical landlord - you would look like a complete teat if you did. so changing this culture is appropriate and there should even be regulation and perfomance indicators maybe to enable and force housing associations to look at this.

i dont think council or social housing should be for life, but it has to enable you to make a life and to support you if you are working poor.

"the priority should be to improve security of tenure for all tenants, private and council"

If you restrict the ability of private landlords to let short terms, what I presume you mean by "improve security" then you will drive some private landlords away from the market.

So there will be less properties for people to rent which will drive up prices as people compete for those that are left. But at the same time you might see a drop in house prices as landlords either sell up or stop chasing new properties.

The housing market is complicated and Government tinkering in it can result in all sorts of unwanted side effects...

Exactly if its choice between keeping your home and earning more money I know what I would do

BadgersPaws - social housing tenants pay taxes too. Social housing isn't subsidised by tax payers - rents cover upkeep etc. If anything tax payers subsidise private landlords' mortgages through housing benefit.

don't forget Custardo - you could well be working full time - but you could also still be eligble for LHA in the private sector.

I agree that there should be some sort of limit on it and testing (like in the circumstances you describe) - but setting a 2yr limit...I think it's too short and it'll either increase the number of people reluctant to find work, or completely tear communities apart as the "working folk" are kicked out to greener pastures - leaving only the lazy (tongue in cheek) poor people left in the area.

BadgerPaws - I believe that renting on the continent is

a) much more common

b) much more secure - with longer tenancies and more protection for the tenant.

It seems to work there - although I know very little about it.

"Social housing isn't subsidised by tax payers - rents cover upkeep etc"

But it doesn't have to cover the actual provision of the property itself.

Genuine Council Houses are built with public money.

Housing Association Properties can be built with a grant from the Government.

So either way public money allows the property to come into existance without there being a big mortgage against it, which is what in turn allows the rent to be lower than market rates.

And that is a subsidy.

Which, by the way, is in my opinion perfectly right and proper. We should be subsiding social housing.

"BadgerPaws - I believe that renting on the continent is"

True and the market has settled around how it is over there.

Right now the market over here is settled around another set of arrangements. To shift from one settled position to the other isn't simple and might have many nasty side effects, such as the aforementioned higher rents as private landlord abandon the market.

It's crazy - will fracture communities and provide a disincentive to work.

What would be better would be to have variable rents so that once you reached a certain income threshold you were paying a market rent. Invest in building more social housing with a view to returning HB claimants to state owned properties so that as circumstances improve and rents increase they can be reinvested in building more social housing.

School problems cited by Ofsted often include a transient roll, with lots of pupils moving - this policy of 2 years in a council property would make this more likely.

Lily - that would be a LOT of social housing that would have to be built if you want to return all HB claimants to state owned properties. An awful lot of working people claim housing benefit too. So you'd need to build for those and the people that currently need somewhere to live!!

An what happens if you lose your job/have your hours cut and have been previously paying your (private) rent without any housing benefit - do you then have to move?

The bottom line is that there is a shortage of social housing. So they either need to invest in more or restrict the use of the limited stock already in place.
I think it is a good idea to regularly re assess the needs of people every 3-5 yrs say to make sure the house still meets their needs. I would hope that the thresholds for asking people to move on would be realistic and sympathetic to their needs. I think just because someone has gone back to work shouldn't mean they would have to leave social housing. Income thresholds need to set at a level that is not going to put people off trying to earn a decent living.

i wonder how it will affect people who are in a situation like us.
we had our "own" house but it couldn't be adapted for dd, so we were move into a HA house, the house has full disabled access, and dd will most likely need it forever.
now this new thing won't affect us as it affects new tenants.
but very few if any disabled access houses are being built, so imagine you finally get one, would you still be moved on after 2 years......and if so where?