Limited council tenancies

[Biscuitscoco]

Council housing only for two years Guardian report

Surely this is wrong?

I would hope 2shoes that they would see that you still needed that house and you would continue to stay there.

Again, a good deal of council housing is not in good condition. It is common for tenants to put a lot of money into these homes to make them habitable.

But if you're only going to be there for 2 years, why bother? Just live there and do FA to it so it's in even worse shape when it's time for you to move on.

Surely they are talking about renewing every two years so if your circumstances haven't changed you just stay on. They aren't going to be chucking disabled people out of adapted accommodation.

It seems quite fair to me tbh as we are forced to rent privately due to an absence of social housing and have to renew every single year and pay £70 for the privilege. According to that article they will get six months notice which is a lot longer than we will get if our landlord decides to sell the house. It annoys me when I see a friend of mine in a council house twice the size of the one we rent, at a quarter of the rent. She and her partner both have good jobs as do her now grown children yet they get to stay there forever. They were even told they could buy it at £30,000 less than the market rate! No one can agree that is right surely?

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

and

"Again, a good deal of council housing is not in good condition. It is common for tenants to put a lot of money into these homes to make them habitable.

But if you're only going to be there for 2 years, why bother? Just live there and do FA to it so it's in even worse shape when it's time for you to move on."

So they want people to not choose benefits for life, but are making it harder rather than easier to get off benefits.

Bearing in mind how hard it is to get a council house right now, does anyone honestly believe that the "means testing" will only force out people who can definitely afford to live without state support? Or do you think, just maybe, it'll just mean more money going into HB.

Which is even more daft with their plans to match social housing rent to the local average. So the amount of HB they are paying will be going up anyway.

This isn't about saving the country money let's face it.

A lot of the people who post on MN wouldn't live on a council estate if you paid them

usual - you're right, I chose to come into the less secure private rental (with HB at the moment) rather than go on the soicla housing list - I would have been housed given my circumstances within around 6-12 monhts - but I didn't want to live on my own where they would have most likely offered me.

An area - which to rent privately only costs around £30-40 a month less than where I'm living now. And where I'm staying now is really rather "dull" in terms of things that involve the police (aside from exH' shenanigans in the next street....)

why not usualsuspect??!

I don't have a massive problem with this, the way things are at the moment is ridiculous with people having tenancys for life. If peoples circumstances have changed then why shouldn't they be assessed to see if they still need a council house.

well i have a HA house....i have spent LOADS on it....new interior doors,gutted the abandoned garden,tv aerial,wooden flooring,new sockets,outside taps etc,etc......so will they re-imburse tennants for any work done to improve the property?

it was a mess when i moved in. apparently woman before me had no interest in her surroundings. so it was let to me,as most are,with just the basics in working order.

if it were to be for just 2 years then i'd be inclined to do as the woman before me had,and just leave it......with 5 dc it would be wrecked if i didnt exercise control because i CARE about where i live....

"...so will they re-imburse tennants for any work done to improve the property?"

Wouldn't bet on it :(

i am getting worried.

we left our disbaled adapter property (council) as dh no longer needed it. 2 years ago we moved into a 3bed HA house.

we will soon have 5 children in this house and have been debating to go back on the list for a 4. but if that puts at the risk of having to move on after 2 years, then i would rather stay here and be overcrowded iyswim.

if i owned this place (no chance atm as dh stil lworking his way back up after being ill for 5yrs), then i could make a lot of changes to turn it into a 4bed easily by rejigging walls around and decreasiong some room sizes and increasing others.

we have put a lot of time and money into this house to make it home, as it was in a bit of a state when we moved in. like all the council/ha properties i have been in sadly.

It's stupid way of dealing with the chronic shortage of housing. Far more sensible to stop right to buy and link rents to income. Higher rents (And I don't mean stupidly high just more than than the current average rents) could go towards new social housing .

"if it were to be for just 2 years then i'd be inclined to do as the woman before me had,and just leave it......with 5 dc it would be wrecked if i didnt exercise control because i CARE about where i live...."

This is a genuine and not a leading question....

Private tenants, as a rule, look after their properties and they can get kicked out with far less notice than they're proposing for the changes to social tenancies.

So "no long term tenancy" does not mean "home not looked after".

Why would HA/Social tenants be any different? To me it seems rather demeaning to somehow say that if you've got social housing then you're somehow less capable of looking after it when compared to a private tenant.

However the issue about actual investments in the home, rather than general looking after, is different.

I'm only used to renting privately, do HAs generally put less effort into long term maintenance than private landlords?

generally badgerspaw, when you move into a rental property its clean, freshly decorated (e4ven if its magnolia), tidy with no repairs needed.

all the council/HA places i have been in have needed redecorating throughout, flooring put in, holes in walls filled in, a new toilet in this one, some have needed new doors. ALL have needed a full day or twos cleaning beforeyou can even move anything in.

"It's stupid way of dealing with the chronic shortage of housing."

I do think that there is a genuine issue with people being able to move up the property size ladder as they need more but never moving down as they need less.

To be blunt this was less of a problem in the golden years of social housing as older people didn't live as long as they do now. You'd retire and then die shortly after.

"Far more sensible to stop right to buy"

Agree.

Social housing should be there for social purposes and the good of society as a whole. It shouldn't be there to enrich an individual by depriving the state of another home.

"all the council/HA places i have been in have needed redecorating throughout"

Why is that though?

I agree with your statements about private rentals (well other than for one place I looked at when I was a student, but since then it's always been true) but why can't the HA's/Councils do the same? HAs in particular are basically private companies and they're in a much better position than private landlords as they don't face the huge costs of buying the home. Why are they so shoddy?

Maybe that's another condition of these changes, that the properties are in a decent state when a family moves in.

Agree with misdee - council/HA landlords aren't going to come round to fix the shower or put in a new carpet every few years either. If you know somewhere is temporary then you're not going to spend any money on carpets or keeping the kitchen nice, are you?

I support the coalition's proposals to end council tenancies for life but two years is ridiculous and, as others have pointed out, counter-productive. Five years minimum, ten years so that people can really find their feet if they are able, would be far, far fairer.

I'd disagree that HAs put in less effort than private landlords - there are often far stricter rules on maintenance than in the private sector.

A much better way would be to increase rents in line with your income - so by the time your household income is at, say £50k it's level with private rents. The extra profit could be used to build new social housing.

i dont know why badgerspaw, i have left each property in a better state than when i've moved in.

my faveourite room i had to redecortae was a barbiepink castle painted on the walls. badly. with chunks of wall missing. the wallpaper in every other room was peeling and nicotine stained. oooo it was stunning that place.

i take pride in where i live and try to make sure its homely and lovely.

They usually need re-decorating as

a) the keys thing (kitchens/bathroom) tend to be replaced on a rota basis.....which can be decades long (my brothers flat deparately needed a new kitchen and bathroom when he moved in about 13yrs ago..........they finally got round to do his block of flats earlier this year)

b) the council don't have the same obligations (it would appear) to keep a place in some form of decorative order

badgers......generally,private lets are made to look attractive to attract prospective tennants......whereas social housing is a case of you are lucky to get what you are given!!!

private lets....you maintain it
social housing.....you make it to a standard you can maintain first,at your own cost!!

Kitchen/bathroom rota is 20 years+ where I am! They won't replace them sooner even if they're falling apart.

Oh this is all a big mess isn't it?

Council housing for 2 or 5 years is wrong, on many accounts. How does that offer a family stability? Like Custy says, lots of people will not want to earn more for fear of losing their home and having to rent privately from ruthless landlords in the private sector who get away with all sorts of shit.

I know expat says the state of some council houses are terrible, I must say, that in my experience that boils down to some of the occupants of the houses and how they treat them. Gardens totally overgrown, piled with crap, toys everywhere, internal doors hanging off.

People need to know there family home is safe and secure for as long as they need it. But people need to take some pride in the house and the community it is part of.

ours have now stopped repairing fence panels,windows(except if a safety issue),gas fires if you have central heating (so i have to heat whole house as opposed to the one room we are in)kitchen cupboards and any lighting in the property.
its bare minimum now,so the houses fall into disrepair quicker.