Council housing rents to be means tested?

[Triggles]

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/19/social-housing-income-cap-shapps

Apart from the source, ideas on this? (civilised please without all the benefits bashing, although I suppose that's probably being overly optimistic )

I can see the point where this might prompt those that can possibly afford it to buy their property, removing more council properties from being ultimately available.

They're saying it will help them allocate housing more efficiently, but I struggle to see how. I don't think the housing goes to the wealthy now anyway, they're too far down the list tbh. Isn't it just another expense to means test everyone?

That's either incredibly naive or just ridiculously stupid. I would think most people can correlate "not being able to pay higher rents" to "being evicted" eventually.

And this...

To some extent, I suppose, it is. But I think it just seems to be wandering into dangerous territory. Social housing already carries such a stigma for this now, won't this make it worse?? Will this lead to demonising all the "scroungers in social housing?"

I can't see a problem with means testing, except that I wouldn't trust our government and councils to do it properly and cost effectively. If they coudk manage to do that it woudo be a great idea.

It would mean that people who could afford to pay more would pay more, and they would lost the benefit of cheap rent (compared to market prices) when they don't actually need it and spend their extra income on nice holidays and cars instead.

I think its a BRILLIANT IDEA

I know a fair few people living in CH, their kids have left home and their incomes have gone up

why on earth should we subside their rent?

A fair way to handle it, and I think it should be less that £60K too

In what way do you subsidise it - if say it is a housing trust which is self financing and doesn't receive taxpayers money and where rents are set by the independent fair rent officer - even if they are below market rate?

It's so sad to see how many make their decisions based on "I can't, so why should they be able to?" God forbid someone else get something you don't have.

It's not about someone getting something that others don't have, it's based on need. Everyone has a need for housing and in theory, everyone has a right to social housing. But not everyone should have a right to cheaper than market value rent because not everyone needs it.

A couple of things - firstly market value in my area and a lot of central London is set by the property industry, who decided to market my area as buzzy and fashionable. An ordinary 3/4 bed terrace house in my area is now over £1million. In my day they were lived in by people with normal jobs, e.g. teachers, civil servants etc. Now they are owned by the very rich - people like David Cameron who lived in one of them until fairly recently. In this area it seems to be polarised between rich and people in social housing. There is no way the latter could afford a market rent. For a house at least £1000 per WEEK. Even for a modest flat it would be more than a lot of people earn even on a wage of £60k. There is also no way that a person on £60k with a family (most of the local social housing tenants) could afford to go into shared ownership or buy their property as they are priced out of the central London market. Social Housing tenants around here already get their rents assessed by a rent officer and for working people rents are already a substantial chunk of their monthly income. Market value is so artificially and outrageously high the figures are unreachable for most ordinary people.

I really think that areas work best when there is a mix of people. Frankly I think it was outrageous that so much social housing has been sold off which has led to so much pressure on the existing stocks. I also think that people have a moral right to expect to be housed in their own area, where their families and connections are. I do agree that social housing should go to those in need but in my area I would say that quite a lot of social housing tenants are from overseas recently and do not have a connection with the area going back years - I am not referring to people who have lived here 20 or 30 years, even 10, but people who have come here in the last couple of years and seem to by able to bypass everyone else.

I disagree that people should have a moral right to be housed in an area where they have connections just because they were lucky enough to get social housing. Plenty of people have no choice but to rent privately, and they have to live where that can afford to live. It's unfair that some people get to live where they choose to but other don't, you can't have two sets of rules for the same group of people, it's just wrong.

London is quite different from the rest of the country though and I do think something has to be done to enable people who work in London to stay in London. But if people don't work then there is no good reason why they should be entitled to stay in an expensive area when others who do work haveto live further out and pay transport costs out of their wages. Priority should always be given to those in work over those who have 'connections'.

I was talking about the people who do work and want to stay in the area but can't afford market rent in local housing which is what the original post was about. Social housing is not about luck but about need. When rents were low in this area 30 years ago, most privately rented places were really horrible and run down. One of the criteria of the local Housing Trusts in the past was a connection with the local area, living in unsuitable accommodation and inability to afford the open market. They also prioritised local people with kids. I think that should still be the case. Unfortunately there has been a influx of people into the local area over the last 15 years or so who are very poor and needy and because the council have sold a lot of their homes, the housing trusts have now taken up their role and mainly house according to need (normally people on a very low wage or benefits income), many of whom are economic migrants with no local connection.

But if they are working and can't afford to pay more then they won't have to pay more. That's the point of means testing, people pay what they can afford.

One of the criteria for social housing in the past may have been a connection to the area, and that should still apply, but only if a family is in work. When talking about London, I think we just have to accept that there are a lot of people and not enough space for them all, therefore priority has to be given to those people who contribute to London not just want to live in London.

I realise that there has been an influx of poorer people into London, but there is no reason why they need to be in London. There is space throughout the rest of the country and London has an unfair share of the burden.

Well I live in rural Bedfordshire and personally know of at least 2 households - not a big village either - where the joint income of the household is well over £100k per annum. These people moved into the houses at a time when they needed the help, fair enough, but their personal circumstances have changed over the years and now they're in a very different financial situation, so actually these people do exist!

The day Housing Benefit arrived, should have been the last day council tenancies existed. The continuation of both systems creates constant anomaly and injustice, and perpetuates underuse of housing, inappropriate housing, and inability to freely move home according to need.

(8 years to 20 years is the increased average in time for people to remain in one place, which is unlikely to be because more people, council or private tenants or owner occupiers, have no wish or need to move)

The existence of 'social' housing perpetuates lazy assumptions that everyone happily gets a mortgage or a council tenancy, so that's nice. If a few random people won't do either, they can satisfy their weird need by going and getting a private tenancy. So that is a neat three alternative solution for every possible situation. Job done.

There is an arguable case to suggest that an entirely different way to secure a roof over one's head is needed, urgently. The national housing stock is, in the ugly terms of the n.h.s., 'bed-blocked'.

People can need more disabled-access, and want a private garden, and want to live near to a supportive contact, and need to be near a bus stop, and need to be able to afford the upkeep of their home and still have enough for both heating and eating. Over a certain age they won't get a mortgage and won't get a private rental, since all landlords are chasing the same 'perfect' couple of young high earners.

But they won't get a council place either, (as illustrated by the nationally publicised Bournemouth Bus Shelter couple) even if they are in their 90's and in wheelchairs, if they are guilty of still having virtually any private assets remaining (even if it's just enough to pay for a couple of decent funerals). The savings ban applies even to those without a single penny of private pension.

It also bars them from having the means tested addition to bring the lowest state pension up to the minimum income level deemed by the state necessary to sustain life. They must, literally, eat into their pathetic remaining precious resources. The life-savings-punishment also means if they did get a private tenancy, they wouldn't get a penny of Housing Benefit.

Meanwhile, a woman who is entitled to claim free school meals, housing benefit, a priority place on a council housing list, and any means tested benefits she chooses, can be quietly enjoying an entirely unlimited amount of added income, provided it is in the form of a private allowance from her ex, labelled as child maintenance.

Meanwhile, too, as other posters say, Mr. Crowe and some M.Ps can sit in council houses at artificially low rents for life.

Old, unexamined assumptions and old unexamined systems are by definition unlikely to remain logical for a century. Council tenancy security of tenure for life plus artificially low rent, versus precarious, disastrously scarce and therefore costly private rentals, with risk of being on the street at no fault, on 8 week's notice, is no sense.

Simply ignoring the existence of groups of people who cannot get a mortgage or a private or a council tenancy will not make them cease to exist or cease to need a roof over their heads. But all supposed 'homeless' effort is aimed at visible street sleepers, a tiny minority.

I think having a mix of economic backgrounds is vital to stop estates being go-to areas. I don't think council houses should be sold off as they are needed so badly but I don't think they should be seem as only for the destitute.

I know in Hampstead there's a couple of small me as houses right by the station. I think if you go to live there you would have won the lottery lol!

@JanewaysBun I didn't know about Hampstead. I do know of other places where a half million pound house is the gift for qualifying to demand a council house p.d.q. (i.e. knowing how to work the system)

I come back to the fact there should not be any such thing as subsidised housing. There should only be temporarily subsidised private tenancies, through the means tested Housing Benefit system. The system does allow variation to let people pay higher rents in costly areas, though rightly, it is intended to curb absurdity.

The thing which seems unarguable is that the old socialist and charitable systems had certain things right. A large council estate was built, post war, including bungalows which people adored. Apparently, for the houses or the flats or the bungalows, people were required to first prove by references from previous landlords, employers, and local signatories of repute, that they would be "clean, decent, upright, prompt with rent payments, respectful of the neighbours and of the property".

This, presumably, was a relic from a similar system as far back as alms-houses, which persisted for the large charitable estates. The tenancy management could, and would, rigorously enforce the terms of occupancy, and not hesitate to evict, fast. By contrast, one or two anti-social occupants can wreck property, private or publicly owned, and can wreck the lives of hundreds of close neighbours who will live in fear for years.

When a thing is broke, fix it. Don't do more and more of the same, just because That's The Way Things Have Always Been Done

(There is an obvious way of making a blend of the intended advantages of private and publicly owned housing, suited above all to allowing socially cohesive neighbourliness by having a number of longer term residents, free of fear from anti social neighbours being left unmonitored, and free of fear of a swift eviction for no fault at all, plus the option to freely and quickly move, if life circumstances require it.)