The scandal of the state of private renting in the UK

[cruikshank]

Housing benefit going to private landlords costs the country £9.3 bn a year, yet 1 in 3 private rentals are substandard. Is this a natural consequence of turning over responsibility for the provision of shelter to a largely unregulated private market?

Article here: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/back-to-rising-damp-one-million-rented-homes-in-private-sector-are-substandard-9039201.html

I don't have to be charming Mintyy, I have to keep the mortgage paid on the flat till I can sell it and everytime the rent is late or unpaid means it has to come out my wages (of £600 a month) and out of my kids mouths. If you also read what I wrote in the first few lines I stated that HB is paid directly from LA to landlord where I am and unfortunately the only qualification you need to work for our LA is that you don't know your arse from your elbow, claims are delayed, buggered up, dates changed, things drop off their system for no flipping reason and take 7 weeks to put back on.

I have had bad paying tenants and bad HB tenants but more of the latter than the former . These are the two main reasons why I advertise as no DSS. I am not a BTL landlord or even a landlord by choice, we just cannot sell our flat because we would be in negative equity with it in the current market which leaves us no option but to rent our flat out. Either that or we have 2 adults, 4 kids, and a menagerie of animals in a 2 bedroom (of which one is a boxroom) flat.

HB is paid directly to landlord where you are? In England? Because LHA is always paid to the tenant unless it's unusual circumstances.

The little bit of HB I get goes straight to my Landlord. I am in England.

I am in social housing now though, does that make a difference?

Yes. Social housing is housing benefit which goes direct to landlord. Private rental is local housing allowance (called housing benefit colloquially) which is almost always paid direct to tenant.

It was the phrase "avoid like the plague" I objected to. That's not just a very nice way to talk about people is it?

Lally I apologise for the remark above It was a little below the belt.

But it wasnt any different to you treating HB claimants as one big homogenous mass.

Does a housing association count as a private landlord for the purposes of this?

I find it hard to believe that such a high percentage of HB goes to private individuals considering that so many say they don't take DSS.

Part of the reason for the housing crisis we have is that there are just too many people, and whereas once upon a time it was rare for people to live alone, now loads of people live alone, or as single parents to children. It all comes down to supply and demand, and demand has gone up while supply has gone down and that's why we have high house prices and high rents.

Well, the £9.3 billion amount comes from the govt's own figures. If you don't believe in it, take it up with them. Btw, in other news, the earth is round and the sun doesn't revolve around us.

I think left and right are meeting round the back to the same position on this thread. I would abolish housing benefit and others would ensure money does not go to landlords. We could ensure housing benefit only goes to local authorities rather than social housing, housing associations and private landlords. Local authorities could buy back houses from landlords or build more

Social housing is council or housing association owned. LHA is only paid to private rentals.
The supply/demand issue is not because of population and single households only, or even predominantly. Councils sold their housing to individuals who then introduced these properties to the open market. These properties were often bought by BTL landlords and speculators fuelled by the notion of property as cash cow. Not to mention speculators from abroad who buy property and leave it empty.

Greengrow, I actually feel a little ill that you would think I have any political ideals in common with you. I do think it outrageous that so much public money is going to private landlords, but I think the thing to do about that is to re-introduce rent caps and build more publicly owned housing, not to do away with housing benefit altogether. I also think that there needs to be proper regulation of landlords, including whether or not they are financially fit to be a landlord (my own runs a brothel and has a couple of IVAs to his name and yet he still owns a good chunk of the town including rentals to people on HB so whoopee for a good use of taxpayers' money).

In 1979 housing benefit was 12% of Government spending on housing and now it is more like 70%.

There was virtually no private letting when the rents acts were in force as tenants had security for life and some rent act rents for substantial properties were at levels like £10 per annum for life. Not surprisingly no private landlords would risk letting property so people tended to have to sleep on their parents' sofas or floors of friends or find the few Rachman like landlords who were happy to operate outside the law and council housing lists were 20 years long and more. That did not work either.

We could say we will n ot pay any housing benefit to people and all that is made available is properties owned directly by the local authority for those in very high need of housing and build more. That would solve the issue. I would couple that with a much lower benefits cap.

If there was adequate social housing the benefits cap COULD be lower. I bet the bulk of benefit is housing benefit...no figures as I haven't looked this up but it has to be a big proportion of benefits...especially for those forced into privately renting.

Until four years ago I only ever had a mortgage or privately rented and didn't need housing or any other benefit. Life changes sometimes and anyone can end up needing to claim housing or other benefits. I am now in social housing , but if I was still privately renting then the benefits I claimed would have been much higher as I was paying nearly £800 a month. Easy to see why the benefits cap is still so high.

Actually despite the benefits claimants bashing in the press it is the old we spend much more on than the unemployed or low paid but that never gets mentioned in the press.

We could have a massive social housing building programme with the properties owned by the local authority and only available for those on or under a certain salary (no homes for life, no 4 bed places with one OAP in them and no Bob Crows on £100k pa plus his partners wage in state subsidised housing).

Council housing isn't state subsidised though - it generates income through rent revenues. Payments to landlords such as you and your daughter in the form of HB - yes, that's a subsidy.

Council housing isn't subsidised, where did you get that idea?
It's just not based on profiteering. Benefits are subsidies, whether into social or private rentals.

Payments don't go to landlords.

HB payments go to people who can't afford their own housing without it.

Indeed and as I said above my daughter's tenants don't claim benefits.
I saw this week loads of old mental hospitals owned by the state are empty, lovely Victorian buildings also 17% of NHS land is empty. So surely we could build homes there.

If local councils make a profit from letting directly owned properties to those on benefits (which I very much doubt) presumably they would be clamouring to build more.

If local councils make a profit from letting directly owned properties to those on benefits (which I very much doubt) presumably they would be clamouring to build more

In most cases they are prohibited from building more! They are prohibited from borrowing to build properties. Without borrowing funds they cannot build. Caps on borrowing have been in place for years, a deliberate move to stymie council housing and urban expansion. When houses are sold under right to buy councils are also prohibited from using the funds to buy new properties.

I would start by making it illegal to let unless the landlord was registered. LLs could avoid this by using a proper regulated (eg ARLA) agency to let their property, or they could have a personal registration which would come with a shedload of inspections.

They will whine about cost but actually this is often about tax evasion. Dodgy LLs often dont declare their tax, whereas if you use a ARLA agent they disclose the rental income to HMRC.

I would also personally raise both the minimum wage and the tax free personal allowance, and then restrict the rise in HB, so that individual working families dont lose out during the transition, but the money isnt linked to housing costs specifically.

I am sceptical how much HB actually pushes rents up. It seems to me that it is more about housing shortages and unaffordability. So I would build far more social housing, much of it for the elderly, because that would free up housing stock- and let's face it, renting is the rational thing to do when you are elderly, if your pension covers the cost and you can trust the LL. That way, if your needs change, you can move; also also, when you die, your pension dies with you and so does the rental commitment; but your kids have had the benefit of your capital for several years. (Obviously it has to work for a surviving spouse).

As for local councils being prohibited from borrowing more: this is now a national issue, not a local one, so there should be a national funding scheme for it. Borrowing can be done by the Treasury and funded by reductions in HB.

I would also have government backed 40-year mortgages with nil deposits, and ppl can choose to claim HB or to be covered by the scheme. The cost of insuring against default would probably be less than paying HB.

Me for president

I think most landlords would be happy to be registered, as long as they were given some protection in law when they are stolen from when tenants don't pay, and if the law was on their side when tenants criminally damage their properties.

I wouldn't have a problem with being registered and paying whatever it costs to administer that, but like any other business, I'd expect help from the police when I'm a victim of criminals.

Yes, social housing rents and the rents some councils (in London anyway) will pay for flats is probably the prime reason I and my daughter and many others would not even consider HB people because the market rent, the amount which pays the landlord's mortgage, is sometimes double the non market rent the council will pay tenants under HB. That means flats in London can be way out of reach of anyone on HB.

That will not be the case all over the country however.

Lots of landlords do not make much or any profit so tax is not really an issue. They do pay capital gains tax at 28% on any rise in value (unless like me they sell at a loss - I have loads of capital losses to use and no capital gains to set them against - I am obviously the worst property investor in the country!). Those very few landlords without a mortgage (mortgages and your insurance usually prohibit you from letting to HB tenants too) of course might well make a profit and most of them do pay tax on that at 40% or more in addition to the 28% capital gains tax when they sell the place.

WooWooOwl is right, there are duties on both sides. I would expect a good agency to do a good job on references, deposits and if necessary evictions.

People think being a LI is a way to get free money. They put their money in property, rather than a building society, because the returns are better. They don't seem to realise they have to actually do stuff to earn the dosh. My Sil was complaining to me that on the flat she owns and rents out, she only gets about half of the rent money, as the rest goes on fees, insurance, repairs etc. But actually, for a small business (I used to have one, and it didn't fail, I sold it) getting to keep 50 % of your turnover is very good! Another friend, also an amateur landlady was complaint her tenants hadn't re grouted the shower. .well, no they were paying 8 a year for someone else to take care of that.
Also, landlords don't seem to grasp the concept of wear and tear. There is VERY little allowed, and you DO lose money off the deposit with every move, because they do not, will not, shell out to maintain their property.
And yet they are being subsidised by the state. What can be done is more like what shouldn't have been done. Thatcher shouldn't have sold off the social housing and forbidden councils from re investing the money in housing. Super rich foreign nationals should not be able to use the UK as a tax haven, helping to jack up house prices in London to insane levels. No one should have been able to get a buy to let mortgage with no deposit. Intrest rates should not have been kept so low. Now we need rent control, we need living wages, we need more new social housing. And we need these things now, because housing is a genuine crisis in the UK.

" No homes for life" greengrow?

I could actually cry reading that. That's the solution is it? More Insecurity for families. Fewer roots. Not knowing where you are going to be moved to? Great, do that, then wail about how noone has any community feeling anymore. We need fewer "properties" and more real homes. If I live in a council house for 60 years at 400 a month, how much will I have paid to live there until I die? Work it out. I deserve to die in my Home if I choose, before freeing my house up for another family to call home.