If I want a council house...

[madamez]

because I can't see myself ever earning a huge income even if I went back to work fulltime, and because I would like to live somewhere we are not at risk of being evicted with a couple of months notice at any time, and I would like a place that feels like I can redecorate or change things or put shelves up if I want to, etc etc etc....

But do you have to be absolutely homeless to qualify even to go on the waiting list?

I put my 73 yo disabled mother on the waiting list for sheltered accomodation. She's renting currently off a private landlord but it isn't suitable and she needs a warden. She doesn't have enough fraking points despite being old and disabled.
I'm tearing my hair out.

I was told by my council not to even bother going on the list since I was so low-priority, my baby would be earning before I'd get anywhere. Ironically, if my parents hadn't stepped in to offer us a home, we'd have stood a better chance of being housed (albeit probably in B & Bs). Once I'd moved back, the window of opportunity had closed since I'd be deemed making myself deliberately homeless. Grrr.

Just a bit of useless information - I haven't read the whole thread but you mentioned not having a deposit. My friend rents privately and the company offer an alternative to a deposit. They get insurance which they would add onto the rent (I think it was £9 per week and the rent is about £500 a month) to cover the same eventualities as the deposit would. They said she could pay it like this until she could save up a deposit.

Sherby the will always try to get rid of you in many cases they know it works!

I have fought them for 1 & a half years now & yes you know what they will have got rid of me soon to, only reason being is because of my kids, my kids need stability & living the way we are is not stable, we are going to do it ourselves, yes we will struggle but if it makes me kids happy & stable thats all that matters.

You know when i contacted them about being evicted as landlord wanted his house back as he wanted to live there the bidding system was not in place i contacted them around the may, the bidding system came into effect from september 11th or something BUT because are eviction notcie ended on october 1st we had to go through this sodding bidding system.

My friend was in the same postion but had to move by the july (her parents evicted her) she had to stay in a B&B for 14 days then got a lovely 2 bedroom house with a massive garden she did not have her baby till dec so no kids.

We were unlucky but hopefully what we are about to do is going to pay off anyway

There aren't enough sheltered housing schemes either, good point needmorecoffee.
There are so many large 3 and 4 bedroom houses in my area with old ladies rattling around in them that it's painful, one of them being my stubborn aunt who is in her sixties, fit and healthy but won't leave her 4 bedroom house which has been modernised and had disabled facilities fitted throughout, despite being offered money to move out by the council.
There are so many older people on the exchange lists wanting bungalows and disabled facilities etc but there aren't any.

madames - Just had a thought do you get housing benefit now at all?

If so contact the council speak to housing options tell them you think your going to get evicted & you don't have a deposit for a new place they will pay the depopsit for you & sometimes the 1st months rent.

HTH

same where i live lots of elderly in big council homes... i visit them for my job... i would love there homes.. but it is there home and they dont want to move... i just wonder why they or there family have never bought the houses >>> not that i agree with buying council houses... this is where the lack of houses stems from, but who wouldnt jump at chance of cheap house....

Not all councils houses you can buy, alot of them don't have a chance to buy only some have the right to buy.

My Nan had to give up her council house when my uncle left home - this was way back in the 70s. She was lucky - there was some kind of incentive scheme with a country council so she swopped her council house in a London Borough (which was new when she had it) for a new-build council house in the country which was very countrified then. It's more built up now, obviously. The idea was to free up bigger family houses for people who actually needed them (as well as neatly decanting an ageing population onto another council to deal with). Nice work if you can get it . I htink it's shame elderly people sit on properties but if it's been their home for 30, 40 or 50 years it must be hard to upsticks.

FWIW, my grandparents had the chance to buy their council but opted not to. My family went mad when they found out. It's worth an absolute packet now.

i didnt realise that thought you coudl buy all council homes> learnt something

It depends what political party controls the council as much as anything - Tories flogged off loads of council stock in the 70s/80s but Labour tended to hang onto them.

There's an awful lot of councils with housing stock they've 'forgotten' about or just plain neglected though .

If you live where i do, you have to be either vastly overcrowded (and i mean three to each bedroom) or homeless i think. Or not speak the language, or have absolutely not a penny in savings (reducing chances of finding privately rented housing).

Or just lie like hell on the application form and hope they don't check.

Like that woman who applied for CB or something for six kids over a couple of years and then got caught?

I hate to be picky,but surely the OP should be.... If I need a council house.

Surely there has to be an element of needing ( check lists, points etc,) not wanting

I think she went over the top since there must be some checks made, esp for so many children on her application. It's going to stand out a bit, isn't it!!

Cracking idea BW

Or just lie like hell on the application form and hope they don't check.

Lets increase everyone elses tax bills.

Nah, it wasn't for council housing she was doing it, anyway, i was just being annoying (as usual). She was claiming the Child Benefits for six kids. I think she had two, but this is another 'DH said...' situation which i can neither back up, nor can really be bothered to do so!

Brie - I was being facetious!! sorry if you thought I really meant it. I pay my taxes same as everyone else and I certainly don't get help from my council.

BW

Sorry if I misread your post, but the sense of entitlement in this country these days really bothers me.

I spoke to a woman at the gym last night, her husband left her with a toddler and an eight month old, way back in 1900 and frozen to death.(About 1960 iirc) In those days, she would not have received half if even quarter of the money claimants receive these days.

She is really proud, that she did not beg/request from the state. She said and I quote "I got on with it, I did not expect to be spoonfed"

Too many benefits handed out too easily these days IMO.

madamez,

i was on croydon housing list a few years ago, we were at around 1800 in band 2 (not homeless but overcrowded) over nearly 2.6yrs we moved up 200 places!

i doubt unless you are made homeless that you will get anywhere in croydon.

i also have a friend who had a newborn baby and was homeless, she had to stay in b+b for over 2 years before she got a flat!

have you looked into housing associations?

luckily we managed to get a part buy part rent, although now dh is gone its harder to afford, but im not risking the roof over my kids heads just so i can have more spare money!

Brie: Well I said 'want' as I could probably (with huge amounts of help from family, friends, someone acting as guarantor for rent etc) get another privately rented house if landlord gives me notice to leave this one, but would like to live somewhere that I couldn't be kicked out of at 2 months notice etc. And I don't expect to be spoonfed: I'm self-employed, doing about a dozen different things which are unfortunately not providing me with much of an income; now that DS is 3 and gets his nursery place funded I am jobhunting, but that's not going to be too easy as I don't know where we are going to be living in a couple of months' time...

I leftHousing after 20 years recently, due to medical retirement, and the recent posts just reinforce to me that little changes. There never was a golden age. 20 years ago people were still in need and were homeless. Yes, legislation and housing proceedures change but it is still possible for councils to interpret homeless legislation differently (Liverpool, where I worked, has always been relatively reasonable about interpretation whereas areas of great demand, such as many London areas, were often stricted about interpretation, obviously because of the longer waiting list). Even with bidding systems there are still higher categories within these systems to accomodate homelessness and harassment. I am glad I am out but there are many working in housing who do sympathise but cannot produce the fabled 3 0r 4bed gardened houses near good schools that "my sisters friend got after 4 weeks on the list". Yes, some people lie very well and cover their lies with paperwork to support it (some are experts) but most such stories are urban legends.

I work for my local council. Here are a few points that may interest you...

Only 78 councils still own Housing stock. Croydon is one of them and is one of very few councils still building houses.

The government doesn't like councils owning Housing - every few years tenants are given the chance to vote whether to stay with the council or have all the property transferred to a Housing Association. This is called a 'Stock Options Appraisal'.

If tenants vote against transfer then the council will still be forced to re-examine the issue 2 or 3 years later. Even if - as in where I work - it costs a load of money and over 90% of the tenants who voted wanted to stay with the council.

Where I work 60p in every £ paid in rent is taken away from our tenants and used to subsidise inner city areas.

If the tenants vote for stock transfer then all the rent is ploughed back into local housing. This would mean, for example, that every tenant could have a new kitchen and bathroom the first year. The downside of this is that Housing Association tenants do not have the same right to buy etc.

You can usually buy your Council property once you have lived there for 2 years. However - the government forces councils to cap the discount. So where I live & work the discount is capped at £34,000 even though the average 3-bed terraced council house could be worth about £220K. Still quite an attractive discount but most council tenants can't afford it. I think last year the number of houses sold was in single figures, despite the fact that we manage 10,600 properties.

In fact at the moment it's probably a good thing that properties aren't being sold as the council can't build any new ones with the money.

Instead they are giving land to Housing Associations for development in return for the right to allocate some of the tenancies from our Housing Needs Register.

We have over 3,000 waiting for housing and the Borough's target for affordable units to be built in the area is 100 per year.