How can the government get away with doing this to renters?

[winterwonder1]

So housing benefit if being frozen next year - yet rents are rocketing (because of the increased pressures on BTL taxation and mortgages, among other issues). Surely vulnerable people will become homeless because of this?

Housing benefit payments to be frozen again in 2025 | Kidderminster Shuttle

Because a large part of that rental income is coming from Housing Benefit.
The flow of cash is from taxpayers to government to benefits to landlords, i.e. the developers, investors, pension funds, etc., including foreign funds and even foreign governments.
Money is thus going from the taxpayers out of the country, with no benefit to the UK. (Same with foreign owned utilities).
Even if ownership was restricted to only UK owned and UK based investors, it would still be a flow of money from taxpayers to investors.

This has to stop. Housing Benefit should be a tiny, tiny portion of what it is now, through a combination of house prices (and thus rents) falling and wages rising, so that the vast majority of renters never need to claim it.

Most landlords can’t afford to be landlords they just want to pretend they are rich.

You couldn't.

It's been foreseeable for years that we were letting housing get too dependant on private lets. We need a massive building programme for social housing but no political party has a plan to deliver it.

Money is thus going from the taxpayers out of the country, with no benefit to the U.K.

But there is a benefit to the U.K as it's generating a return for pension funds. Where do you think pension assets are invested? In providers such as Aviva, L&G and BlackRock which invest those assets to make a return for U.K. pensioners (and indeed investors in ISAs etc). It's also providing a source of funding for U.K. developers.

If you want to extend the argument, what about tax relief provided on pensions invested in US assets? The S&P 500 has delivered some stellar returns in the last two years if any UK investors have put that in their pensions but it's also outside the UK (and domestic ownership of U.K. shares is at a historic low).

Chasing out institutional pension funds or private landlords will have the reverse effect on rental prices. Building more social housing and reviewing eligibility for council homes would be more effective.

There are many reasons for the housing shortage and we can't keep blaming everything on Thatcher given that she left office in 1990.

Off the top of my head I can think of the following:

• increase in population;
• increase in single parent families, which mean that many families need two houses/flats rather than just one;
• increase in student population - in some cities many former family houses have been converted to houses of multiple occupation for students;
• the fact that short-term rentals using eg AirBnB are now far more attractive to (and lucrative for) for landlords than long-term lets;
• increase in number of people with second homes;
• house builders not building the houses they have planning permission for
• lots of family sized houses (privately owned as well as council) being under-occupied because existing owners/tenants do not want to move out to smaller accommodation - either because they cannot find anything suitable, or because moving house is so expensive, or simply because they have an emotional attachment to their home.

Moving house has become ridiculously expensive

I can’t say anything for the other countries but rent controls in Germany are easily circumvented by giving notice for ‘self-use’. There are zero checks on who goes to live in a property at a much higher rent once the previous tenant has been evicted.

The government has increased tax on private landlords and interest rate increases have increased mortgages. This means that the cost of renting properties is increasing. If the taxpayer won't meet the cost, then the renter themselves will have to.

Many landlords are already selling up as btl is not worth the hassle. Ultimately the only way to tackle the housing crisis is to build far more housing.

The problem is that social housing is often very expensive to provide. That's why a lot of it has effectively been privatised. Councils and housing associations pay a lot more to build and maintain housing than the private sector. The public sector are inefficient at maintenance and management of housing.

There's a dearth of social housing and the only real solution is to increase the build and availability of social housing. I understand there's no financial incentive or positive financial advantage to any Government in doing this, so they simply won't do it. I recall working for Local Government when there was what I saw as a sea change towards a mentality which was ' how can we make money here, save money here, who gives a shite about societal need '.

The situation is hideous. When I was a hard working, high tax paying contributor to society, I would have been incredibly supportive of my tax contributions supporting a better social housing system for people. A basic shelter over ones head should not be such an out of reach luxury in a society like ours.

I now feel so incredibly lucky to have been able to secure a HA home when my life situation changed dramatically and I was living in perpetual fear within a horrible private rental sector.

Landlords can refuse to rent to people on benefits. In reality there is such a high demand that landlord's can have stringent credit checks etc. more regulations and taxes on landlords is making things worse and property more scarce. The only thing to do is encourage more building of all types of housing

Yes and there was very very little private rented accommodation available as a result

What is needed is time travel to stop Thatcher selling off council houses.
Not a practical suggestion of course but I think that people need to remember the root cause of the housing crisis.

How does blaming a dead woman fix anything

Aye, and plenty are sadly struggling. The issue is sky high rents, not that housing benefit isn't rising. I doubt the gov will do much to address it though.

If I need to rent somewhere for a period of time, perhaps because of work, why should I have to rent it from a social housing organisation? I think I’d want a better quality accommodation than that! Furthermore, why should the taxpayer subsidise my accommodation, if I’m capable of paying the market rent myself? When working I’ve lived in many countries, and counties, and often rented apartments / houses while doing so. They have all (Europe, US, UK, Asia, Africa) been from private landlords - either individuals or companies.

No, what was needed was the government and councils reinvesting the proceeds of sales into new, better quality social housing. The thatcher government prevented this, but there was nothing stopping the Bliar and subsequent governments changing that. They didn’t though, and had 30 years to do so. Indeed, Cherie Blair got grief at the time for having a buy to let property!!

Surely a fridge is essential? I have a rental property and have always replaced white goods as quickly as possible. I've spent more on fridges, ovens and washing machines for my tenants than I have for myself. I can't imagine refusing to replace white goods and my letting agent wouldn't be very impressed with me either.

We had to buy our own fridge and freezer but dishwasher included and when it broke he replaced it. We have mostly had our own washing machine but that’s usually what I want.

@Tryingtokeepgoing Because some of us are in position in which we have no choice but to privately rent long-term? 10 years for us and counting...

We do need more social housing but it's not always very cheap. I can't claim housing benefit, because of my pensions, and I'm paying £900 a month for a two bed flat. (London/Kent borders). A very nice flat, but not that cheap for social housing.😗

£900 for a very nice two bed flat on London / Kent border is very cheap!

I have a very small but perfect for me HA property. The rent is very close to what I paid in the private sector and I don't have Housing Benefit. The security however means everything.

Is there money to be made or savings to be made by Government investing in more social housing. It sickens me to hear of landlord portfolios. Of course you can't blame a decent fair individual who wants to capitalise, rather, I again blame the Government for not regulating, for not building social housing.

I think it's important to remember what a twat Margaret Thatcher was personally, particularly with regards to selling off council properties.

I’ve never rented anywhere that has white goods included.

Whats wrong with landlords using it as a business?

And the NHS and public services are classic examples of the tax payer paying over the odds because 'business model'

Yet again, outsourcing public needs is costing the tax payer and not servicing the public.

Housing should be a healthy mixture of social housing (HA and LA), private rentals and home ownership. AT the moment there is scant social housing and its been decimated for decades.