Goodbye Spongers!

[ShakesPear]

Anyone else thrilled that the family on benefits living in a £12,000 pcm in London house paid by us will no longer be getting that benefit?

In fact I wonder if the cap on unemployment benefit is to high!

Whomovedmychocolate

I'm insulting myself then since I'm a landlord aswell!

I'm an Aussie and rent out my house over there. The problem is both countries suffer from a fanaticism about owning property and that "higher house prices" = GOOD and "lower house prices" = BAD. If the UK doesn't wean itself of the addiction then I don't see how the children of today will get get out of the debt trap we are in.

Ah now you see I agree with that Siasi. Frankly I think the housing market needs to wipe 30% off everyone's houses and start again and it'd be hunky dory. But right now it's la la land.

In terms of rental higher housing prices are not necessarily the problem. A lot of the people who rent would probably never buy anyway, and not just because of high house prices, but because they do not have a high enough or reliable enough long term income to do so, or do not wish to.

In a lot of European countries there is not such an obsession with being an owner occupier and it works. We've just failed to learn how to do it over here.

whomovedmychocolate, of course HB landlords are not necessarily rogues - I should think a very small minority are. But the fact remains that they do get their mortgages paid by the state and are thus the real beneficiaries of the housing benefit system, and it seems to me that if you are going to vilify the tenants you should vilify the landlords too. Of course you shouldn't do either, but it is absurd and wasteful that the state should be paying their mortgages, and is a key part of the picture of wild and damaging house price inflation that we have seen over the last 15 years.

Siasl, I think it's a bad situation too, but come on and tell us how it would work in practical terms.

Like this?

"Kids, Daddy lost his job today. Wrap up warmly as we have to go live on the street in some other area that has low rents until we can get a flat there. We can't stay in this area as we count as 'poor' now"

"we can't justify paying £60000/year for one family"

Well we can justify that much for MPs families.

ZephirineDrouhin - but they'd get their mortgages paid by private tenants too!!!!

I don't villify the tenants - there's bog all wrong with being poor.

Are you saying that there should be some sort of housing grab where houses are co-opted into government control because the general public don't want to pay for private owners to have the cost of supplying the houses covered?

I believe that's called adverse possession and I can't see any landlord continuing to rent property again if that happened. They'd just dispose of them and then where are you proposing to put all the tenants?

Won't the fact that "poorer" people will have to move out of London and other expensive cities just make the gap between those cities and the rest of the Country even wider?? WHat about all those who provide public services to the rich folk living in London - will we just bus them in daily from the slums?

No of course not lal123, we'll keep a few in the cellars to make up the beds obviously

Onagar

I'm not talking about chucking people out on the street. They clearly need alternative cheaper accomodation. But benefits is about providing a minimum safety net, not comfort or an ideal lifestyle.

People seem to forget that the money for these benefits comes out of somebody else's pocket. The whole of the public sector comes out of the private sector's pocket. The more the company has to pay the workers the less competitive they are and the more chance they go bankrupt or offshore all the jobs.

How on earth did you come to that conclusion from my posts, whomovedmychocolate? That's just bizarre. Rent capping might be an idea though.

well, yes, lal123. But even those slums are expensive.

Round my way, (London overspill) it's all 'luxury apartments' as far as the eye can see - even the flats build practically on top of the railway line. And they are all cost a fortune, as lots of people moved out of London during the recession to somewhere more 'affordable', with the result that there also aren't enough school places to go round.

I think Gideon's going to tell us he means 'floating hulks' and to rejoice because it will bring shipbuilding back to Tyneside, or some such. Or perhaps the prisoners will build them...

It's a good question lal. I don't think anyone has an answer yet, although sadly I think whomovedmychocolate's response might end up being closest to the truth

Rent capping would just create another artificial market ... not what you want at all.

What is rally needed is somebody to slay NIMBYism and dispose of all the red tape associated with planning appplications/approvals for new houses. There's plenty of space but you can't build there because it greenbelt or the local baby boomers object to it ruining their idyllic village.

Perhaps then we could try building houses (I mean family houses not more crappy flats).

This is an interesting question and long overdue. My understanding is that most people are in favour of the £25k benefits cap...but I really feel it does not go far enough and the coalition should use this opportunity to really grapple with an out of control system. One of largest costs in terms of benefit payments is housing benefit. Therefore, to mitigate the cost to the taxpayer I propose the Coalition should introduce a licencing scheme to have children. I understand a similar scheme has been piloted in Austria. So, how would it be implemented? Well, from birth your fertility would be 'frozen' i.e. your capability of producing offspring would be severely restricted by the use of drugs at the same time you are given vitamin K at birth, but, for the purposes of recreation, you would still be able to mate with your partner (or anyone/species) but of course you would not be able to produce children. However, should you wish to have children you would need to apply to a panel of experts, such as but not limited to, doctors, social workers etc.. you get the picture. The panel's decision based upon your suitability to raise effective (not defective) future UK Citizens would then lead to your fertility being reinstated. This is a draft and I still have much more detail to thrash out in the bierkeller......

Which response. I'm being a bit devilish tonight (you'd be amazed to know what I really think)

There is an easy solution actually. We raise the value of ALL homes to the point that only the top 20% of earners can reasonably afford to buy. But we increase CGT to 20% of a home's value.

We spend that money on local authority rented housing which cannot be purchased, only rented.

We cap rents on all properties to 10% below the average mortgage cost for that property if available for sale on the open market (rated by council tax values reassessed every five years).

Thus renting becomes economically attractive for the vast majority of people.

Bob's your proverbial uncle.

No-one argues over whether HB is at the right amount (no housing benefit to be available to buyers). Everyone has someone to despise and things are hunky dory.

WarwickHunt666 and whomovedmy chocolate

Both are rather inspired solutions in their own rather different ways.

However, both of you have clearly missed the ultimate point: that it's all the banks fault ... benefit caps, loss of child benefit, the crappy weather recently, the total inability for the UK to win at sport.

Is it fuck the bank's fault. The banks are far too inept to be given responsibility for any of the things listed!

Can I please have a fertility control fitted though? I fecking hate this Mirena coil and it sounds peachy

It's already the case that only the top 20% of earners can afford to buy. Have you not seen the statistics on first time buyers lately?

Think average age now for FTB is 37 unassisted by bank of mum and dad ...

And 4 out of 5 ftbs are assisted by the bank of Mum and Dad

No I haven't actually. Please point me to them. Perhaps my masterplan is already in action muwhwhwhhah. Getting the stamp duty (sorry I said CGT before) to 20% is the natural next step.

I think the idea that you have to have a decent deposit can only be a good thing in such a shakey market. It could actually bottom at any point you know, it just takes a little bit of a wiggle and it'll be freefall.

But perhaps that's the plan?

Onager mate I am loving your work here tonight.

I think you are fab.

Best, Peachy X

PMSL thatBWarwick is posting teh same diatribe in different threads on teh board.

Panel rejects dear, too repetitive.

ZephirineDrouhin

Somehow I made the error of marrying a man who bought his parents a house to live in. Must make mental note not to do that again!

in the course of my new job training i had to go and work at at homeless young persons project last week.

i think that would be an excellent start for all the people shouting about spongers. yes - some are.and some arent. but whats the alternative? im in training as a police officer. i think my job is going to get a whole lot harder.