Discrepancy between social housing rents verses private sector rents - how is this legal/fair?

[floffy]

I cannot understand how the discrepancy between the cost of social rents versus private rents is not breaching some kind of equality/discrimination/human rights laws .

My neighbours live in an identical sized property to ours, they have the same number of kids with no disabilities and roughly the same income as our household, yet they pay 1/3rd (or less) of what we pay and have a secure tenancy, whereas we have to always wonder whether our landlord will extend past 6 months. How can this possibly be legal or fair?

Well if you need to blame someone blame Margaret Thatcher for selling all the council houses

Do you know what's really funny. You wouldn't even live here even if you were given the chance. It's a shit hole. A few years ago somebody put a brick through my neighbours window. I often go to sleep listening to people screaming and fighting.
I'm paying a low rent to live in hell. You really want to swap??

But if someone needs to go into a care home from a council house, they lose the council house.

It is funny , no one gave a shit about council house rents until the recession hit
now all of a sudden people are wailing its not fair

Shiney Dave has done a good job on you lot

What difference do you think it will make to you if social housing costs are suddenly doubled? Will you miraculously become better off? No.

It's all very dog in a manger, isn't it?

He has indeed usualsuspect.

Oldlady, she doesn't need to go into a care home. And their shutting all the care homes down.

This thread is all upside down. The problem isn't 'reduced rents' for Social Housing. It's uncontrolled rent in private lets.

The home ownership culture came in because Maggie told everyone they had a right to own a home. A few years later, everyone sleep walks into the idea that they should own a home.

I watch my parents struggle to keep a roof over their heads. They were in social housing, then bought under RTB, then moved to better private housing in order to give their children the best start. They have suffered so much to try and keep their house despite multiple redundancies, sickeness and poverty. They'll lose it eventually. It will kill my Father.

I WISH they hadn't been sold the myth of owning their own home. All they've done is rented from a mortgage company .

We rent privately at the moment; we are just about to move to a LA house. We are so grateful. DD1 has SN. The house we are in is unsuitable now and there is no way a private landlord would let us make the adaptations to make it safe for her, let alone having to move on every 6 months, potentially.

Thank you usual suspect - as usual the bastard Tories have made a magnificent job of turning people against one another. The worthy and unworthy poor - I do wonder how many more ways they can spin the same old cock to us. That shiny bastard makes me puke in my mouth.

And how exactly to you propose to control private rents then OP? Does the level go up when the interest rates rise for the Landlords paying mortgages? How will there be any private landlords if there is no profit in it? Are we meant to do it for the love of it??? For goodness sakes think it through. It is a free market, rent control, down to the levels you are talking about makes it completely impossible for anyone to let properties.

I suppose though your parents would have been able to buy the house at a reasonable price though and then buy into the private market. I used to work with people who boasted about how they had bought their council houses and sold them for a killing. I think some tennants did very well out of this.

I am not implying your parents are like this.

also I really wish they government would crack down on subletting and prosecute those who are doing this. sometimes the people sublet their council house and buy a property. how can this be right?

Do you know what's really funny. You wouldn't even live here even if you were given the chance. It's a shit hole. A few years ago somebody put a brick through my neighbours window. I often go to sleep listening to people screaming and fighting.
I'm paying a low rent to live in hell. You really want to swap??

Exactly the reason I wanted chose to give up my HA house.

But how would you feel if you were trying to get away from your abusive relationship and instead of waiting 3 months for a property you had to wait years while thousands of people live in houses like both of our neighbours?

I can't see who has said that council rents are too low but that is a load of bollocks. The social housing shortage has been caused by maggie and that 'right to buy' idea.

plus too much immigration and people arriving who are impoverished with families

And FWIW - I am a landlord and charge the Local Housing Allowance for the area, just under in fact and only let to people on HB and I can tell you I sleep very well at night thanks. Both the families in my houses were finding themselves homeless: one family because their landlord could not keep on paying their mortgage and the other was leaving a DV situation with her children and she could not find somewhere nice to rent on HB (not unusual).

So if I cannot make money doing this what exactly is the point, I do have to cover my expenses and my profit (not huge) enables me to have an income and stay at home and look after my children. In the long term it will provide one of my children with sn financial security so she is not dependant on handouts - good for everyone? I think so - this kind of banter is ill thought through rubbish and bears no resemblance to the reality of life. This is just about people's bitterness at seeing other have something that they don't - the reality is OP if your landlord came and offered you half price rent you would bite his bloody hand off not worry about your neighbour paying double next door.

alemci - read the Daily Mail much?

ffs!

Fair rent, as I was taught it at Uni is equal to the interest on a full mortgage for the house at current price plus the cost of upkeep, wear and tear, insurance, property management etc...plus a margin for risk for the landlord (e.g. Of months with no tenant) - but it shouldn't be enough to pay off the principal.

I suspect this sum will always come to more than social housing rent though.

Alecmi really?

there's always one who has to come along with twatish statements like that.

do you read the Daily Fail by any chance?

People do realise that people who don't have social housing and have worked and paid taxes all their lives often have to move out of their homes to pay for care homes right?

Even my grandma with dementia, which yes was made worse by the move. She was a head teacher in inner city schools. Don't suggest she didn't work hard.

No-one to wail 'what about her home' for her.

Mumatron, I'm so sorry you're in such a shit situation. I really am. But the wait for social housing is so long because the Tories convinced tenants to buy their houses. The right to buy should be withdrawn and more social housing built.
My neighbour will probably be dead this time next year. Who exactly would deprive this woman the chance to die in the home she has lived in all her adult life. Her children were born there. It would take somebody with a heart of stone to evict her.
When did we become so cold. It honestly breaks my heart.

Just for the record, plenty of people owned houses before the Thatcher government.

Alemci - clumsily made point but overpopulation of the UK is what is propping up house prices and in turn housing costs. Scarcity drives prices upwards and maintains them.

Tardis. Most social tenants work hard and paid taxes too. They also lose their homes if they need to go into a care home.

Fwiw I think it's scandalous the way we care for our elderly. Nobody should have to sell their home to pay care fees.

why is it Twatish mummatron and not true. I live North west london. Come on. It is the elephant in the room.

It must have a bearing on available, affordable housing.

Me too Edna - It is the same whether private owners or social housing - it should not be decided by legislators when the old ladies move out - it is about need, if she needs to go into a home then she needs to go it should not be the social landlord that decides when it should be a medical and social services decision - the good thing about having a place to sell to pay for a care home is that you have more choice. My Nana has just had to go into an EMI - we had very little choice because she didn't own a property and only a few (of the shitter ones actually) were able to take the council rate. Swings and roundabouts really isn't it. She too has worked all her life, since she was 14, in the Land Army during the war and worked for minimum wage until she was 72!

They didn't own council house though did they?

Council houses were meant to be affordable secure housing for anyone who needed it , not get rich quick schemes for buy to let LLs

Why shouldn't people have to sell their home to pay for care home fees?

I'm perfectly prepared to sell my house and use it to fund a comfortable old age. I certainly hope that my parents and in laws sell their properties to live out their later years with dignity and in comfort.

BSB ...can I ask about your profit as a landlord - does it fit my formula or not?

Not your actual profit (e.g. You might have paid off the mortgage already etc...). But if you were paying a mortgage + expenses etc...what does the profit look like?