Lifetime Social Housing Tenancies

[RowsOfFlowers]

Am I wrong or being unreasonable to think that this new policy that Labour are bringing in is very unfair?

I come from a poor-ish background (as in no one in my wider family has any money). However, my mum and Dad did fairly okay and managed to move up the property ladder (through sheer hard work and sacrifice). My dad died a few years ago and so now it’s just my mom. We never received any benefits - and now my DH and I live in a house and pay a high interest rate (thanks Truss) and I don’t know if we will ever pay off our house (if I am to have children and go part time), so we will need to downsize. We don’t qualify for any benefits either but we are in the squashed middle, so we really feel it when anything rises in cost and don’t get any help.

I feel really cross that someone can benefit from social housing for a lifetime, no matter how much they go on to earn, and then if they pass away, they can pass it down as an asset.

I have a friend who’s parents came to this country, got given social housing, their children paid it off (40% discount) and now they all get to keep a £650k house in London. It doesn’t seem fair to me at all. I feel really disillusioned living in the UK.

So you'd actively not encourage people to better their working conditions in case they lose their secure tenancy and have to go into private rentals? Sound plan

You’d get my vote

The variable rent would make it neutral between social and private for the people with higher incomes. No one would have secured tenancies beyond 10 years. If people are minded to not improve their working conditions because having to pay more tax, they will already take view due to the increasing tax rates.

Woohoo!

As @Frequency rightly says, there is government help for those with mortgages.
The Renters’ Reform Bill is well-publicised and (slowly) moving. All my three children privately rent so I’m hoping for fairer and more secure terms soon - one pays £600 pcm for a room in an HMO, one lost his last tenancy due to landlord changing his flat to Airb’n’b. In fact, ex-husband is the only one of our family with the security of mortgaged property!

What is the government support for mortgages???

You can claim SMI from 3 months after claiming UC.

https://www.gov.uk/support-for-mortgage-interest/eligibility

If you have been on UC since 2009 or you are on pension credit, you can only get up to £100k. If that doesn't apply, you can get up to £200k

I stand corrected, although a quick google suggests this loan (with interest) is a last resort, and let’s face it, not as favourable as housing benefit, when you rent.

I knew about the RRB but thought you were thinking of something else since the RRB is essentially about streamlining and reducing bureaucratic crap, specifically giving more rights to renters. Rents in the private sector are only going to keep on going in one direction and that isn’t downwards. £600 a month rent in a houseshare seems fine to me, unless he’s in an ultra cheap part of the country.

I'd overhaul housing by limiting the number of short term rentals to a certain % of houses in the area based up on the average number of contactors working in the area and have a minimum let of three months (so no more Air B n B pushing locals out of areas like Cornwall and Devon etc).

I'd limit home ownership to no more than two per person (reducing to one per person for married couples) and cap private rents to no more than 10% of the average cost of letting a house (mortgage, insurance, etc)

I would heavily, heavily tax homes that are empty for more than three months a year, which would prevent overseas entities from using London as a parking spot for their money.

And I would look into a way to make home developers donate a percentage of their profits or houses to the LA for every new build development.

Finally, I would invest heavily in infrastructure in the North and offer businesses reduced rates for moving there, thus taking the strain off London and the SE by spreading the population more evenly.

This would be excellent. I would vote for you in a heartbeat and I hope you are running for government sometime soon.

So you’d do nothing about social housing? Seems strange given the current housing crisis.

I imagine that bringing the price of private lettings down to match social rents more closely would ease the pressure on social housing.

But, yeah, now that you mention it, any money the council earns through social housing would be ringfenced and could only be used for buying more social housing and improving current stock and of course there are the houses the dvelopers would be donating and given that massive private landlords would be forced to sell the majority of their portfolios the cost of homeownership would drop (more supply, less demand from people buying up property as an investment) allowing more renters to get on the property ladder.

For social housing i would create an board to look into house blocking I've always disagreed with one person blocking a three bed social house just because they have lived there a long time the boards job would be to look at the person's individual circumstances and see if a move would be appropriate so for example if they had their grandchildren over regularly because their child couldn't cope I would leave them in if they were living in one room with a commode and microwave meals they would be moved elsewhere to somewhere local and suitable there would be no hard and fast rules no get em out policy just sensible decision making

Some of the comments on this thread such as where the nephew inherits a tenancy is why people like me will minimise the tax they pay and may even chose to leave the country.

There’s going to be trouble in the autumn when they try to tax those already supporting most of the country. People will only put up with so much.

I don’t agree with building great swathes of social housing unless it is 100% self funding. It’s just more asking the taxpayer to stump up. I would rather people be able to buy their own and take responsibilities upkeep. I don’t think that’s been mentioned on this thread, the upkeep of property. It’s now very very expensive. The country has moved rapidly to a dependency on the state by way too many people.

So - it’s a loan, and there is interest… still not quite the same as SH or HB

Yes, I agree @1apenny2apenny
To be honest, we are considering leaving the country as well. It just doesn’t work for us or benefit us that much.

The problem is people aren’t going to think well I won’t take this opportunity to get a secure or keep a secure tenancy for myself so that a person or a family I don’t even know should have it instead

and outside of London / South East it’s not that hard to get social housing

But I do think that there should be some way of helping & encouraging m people to downsize though if they want to or have to
at the moment where I live a 3 bed council house is around 90 -125 a week
a HA 1 bed flat can be anything from 100 -180’a week depending on if it’s a new build and a house can be around 400 - 900 a month depending on when it was built

then there is the cost of moving and possibly redecorating & new carpets
So why would you even consider moving when it’s you f yo cost you £££££ and you don’t have to move

there used to be a scheme that if you downsized the council / HA would pay moving cost and give you money to move I think it was like 2k but I don’t think they do this anymore so people don’t bother to downsize - why would they if it’s going to cost them more money and potentially cost them more in rent

if you take over 55 properties they often include heating and water so the while the rent can be cheap at around 100 a week but with the heating and rent it can be 160. -180 a week

UC / HB don’t include heating and water charges with rent so someone who is on a fixed amount say a pension or pension credit can immediately be 60 -80 a week worse off due to this rather staying in the original property where they can decide to put the heating on

So no one would bother to make improvements to their home or treat it as theirs because they knew they’d be moved on? That would create ghettos

Bye then 👏🏻

Lol, and what about all the moving costs and maintenance costs that homeowners have to fork out for? We have to work harder for this. We really are just encouraging a welfare state at this point where everyone is not only dependent on the state but exploiting it, at tax-payers expense. Again, I’m not throwing shade at the people doing this, but we do need reform to discourage and mitigate this. The inequality in this country is ridiculous. It is no wonder that we have divisions of people who are feeling bitter.

Why would this create ghettos? Sounds sensationalist at best.

I can tell you now, I worked harder when I was in my HA house than now I own my own home.

And wasn’t that because you were saving for a deposit? *

My point is there used to be help to encourage people to move from a 3 -4 bed to a 1bed and free up the bigger properties

now they don’t and they are often more expensive so why would anyone bother

plus the pensioners aren’t affected by the room tax either so again there is no incentive for them to downsize