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.

@RowsOfFlowers is this thread because you feel people with mortgages should get help from the government like some renters do ?

And you don't think people in social housing should get life time tenancy because people with mortgages struggle?

This is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Private rents can't just miraculously come down to match subsidised social rents.

So many people seem to have absolutely no grasp of economics and the financial factors that drive rental prices. It's not just supply and demand but also the cost of capital. Many private landlords have interest only mortgage and are still making a loss now that interest rates have sky rocketed. This shows how important the cost of capital is. The average house price is now £285k. It will be costing the landlord £14k just to own the property either through interest payments or opportunity cost of having equity tied up on property and not being invested elsewhere. This doesn't include the cost of actually being a landlord in terms of safety checks, lettings agent fees, insurance, maintenance costs etc. The landlord will also be taxed on the rent paid by a tenant and can no longer offset mortgage payments against this. This is a key revenue source for the government and something you would need to somehow recover elsewhere if all housing was SH.

Social Housing providers meanwhile often have access to limited amounts of extremely cheap capital or already own the property they rent out. They rarely pay market price for a property and deals where they are given land by the state or have a percentage of homes on a private development are common (subsidised of course by everyone else buying a home on that development). They don't need to worry about making their money work for them like the rest of us would need to if we were landlords or like private companies do. This is because the state doesn't look at the opportunity cost of having money tied up in property. The reality is that the country is losing money if they are getting a menial rent for a property when they could move that money elsewhere and get a better return which could be used to contribute towards the spiralling debt many councils face.

Basically you are comparing apples and pears and not taking account of the obvious, very real constraints that exist that means that we all can't live in SH and actually it can't be scaled easily at all. There simply isn't that much cheap capital available to the government anymore (or anybody) and developers can't afford to build houses and give a higher percentage (or even the same percentage) to SH if they aren't making a profit. Building materials, land and skilled labour costs have spiralled recently. You can't just pretend that all of this isn't relevant and wish that SH rents were somehow realistic. They aren't.

None of this works.

Short term let's are vital to some areas where tourism makes up a huge percentage of their economy. Locals don't only need housing, they also need jobs. We need to encourage more people to holiday in the UK and spend their holiday budget here. So many businesses rely on this. I accept Airbnbs etc should be limited in some areas but just looking at contractors as a limiting factor is economic suicide for some areas.

You can't cap home ownership to one per person if you want a private rental market. We factually need a private rental market otherwise this would be catastrophic for the country. Also 10% of an 'average' is crazy. Landlords need to be able to cover their costs otherwise nobody would do it. Look at the private rental market and how rents have skyrocketed over the past few years and you will see what happens when landlords pull out of the market.

Homes that are empty will already fall victim to 200% or even 300% council tax. 3 months isn't long enough though for some houses to be renovated and added back to the housing stock. We need people desperately to do this as there is currently a huge shortage of housing.

Developers often aren't making a great deal of profit at the moment. If you look in lots of areas, most developers are pulling out of developments because they are no longer economically viable. There are also developers renegotiating with councils up and down the country as to the percentage of SH that should be included in a development as it isn't worth their whole risking a lot of capital into a project that could easily make a loss. This is something you seem to have ignored completely. We need more house building but this has to be incentivised. Nobody is going to want to do this for free when you can put a load of money in the bank and get 5% on it each year without any risk whatsoever.

Nope. I managed to get my deposit because me and dp got made redundant at the same time

Id have still been living in my HA if that hadn't happened

But morally there should be because they don’t need that anymore, that is a family sized home for families in need. It’s selfish at best, and they were already in a fortunate position in the first place getting that property. It’s just being reliant on the state unnecessarily, there is no sense of accountability or even community to help others

So, why exactly were you “working harder” in your housing association property? I’m not quite understanding.

This thread was created as a place to discuss the Lifetime Tenancy of Social Housing irrespective of wages.

I provided a snippet of my personal circumstances to give as an example of how this is unfair to other parts of the population.

As I said very few people will downsize to something that will cost them more money each month when they don’t have to legally

Would you honestly downsize ( if you didn’t have to ) something that would cost you a lot more each month and even more money in moving if you absolutely didn’t have to do this

The job I had and in fact the job DP had. Owning our home has given us the ability for dp to start his own business.

We were working harder when we lived in the HA

I’m still failing to understand though - wasn’t part of your rent subsidised?

And here we are with the complete ignorance

No. Like many many many people who live in HA I paid full rent.

But a housing association is affordable property. So how much was your full rent?

I know your not asking me . But out of interest how much is your mortgage

I bet you won't.

None of your business 👋

@1apenny2apenny · Today 07:31

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.

I bet you won't leave the UK either.

@RowsOfFlowers
Example 1
grandparents in council house after bombed out in war. Both worked and paid rent for 40 years. Grandad died, nan moved to sheltered but then to a bed in cottage hospital. All she had was a locker next to her. Broke my heart but she was looked after “for life”.
Example 2
family of 6 in 3-bed housing association house. Both worked and paid full rent. Children gradually left, adults applied to downsize after 20 years but nothing available with HA and it’s not interchangeable so even though there would’ve been many on council list, it wasn’t available to them! Suggested home swap - after a lot of research and some time-wasters, swapped with a young family. All good except rent is the same! Both swappers have to have immaculate records and no arrears to even be considered (rightly so). Cost £2000 to move and £8000 for flooring, decoration and white goods. Shared garden a mess and can’t be used although they are working on that. But they did the right thing. Three years on, they will continue to pay full rent and service charge till they die as per “lifetime tenancy”. If one/both can’t manage the 3 flights of stairs in future they’ll probably be moved to a tower block 1-bed with lift. They are happy.
Horses for courses.

It makes me laugh when people 'threaten' to leave the UK because they're sooooo annoyed about certain policies/certain things about living here.

Firstly, LOL, no they won't. And secondly, how arrogant to assume that they can just stroll into the country of their choice, and that that particular country will even want them! All the LOLz! 😂

that second scenario is the right thing to do… as for the costs of things, could they not save? Like the rest of us? We moved into a house and the garden was a nightmare, we either had to sort it ourselves or save up. No one is doing the maintenance for us.

All the Lolz at yourself, as I work in healthcare and in an in-demand role, so actually, yes, I do have opportunities and choices, and rightly so as I’ve done many years of studying and have lots of work experience.

All the Lolz when the UK is in even more of a mess because people such as yourself expect everything for free at the expense of those working and contributing in tax.

And I bet you’re just loving stirring on a thread as you’ve nothing better to do. Do you even have a job or a life, or do you just like to wind people up to pass the time? Again, nothing of substance to add to the discussion, simply a time-waster. You will be ignored.

It will still be a lot lower than private rental or most with mortgages, so you did benefit from having low-cost rent. Yes, it may have been “full rent” for the HA, but I’m gonna bet it was not market rate.

It’s not the same level of stress as someone in a private rental or mortgaged property. These people have no cushion or safety net like those in SH/HA. The truth hurts I’m afraid, and many people are attacking me on this thread out of defence and “hurt feelings.” It’s just not the same game.

Of course! Who do you think paid the £10000 costs? The tenant of course. And the garden will be an on-going project but it’s communal so one person can’t come in and make massive changes. The couple spent over £5000 on the garden at the last property. I’m not sure why you have any confusion about saving “like the rest of us” but even if it was on credit or borrowed, it’s still not costing you or any other taxpayer anything so you can sleep soundly tonight 😂
For anyone interested in homeswapping, my biggest tip is go more for the people who are definitely motivated even if the property is not the best.

You know hardly anything about the OP, so please stop embarrassing yourself.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure what relevance this has. It’s a garden. It’s communal. And it’s also optional. It’s a choice they made to spend doing it up. I’m sure they were able to save a lot quicker than those of us who have to pay private rental costs or mortgages. This is my point, it’s not the same game.

I actually feel quite detached from other people in the UK (and on this thread) I just cannot relate in any way - it’s a totally different world and economy.