Anyone watching how to get a council house on channel 4?

[cleoteacher]

Is this a repeat or another new series ? I remember this sort of programme being on before.

Can't believe Emma. How entitled is she? People are on the streets and she's refusing a flat because it's too high up and not a great place to live. Surely with four kids anything is better than the streets!

She says she wants to get what she deserves. But it's not explained why she's unemployed. Surely you wouldn't risk yourself and four kids on the streets for a dog either.

Utilities and cheaper council tax WTAF?

Ten, fifteen years ago when buying a house was more affordable for a certain type of poster they would never have dreamt of living on a council estate, which is why they have so many misconceptions about them.

Certainly during my eight years on MN I have seen increasing council house envy, especially since HA's are providing tenants with new and decent accommodation. Such posters were happy to avoid the shitholes and the sink estates. MN used to laugh at Barrett Homes!

All they can see now is the affordable rent. Mine is still over twice what my mortgage was when DD became ill and I had to give up my career and step off the ladder, and it has taken fifteen years to get a house of the size my (small) family needed.

I wish that I hadn't had to give up my house, but I wish that my XH wasn't an abusive twat and that my child was healthy. That I still had a career and a pension.

Envy me if you like, but you're looking in the wrong direction.

Oh, and I didn't have help to buy from the bank of Mum and Dad, nor will I be in a position to put down a large deposit or even buy outright when my wealthy parents die either. My parents were tenants and lifelong workers as were my grandparents who paid rent for fifty years.

I'm glad they've gone and don't have to hear all this bollocks about scroungers in council houses. They served this country well and would be heartbroken.

I was reading that, due to some change in the budget I think, people in council properties who earn over £40,000pa will be asked for higher rents. So the model of someone's business beginning to do well or other ways of becoming more prosperous will equate to higher rents. Interesting I thought .....

People will buy their house rent a nicer one privately and qualify for housing benefit (which you can do on 30K because private rents are over-inflated)

As long as those market rents are being paid and the landlords are happy, keeping the price high for everyone and the next generation screwed.

Either way, it won't address the housing shortage, ridiculous house prices or lower the welfare bill. Quite the opposite in fact.

buy their house OR rent privately.

Affordable housing in line with wages and inflation is something we should all be invested in, but it isn't the fault of council tenants and their "cheap" rent and the bad examples deliberately shown on these programmes are successfully making people put the blame where it shouldn't be.

Cleo teacher- housing associations are private companies that provide a variety of housing types.
The part of the company which provides social Housing usually has charitable status.

The previous poster who said they had to have a job to get a HA flat were probably dealing with a different part of the business which offers low cost housing to working people.

For ease (because they usually have tens of thousands of properties) HA take social Housing tenants from the local council waiting list.

I have never heard of social
Housing tenants getting reduced council tax

There has been quite a scandal where I live of council tenants subletting. They had a key amnesty for people to hand back their properties and for others to report them. Also a big scandal about council properties being listed on Air B&B. I'm sure it's an unusual situation due to the London location. But yet another aspect to this complicated issue.

I have been following these programmes and I know programmes like this are generally highly edited to tell the story they want to tell but I find this series quite representational tbh. I worked in the area of social housing in London for a number of years mainly working with tenants through tenant participation work and I was constantly shocked at the sense of entitlement a lot of them had. I think the whole area of social housing and state housing support needs to be overhauled. Council housing was initially established to help working class people get access to affordable, decent accommodation with secure tenancies. It was brought in to address the serious overcrowding issues that used to exist in tenements etc. What has happened though is people were then (by the Tories in the 80's) offered the right to buy which obviously had the effect of seriously depleting the social housing stock and Councils no longer have the funds or for many the land to build new homes to replace those lost through right to buy so as a result we are left with huge waiting lists in most boroughs and those in greatest need should be at the top and housed first. The problem though is as others have pointed out many who have secure tenancies and also succession rights mean a social housing property once tenanted can be with a family for years and years so all the 3-4 bed properties are very rare but the Council is legally not allowed house a family in a property that would deem them over crowded (as in the case of the family needing the 4 bed) the Council legally cannot offer them a smaller property because it would deem them over crowded by the standards the Council has to follow. Anyone can put their names on the Council waiting list but it doesn't mean they would be priority enough to ever get housed. To address the lack of social housing people can access housing benefit which is a means tested benefit and means they can rent through the private market with their private rent supplemented by benefit. Problem is though private rents are going up and up so often the gap between the private rent and the housing benefit received is too great so this is no longer an option for some. I do think though that people should be encouraged to give up their Council flat/house if they no longer need it as in have a successful career etc or move to a smaller council property if their family have grown up etc and let a family in greater need get access to it but very few people think like this and think it is their right to stay in that property to the end of their days which to me goes against the whole ethos of social housing and why it was set up in the first place.

I agree that London is a bit different (very different!) from most of the rest of the country. I saw someone on Escape to the Country who had bought their council maisonette in, I think it was Pimlico, and had sold it for a ludicrous sum and was viewing £750K properties. No one is salivating over a Mandela Towers (as in Only Fools and Horses) high rise but some of those Peabody Trust flats are very desirable. There was an article in the Guardian recently that even modern council flats if located fairly centrally can yield £30K per annum in rental for the owners.

So this is what is unfair. In London flats are not somewhere to live, but literally handing someone an income or investment opportunity.

Actually it's similar out of London too, but to a lesser extent. Deadbeat uncle of mine (never had a job for more than five minutes) bought his council house in a village, and sold for £300K. His hard-working brother nearly exploded as a lifetime's clerical position had enabled him to buy a small terraced house worth half the price.

Forgive me, I'm struggling to wrap my head around someone out of work being given a mortgage to enable them to use their right to by. I wasn't aware you could buy a house using housing benefit.

How has someone bought a house while they are on benefits?

He won't be able to get a mortgage and you're only allowed to have a certain amount of savings.

My uncle's dd (my cousin) stumped up money for purchase, then uncle and aunt moved in with her and (full boring story) then the shiftless son got a council flat as they were overcrowded... They are just like the relatives in Keeping Up Appearances.

Other people are not allowed to buy your house. Only the names tenant.

That's fraud. Or at least that's how it is with my housing association.

They are the dodgy black sheep of the family. Dsis and I joke that neither of us (or more likely our dcs) can marry into the royal family because the Daily Mail will have these relatives grinning on the front page in no time!

Does seem very unfair that you have the right to buy at a very reduces rate and then sell it on a few years later

Aww million pound house the other day. They brought it off the council years ago and now work over 1.1 million

Small flag in London

People should get council houses if struggling but seems many tho obv not all - don't work full time and earn more as they don't need to as rent is generally 50% less

Paying £400 a month rent on a 2/3 bed flat /house is nothing esp as private would be 800+

Yes if children small parents need help but shouldn't still have a council
House when kids are in their 20's - as I know lots !!!!!

The mums view is - is that it is her home and she's lived here for 18yrs - why should she move

No private renter has that security. A LL could sell at any time and tentants have to move

Also once you have a 2 bed place. Don't have children 234 and want a bigger place

Well that's the jealousy. Because of the fuck up in private housing with rents climbing to unaffordable levels and no security then the rest of us should suffer to balance it out?

This is the wrong direction to take as then no improvements will ever be made to the private part of housing. We can all wallow in misery of high rents while the goverment get second houses paid for or whatever happens at the top.

More suffering isn't the answer really is it?

Also, home owners are being helped by artificially low interest rates. Not sure if that's taxpayer funded, the whole bail-out situation.

I still think it's mad that people who talk about scroungers are using HB to buy themselves an expensive asset.

The savings limit for full housing benefit is just 6K so it would be difficult to buy legally.

It's very very rare for someone in social housing to be able to buy under RTB in high value areas. Very rare. The discount you get is a lot but doesn't make a dent in properties over £250k or so, particularly as low earners won't be able to get high mortgages. RTB isn't that common anymore.

In an old job I saw the perfect examples of this- people
Who had bought their 2 bed sink
Estate flats in Chelsea in the 1960s, family grown up, husband usually dead and could sell Them for well
Over £1m.
These women usually struggled to pay the maintenance and service charges so usually had a number of charges against the flat but that barely made a sent to be honest.

But they were a few hundred out of
a few thousand examples in the whole country. I've seen nothing like it to that extent since.

At the same time there is a street in Chelsea called nursery row. It's full
Of little cottages. It's where very rich old Chelsea families used to buy a little workers cottage for their nanny- dirt cheap then.

Many of these women still live there having been gifted the properties by the families when the children were grown. They are also now worth millions.
I found in that part of London many examples of working families who had struck gold With property they'd not paid For.
But is very, very rare. Don't forget many of these estates were slums
When moved into and in all
Honesty many are not places to live now.
I've never known anyone to be jealous of social Housing. I live in London and social housing estates are rarely nice. They may be expensive but they are far cheaper than their non estate equivilants because they are far, far less desirable.

The family members I referred to do not live in London, somewhere far less desirable. It featured in the "Crap Towns" book. Also my granny owned her own house, didn't like it, sold it and moved into a council flat. My aunt worked in the Housing Department which may have had a bearing .

My horrible ex boss still lives in her CH. Her father died and left her a house but she didn't want to sell it and move out. Three bedrooms all for her. I wonder if her Headteacher's pension will come to more than 30K?

Brenda, my uncle was very surprised that the council didn't house him when he sold his 5 bed with self-contained annexe

We are one of those awful people who used right to buy. we bought our three bed semi in 2004 ,for £180,000 and yes, the value has increased stupidly as we live in a city where prices are hugely inflated. We have never had hb - and will be paying the mortgage for a long time still. Should we not have done it? I honestly don't know, but we did - we are older than your average first time buyers and it seemed a fantastic opportunity.

We are incredibly grateful we could do it then but it doesn't make me less concerned about the overall housing situation now, any less than my rich socialist friends with massive houses and loads of money feel angry. I get quite cross when it is assumed that all people who buy up council stock are greedy landlords. Everyone who has in our road has lived here for years and would have stayed here had they remained tenants or bought.

No problem, Molly. In fact on the council estate near here it is fairly evident who has bought and who has not! I suppose that was the intention of the scheme in the first place: the homeowners are invested literally in their properties and the gardens are kept nicely, new windows/doors etc, fancy porches. Next door could be a house with - and I have witnessed this when I was delivering something - dirty nappies just thrown out of the front door to land anywhere. "Don't be judgemental!" some MNetters will cry. Well, I'd bet my life savings (luckily not much!) on the fact that anyone willing to hurl nappies around their property does not own it.

Yeah because that's your typical council tenant

In fact turfing people out (as some seem to be suggesting) when their income reaches a set level will really encourage people to look after their homes won't it?

Anyone watching tonight?

Yes.
My facebook home page is full of people slagging the Romanian family who get £295 per week benefits.

I'm on the bench myself.