No more council houses for life

I can only think of one person I know who has a council house. He earns a good salary and I mean a good one for Sussex (£40,000 plus at least) and only has a commute of 9 miles. But he has a council house, with his wife and her children. He could afford to rent in the private sector.

 

I hope they're intending to tighten up the rules on private lets as well, since more people will have to rent from the private sector. At the moment, tenants can be chucked out with very little notice. It's a very insecure way to live, particularly if you have kids. Having lived next door to the worst of the buy-to-let craze, I'm not happy about BLT landlords being able to call the shots. Private landlords are also notoriously sloppy about maintaining their properties because they tend to see any money spent in this way purely as a dent in their profits. Then there is the problem of the difficult social tenants who make life hell for everyone else. I'm not suggesting that council estates don't have problems - far from it - but at least the authorities have a measure of responsibility for the usual problems (noise, garbage, smashed up houses).

 

There are a few different issues in question here, but I would like to present a choice that the average Northern family now faces-not unlike my family in fact.

Repossession rates are already high, they are set to rise even higher. Job losses predicted, interest rates set to increase any time now, wage cuts, benefits cuts etc etc etc-so what happens when they lose their homes and move into a council house ( if that is they raise the rent rates of social housing).
In my area the typical numbers are

Income 1250.00
Rent 650.00 ( typical 3 bed semi in my area-this is the lowest PCM I can find on rightmove.com in my local area-and it isn't exactly Kensington either)
council tax 100.00
utilities 175.00
food ( inc 3x school dinner monies) 450.00


already in a deficit-never mind about clothing, uniforms, birthdays, Christmas, child care ( or even loss of job during the long school summer holidays) etc. Working families tax credits just doesn't cut it-and even that is being reviewed, part time jobs are IMPOSSIBLE to get near me at the moment so a secondary income is out-although even if there was one it would mean a reduction if not disqualification for WFTC, so we are back to square one again.

my point is, the only people who will be able to afford council housing will be those who qualify for full housing benefit, in my opinion we would create a ghetto of benefits.

Council housing should be available to anyone, the right to inherit without question is questionable ( but that would be sorted if there was enough diversity-or numbers of properties in the social housing market), but the rates of the private rented sector are too high-even ridiculous at times and should not be used as a model for social housing rent rates.

I wonder why companies like Provident ( who charge atrocious interest rates) and loan sharks always make a killing in run down areas of high unemployment and therefore high dependency on benefits??


The situation needs fixing but in my opinion Mr Cameron needs to back off the already financially broken and look at the higher tax bands-maybe even themselves first.

There are p***takers everywhere, but that shouldn't stand as a model or reason for victimisation of a massive section of society ( the working families who try as they might cannot make ends meet).

It is cheaper to not work, it isn't right-jobs that pay a living wage or heavily subsidised housing MUST occur or massive unemployment through Hobson'schoice will take place. People are already really really struggling, I don't think we can take much more.

The construction industry is on it's knees-get them back to work ( they WANT the work badly) building decent quality, diverse types and many many more GENUINELY affordable rental homes within the social housing market and help the hard working people get back off the floor. It is degrading, humiliating and very painful at the moment. We need help and we need it now.

 

I've come to the conclusion that Ed Miliband could come out say that he's a Transvesite who likes throwing cats in wheelie-bins on his days off and I'd still vote for him on the 7th May 2015

 

Ok Red Ed is the new guy but it was his lot that got us into the Shyte in the first place.

Cameron and the other bloke, (think last of the summer wine), oh yes Clegg, do seem to be trying to sort out 12 yrs of mismanagement in about two years for some reason.

Is that how long they think their partnership might last, I wonder?:D

 

John its very difficuly to actually work out where they spent the money.

The transport system is in a disgusting state, roads, trains, etc.
The armed services are expected to fight wars but have been under funded for years, and now face cuts.
Everybody is moaning about education and how its not working.

The NHS is just about coping, I think.

So where did all the money go???????

If we were broke, but had the best services in Europe I could perhaps forgive the Labour government, but we aint by long way.

 

In my area like most area's private sales of housing is in Stagnation, and has been for the past few years.
the youngsters cannot get 100% Mortgages to get on the housing ladder. A lot of the houses that have been purchased several years ago are ex council houses . now many of these houses are up for sale
but they cannot get buyers .some owners have now put these houses up for rent ( to pay their mortgage)
on the properties they have purchased . the situation now is a local authority house which would cost to rent @ £200 a month renting from the local council, from a landlord is costing @£500 which the younger generation are forced to pay for a casual roof over their heads. some of these (LANDLORDS) are now working on a six month rental and the youngsters have to re-apply every six months :(
where do we go from here . music .

 

I think we can agree the country is in a bit of a pickle (to put it mildly!). I'm just glad I don't have children to 'leave it' to.

 

I think we need a radical rethink to provide a system which is fair to everybody - but I don't think it will happen. Too much vested interest.

 

The problem for young people and I'm talking about those under forty, is that the future doesn't look too bright on many fronts.

"Jobs for life" have gone.

Pensions aren't what they used to be since Brown thieved the money.

They can expect to live a lot longer than many of those currently drawing pensions so will have to be able to support themselves for much longer.

They say, "70 is the new 50" a good job too, as many will be working to seventy as they'll have no choice.

The reason why property prices are so expensive is because the controls went out of the window. When we bought our house in the early seventies I was allowed two and a half times my salary as a mortgage and my wife's earnings, had she been working would not have been taken into account.
Greed by the lenders saw the relaxation of this rule and the consequent escalation in house prices.

Lots of people still want to move, but again it's greed preventing some of them. They've seen the value of their house fall and don't like it. The fact that the price of the one they'd move to has fallen by a commensurate amount doesn't seem to register.


Not wishing to be all "doom and gloom" I just can't see how we're going to sustain the level of benefits, giving so many immigrants a free ride and giving away billions in foreign aid, with a constantly shrinking manufacturing base. I foresee some "double digit" inflation at some time in the future, when the world markets realise "we haven't a pot to **** in.".

 

You're right about mortgages, Doghouse. It's great that women have more career chances these days, but with the loosening of borrowing controls (swept away by Thatcher, despite all the homilies about thrift), all that it's meant as far as paying the mortgage goes is that it's now necessary to have two people earning a substantial wage rather than one. We're running twice as hard just to stand still. I was reading some comments on another forum recently which were mostly of the 'young people today are too materialistic, want everything immediately, won't save blah blah' variety. They forget that many of those young people will have to raise families in houses their parents would have sniffed at as a first time buy!