Council homes for life ‘to be scrapped’

robin_banks

Well said Sue, I earn a reasonable salary, live in a council flat and cannot afford to buy outright.

We keep the place tidy, do minor repairs etc, but there is no doubt a danger that some areas could turn into 'kitchen sink estates'.
FTR a 2 bwed ex council flat is a quarter of a million pounds in my area.

chewmylegoff

robin_banks wrote: »

Private renting for the majority of poeple is prohibitively expensive especially for family housing, the example I used earlier is a classic example a 2 bed flat rented privately in London is over £1000 a month, based on affordibilty you need to be earning over £30,000 a year before a letting agent will consider you for such a property.

a decent 2 bed flat rented privately in london is over £1,000 a month. you can easily get perfectly acceptable 2 bedroom flats within reasonable commuting distance of london for significantly less than that.

and in any case, if there are two adults working, it is doubtful they would pull in less than £30k a month anyway. it might be prohibitively expensive for e.g. a single mother on benefits, but that is what council housing is for (or how you get it anyway)...

Idiophreak

I hate to say it, the only way I can really see to make people move on from council housing when their situations improves is to *really* make them not want to be there. Allow one bedroom per two people, no satellite dishes, don't allow decorating, smoking etc, stick them in the middle of nowhere with an hours' bus ride to town...just generally make living there miserable for those that (for whatever reason) have to do so...Private renting will pretty soon become a more appealing idea...

It's either that, or take a *very* close look at the occupants' finances every month and charge rent on a sliding scale...so once you earn above average, you start to pay more for the place than you do on the open market. Even then you have problems with forcing people to work cashinhand, dodgy dealing etc. It's a tough problem to solve.

StevieJ

Idiophreak wrote: »

I hate to say it, the only way I can really see to make people move on from council housing when their situations improves is to *really* make them not want to be there. Allow one bedroom per two people, no satellite dishes, don't allow decorating, smoking etc, stick them in the middle of nowhere with an hours' bus ride to town...just generally make living there miserable for those that (for whatever reason) have to do so...Private renting will pretty soon become a more appealing idea...

It's either that, or take a *very* close look at the occupants' finances every month and charge rent on a sliding scale...so once you earn above average, you start to pay more for the place than you do on the open market. Even then you have problems with forcing people to work cashinhand, dodgy dealing etc. It's a tough problem to solve.

don't allow decorating :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

abaxas

Council housing provides for lots of different people, but lets take a 'chav' example.

Single mum with 3 kids, has never worked, lives in a 3 bed semi. Kids leave home and she still lives in a 3 bed semi with no job.

Council wants to move her to a 1 bed flat. Who pays for the removals? Who pays when she doesnt turn up on the day of moving? Etc etc

I cant see councils forcing people to leave their 'homes'. It'll cost them too much.

jerusalem2006

SingleSue wrote: »

Not all council tenants claim housing benefit or are out of work....but their salaries may not be enough to actually get a mortgage to afford a property in their area (or even one close by!).

Also a good proportion of HA/council tenants take care of their properties.... we have a keeping up with the Joneses competition on my little estate with landscaped gardens (done by the tenants not companies) etc.

If you've got the money to spend on renovating your council house then you probably have enough money to spend renting in the private sector. Also, I am sure there are plenty of people renting in the private sector who spend a lot on making their rented property nice but they don't expect to be able to live in it forever and at the end of the day it still belongs to the landlord. The same with council properties. They are the property of the local council/taxpayer, not the property of the council tenant.

Idiophreak

abaxas wrote: »

Council housing provides for lots of different people, but lets take a 'chav' example.

Single mum with 3 kids, has never worked, lives in a 3 bed semi. Kids leave home and she still lives in a 3 bed semi with no job.

Council wants to move her to a 1 bed flat. Who pays for the removals? Who pays when she doesnt turn up on the day of moving? Etc etc

I cant see councils forcing people to leave their 'homes'. It'll cost them too much.

I'll start with the obvious, to save the "brigade" a post "why does a single mum having three kids have to be a chav?"

That out of the way, if the council want her out of *their* house (ie not *her* home), they should pay for removals and if she's not in, they use *their* key to get in and move her stuff for her. They then get much better utilisation out of their properties and save a bunch of money as a result.

SingleSue

jerusalem2006 wrote: »

If you've got the money to spend on renovating your council house then you probably have enough money to spend renting in the private sector. Also, I am sure there are plenty of people renting in the private sector who spend a lot on making their rented property nice but they don't expect to be able to live in it forever and at the end of the day it still belongs to the landlord. The same with council properties. They are the property of the local council/taxpayer, not the property of the council tenant.

Erm, my landscaped garden has cost me the grand total of £40! It helps to have a brother who is a qualified landscape gardener. Everyone else has done it on a budget too, sheer hardwork and re-using items others blindly throw away down the tip.

I waited ages for a proper kitchen (only one unit when we moved in) and in the end, we scoured the local paper for a cheap kitchen.....cost us £50 and we gave a carpenter friend a four pack of beer to fit it.

Painting - A huge pot of paint can be purchased from a well known high street store for less than a fiver and is capable of painting almost the entire house.

Carpets - Freecycle or the local paper is good for these, either you get them for nothing or you pay a very small amount (less than what most would pay for a night out at the pub) to carpet a room.

Televisions/videos/DVD players etc - Freecycle or the local paper.

Obviously, you don't buy/get these all the time, my £50 kitchen has now lasted me 9 years.

My set of 4 kitchen chairs which improved the look of the kitchen, cost me the absolutely huge sum of £3....down the local tip.

And no, I cannot afford to private rent..they won't have me as firstly I am solely on benefits (for the record, this has not always been the case, I was once a proper member of society and not chav scum! :mad: ) secondly I have pets and thirdly, I have disabled children and adaptations would have to be made.

Gorgeous_George

Maybe something like this could work.

People down the left hand side, bed spaces across the top

..........No of bed spaces
Ppl...1-2...3-4......5-6......7-8
1... ..1.....1.2........1.6........2
2.....0.8.....1.........1.3.......1.6
3.....0.5....0.8........1.........1.3
4. ...0.5....0.5........0.8.........1

Work out the Penalty Factor by selecting the column for the number of bed spaces in the house and the row for the number of people in the house. Now, multiply the rent by the penalty factor to find the rent payable. Only rent up to a Penalty Factor of one can be claimed from the benefits system.

I know people in large council homes who live alone (kids flown the nest, wife done a runner). This cannot be right. Any tenant failing to comply or attempting to cheat the system loses their right to a council house.

Now that we've sorted council homes, we need to encourage people to downsize in their owner occupied houses. No single occupant discount on council tax for anybody in a house with more than nn square feet (nn to be agreed). No Stamp Duty when moving to a smaller home.

GG

amcluesent

Plenty of cheap housing up t'north.

Seems obvious to me, those on disability allowance, 'seekers' of every colour and creed, chav single mums, old codgers etc. in council houses within the M25 should be moved to the NW, NE and Wales within 12 months.

Those without property rights have to accept they have less say when they are reliant on the tax payer.

Instantly you'd have lots of housing for the productive peeps to move down to the SE.