Asking as a BR ......

startagain_2

I am a HA tenant in a property that is only leased by them. My 1 bedroomed flat is tiny and this year the rent has just gone up to a fraction under £90 a week and the CTax is £80 a month - for a singleton! I think it is far too much, a council property of the same size qould be about £55 a week in this area, but I am stuck.
Sniggings - I think you will find that a lot of people are just over the housing benefit and ctax threshold and as such cop for the lot!!
SA

k2nga

I have just scanned this so sorry if i am repeating what someone else has said but if you go to entitledto.co.uk and enter your info on there you will find out what you will get to the penny. They also have a link as you go through to your LHA rates so you can add that into the entitlement to see what you should be getting.

maxmycardagain

The "system" seems to be thus...

Firstly, partly due to the "Right to buy" for council tenants (where tenants can buy at a discount, but that money goes to london/central funds - NOT to the council), councils setup thier own Housing associations, who dont have to sell to the tenants, the parent councils GAVE properties to the "charitable" virtual-housing associations...

Next, the "HAs" set rents to the maximum that could be claimed off the parent LA by way of housing benefits (keeping up?)

This means that "welfare families" on JSA/DSS (etc), arent bothered, because they claim rent benefits off the LA, who in turn, claw it back off HMG....meaning the HA (owned by the LA remember) get the maximum rent and all the money goes round and a round...ending back at the HA/LA.....

The problem is that these HA/LA "maximum rents" are too high for average wage earners to keep up with (when i say average wage, i dont mean the goverments figure which include MPs, Ronaldo and me, divided by three....), meaning anyone in a HA now has to decide if its worth taking a job, and suggesting they could save up a deposit then pay the mortgage just to "improve themselves" or...."achieve thier full potential" (yer rite) is a joke....

In this area, the job centre has mainly wages advertised "satisfies the national minimum wage...."

fiveyearplan

Sorry to go off topic but...

Skylight - just saw your signature - well done 14 lbs!!! Woahoo!!

Lightattheend

shadowdragon wrote: »

My only gripe with it is the lack of respect the HA has when it comes to any improvements in the property. Meaning they do the work (we have had a new kitchen and bathroom in the last 12 months) but they dont have any respect for us. I keep telling them it my be there property but its our home. If i was paying for the work done i wouldnt be releasing any monies with the shoddy workmanship and total lack of respect for the property thats shown.

I've a slightly different story as I've found all the workmen, who've visited since I moved in, to be very pleasant and respectful to my property. However the kitchen was fitted before I moved in and, although the kitchen is perfect, little things like not blocking up the holes they drilled in the external wall have spoiled it.

Lightattheend

skylight wrote: »

That I found was awful! I asked for years to get permission to do cavity wall insulation as we are an end terrace thats on a north facing corner, and it was refused - even though I offered to pay the few hundred pounds myself. Luckily they did these themselves under the decent homes scheme a few years back and I have noticed the difference.

We still need a new kitchen (the isn't one really - cabinets off the walls, well they are not even cabinets they are boxes with odd doors on etc, despite us fixing/decorating it over the 11 years we have been here), new bathroom, new boiler and so on. Oh - and an asbestos garage in the garden that the council have agreed to remove at "some point" free of charge now. (I'm sure there are rules/laws about that). My council are good at the small bits - the boiler breaks and they are out fast to fix, the toilet leaked and so on, but they fix/bodge the job rather than replace.

They don't do Cavity insulation here - I did ask :rotfl:

For me its the fence that needs replacing. They've said they will do it as they now have money in the budget, I just have to wait for all those fences carried over from last year to be done first!

PS Congrats on the stone!:A

So_Sad_Angel

Hi, I`m on private let....2 bed detached 425 pm C`tax 88 pm . Nice quiet area, small garden, driveway parking 2 cars . Oddly private lets seem a better bet than local authority/HA up here....similar rent levels but better areas.

Maybe its the depressed housing market

sniggings

maxmycardagain
meaning anyone in a HA now has to decide if its worth taking a job, and suggesting they could save up a deposit then pay the mortgage just to "improve themselves" or...."achieve thier full potential" (yer rite) is a joke....


I think we will have to agree to differ on this one but feel it's a shame that this could not have been discussed in a more friendlier way as I'm getting the feeling my comments are upsetting you so think it best that me answering your post with a diferant point of view was not what you were looking for.

miss_spooky

"sorry but I wish my rent was £77 a week,dont forget if you cant afford that rent then you would get housing benifit and if you were to get a job £77 would be a good rent for someone working and as any repairs etc are taken care off, I think rent any less and the council housing would be indudated with appilcations,

1 .would someone living in a low council house want to ever move to buying their own home if rents were kept low,

the area i live in I can not afford to rent a similar type councilhouse and I'm working full time,once people get these houses its very hard to move on as moving out would be a step down from where they were not as a few years ago people looked tomove from thses places but now

2. it seems that they are a house for life and not just a stepping stone to something better,which i think they should be used for".

My rent is £112 pw with no rent free weeks. Service charge of £5.00pw. I live in a 3 bed in a nice estate. Private rent in the same area would be approx £250.00pw. House prices for the same are in the region of £280,00.00. I have rented since I moved out from parents, my last private being £700 for a 2 bed which was put up to £900 when we moved out.

There is no way we could ever afford to buy a property, even when I was working. In Herts I would have had to go nearly 7 times my salary to afford a sml 2 bed which now would be to small with two children (b&g) despite being on nearly 40k, and yes I am glad that now I have a house for life. I am sick of LL's thinking they can just evict you when they want for no real reason. We were evicted as he wanted property back. Then put it on market for £200pm more. That is no life being under the constant worry of having to move every 6 mths esp as most ast's are now 6 mth contracts.

I dreamed of buying a big house with a big garden etc, but that bubble burst a long time ago. Now I'm content with my lot. Albeit council (HA).

SingleSue

3 bed semi detached HA £92 a week, council tax just a shade over 1k a year but reduced with the 25% single person discount.

We were promised a new kitchen when we moved in 11 years ago (there was one unit and that was the sink unit!) but that it would be a year or so before it was done, so we found a kitchen going cheap in the local paper (£50) and put that in to tide us over.

Think they ran out of money for kitchens as instead of doing their promised updating of properties over 50 years old in stages, they are now only replacing the kitchens etc in houses which are being moved out of and new tenants coming in.

It has been recommended that I have a 4 bedroom house because of the boys disabilities but they are as rare as hens teeth in this area..not that I am worried, we have coped thus far and they are getting older and if we (I really, got to get myself out of saying we, been divorced 2 and a half years! ) owned or private rented, we would be pretty much stuck with what we had.

Private rentals in this area differ so much, from a 3 bed terrace or flat in the less desirable part of town (which is still pretty nice compared to the nearest towns) for not much more than I pay, to over a grand for a 3 bed in a very desirable part of town.

I'm happy here though, I have nice neighbours (a fair few elderly), we look out for each other, crime is extremely low and we all take care of our gardens and surrounding area so it looks nice.

Mind you, if I win the lottery I will go for a 5 bed...one bedroom each for the children plus one spare for an au pair! Well I can dream can't I ? :rotfl: