High time for more council houses

wageslave

This is all a foreign language to me

squinty

michaels wrote: »

Council housing is subsidised - most properties if the council were to rent then out as 'private' they would get more rent.

Thus everyone living in council housing is receiving a subsidy from local tax payers, this is regardless of income, so a low income individual living in a private rented studio is paying tax so that a family of potentially 4 working adults on above average income can live in a detached 4 bed council house and pay probably less rent than than the studio.

Please someone who favours council housing explain why it is fair that those with a council house continue to receive subsidised housing however high their income becomes without having to give up the property whilst those who for whatever reason are not 'priority' can not get a council house?

I am not looking for an argument or suggesting their should not be provision of housing to those who can not afford to house themselves but the current system seems entirely unfair and potentially regressive.

Erm... you are wrong. Council housing is not currently subsidised, well not in the way that you suggest.

It is true that many Council tenants do recieve Housing Benefit to pay the rent, butt he same is true for private tenants. I much prefer to be passing this money to Councils than to private landlords.

The Goverment runs a national housing subsidy system for council housing. This looks at notional costs for managment, repairs and maintenance and the assumed renatl income. If the assumed rental income is less than the other costs, the council get a subsidy from government, but if this is reversed the council what is referred to as negative subsidy - ie they pay central government.

Historically the councils gaining from this system (often London Boroughs and big metropolitans) were offset by those paying in, and there was a balance. However, more recently this has changes, and last year councils paid more than £200million more into 'the pot' than was paid out. In many councils a third or more of rent payers money is siphoned off into central government.

This is only the rent money, the way that govenrment treat the sale of other assets and including the right to buy, and other land mean that councils have paid billions of pounds to central government that could better be used for addtional council housing.

In your example you ar not comparing like with like - you think it is wrong that council rents are cheaper than the private sector. Personally I think thats a good thing. Private landlords are in it to make money, they charge enought rent to cover their mortgage and to make a profit, this is on top of (until recntly) an asset that was appreciating. Councils are about providing good quality affordable housing.

You are however right about rent, but perhaps not in the way you think. As covered above council rents are not subsidised - certainly not by local tax payers as. Council Housing is provided by law from within a ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account which cannot recive subsidy from council tax payers. However, you are right about local rent levels being too low at times - this is beacouse the local authoity do not set the rent. this is set by following a government formula - if local authorities do not follow this fromula they can be penalised by Government. Local authorities should be free to set thier own rent to reflect local conditions

Prior to 1979 council housing was seen as an option for many people. The RTB and sucessive governments have changed that - council housing is now seen as the housing of the last resort, and council tenants as the lowest of the low.

I suspect the main thing wrong with Council Housing is peoples perceptions.

lemonjelly

Interestingly, Scotland is looking to call an end to right to buy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8312886.stm
(apologies if posted elsewhere - haven't read the whole thread).

LA's & HA's have built fairly little since the right to buy, (& once that became seen as too lucrative for purchasers, the right to acquire) came in. As a %, levels of RSL stock have fallen. The problem, is the money from rtb went not to the selling council/HA, but to central government. It then did not get re-invested if further social housing - contributing to the btl boom IMO.

I'm really confused by some of the posting in this thread.

Kudos to wageslave - security of tenure is such a massive issue.

Many btl's I see are purely profit driven, & I really have seen some horror stories by LL's (letting condemned properties, 8 people in a 2 bed house). Disrepair is an additional phenomenon. Add further complications raised by the existence of letting agents.

In addition, regarding all the "scum" comments earlier (which tar too many people for too little, & are built on assumptions only IMO), they're still going to have to live somewhere, & in reality, once they're in a btl property, the LL still willl have the delays to get them out. Trouble is (as far as I can see) is that by forcing them in to privately rented, they're just going to be moved about consistently for their whole lives, from one LL to another. The root causes of whatever problems they face will never be addressed. Worse, it means they can steer clear of authorities & IMO makes the potential for being caught for the likes of fraud, drug dealing, abuse etc will be less as they'll be slipping through all sorts of nets & are less likely to be anywhere long enough for someone to be aware there is a real problem.

I also think that the penalties for benefit fraud aren't tough enough, and fraud is a lot more rife than most are aware of, & resources need to be put into place to fight fraud.

mardatha

Wageslave, thank god for somebody with some intelligence & common sense!
Council houses were built for people who could not afford to buy. Now with the shortage, people are forced to buy, and the results of that can be found in the DFW forum on here !!
It doesn't make you a better person because you buy your house .
People in council houses can and do improve those houses/add kitchens/build patios/decorate often. My god - do you really think somebody is going to sit in a house for 30 odd years saying "oh I'm not painting this, its a council house so it's not worth it " ???
Your parents & grandparents had council houses and NO DEBT! Take a good look at yourselves - are you any better then they were? with your credit cards/loans/mortgages/yuppy attitudes?
My dad was a miner, I grew up in a mining village in Midlothian. My dad was clever, very well read, well spoken, knew tons of things about country life, gardening, and was an orchestra violinist. My mum was very wise & savvy. If either of them were alive today, they'd read this forum, and fall about laughing at half the people in here. Then they'd say "lot of silly bu**ers" and go back to reading a good book.
Whatever happened to common sense and learning about life ? I suppose it got swallowed up in glibly reading the front page of the Sun...

Generali

mardatha wrote: »

Council houses were built for people who could not afford to buy.

That's not true. The driving idea behind council housing was that they would provide housing for all

eg (link)

In 1945 the Labour Government set out to enable everyone to have a decent home, where people from all walks of life could live together. This dream was destroyed by a succession of avoidable mistakes and almost everyone now seems to believe that it is impossible to rediscover that vision. This book challenges that fatalism, tracing the policy mistakes that have given rise to this inequitable state from the folly of mass housing to the unfair tax privileges of many home owners.

Holmes describes and advocates a new vision for the new millennium, finding solutions variously in development, planning, economic structures, social reform, and political reassessment to narrow the gap between rich and poor and enable people in all housing tenures to finally have a choice.

A big driving force behind post-war council housing was forced egalitarianism, a popular belief at the time among the Left.

Shakethedisease

A big driving force behind post-war council housing was forced egalitarianism, a popular belief at the time among the Left.

I guess you could poncificate about driving forces behind council housing etc etc.. but at the end of the day when lots of private rentals available can't/won't take on those on benefits, yet there isn't anywhere near enough council housing to go round ( waiting lists are huge).. it seems like a simple enough solution to build more to me. Would provide a lots of jobs/apprenticeships too if they did.

It's all about having a roof over your head isn't it ?

baby_boomer

Carol,

The article you praise explains exactly why prices won't fall significantly to let more people on the housing ladder.

And why the % of people owning property is going to fall over the coming decade as the buy-to-let phenomenon expands again.

As pension savers, we are short of places to put cash for the long term that offer more security than the rollercoaster stockmarket. We should be able to construct a model of housing that works for both tenants and investors

IveSeenTheLight

wageslave wrote: »

So the system is at fault yet the people who are dependent upon that system are trash?

No, I said those that commited benefit fraud were open to being labelled trash or scum.

Do you back people who commit fraud?

michaels

I think we have a disagreement over terminolgy. Council housing may 'cover its cost' but in most places the council could make more money from its housing stock by selling it and investing the proceeds or by charging a market rent - thus the rents are subsidised in that they are below the market rent. These below market rents are then available to the council house tenant (once they have a tenancy) for ever, whatever their income. Thus those who would no longer qualify for a council house but already have one will be benefiting from low rent whatever their current income whilst those earning a pitance but stuck forever on the waiting list because they have chosen not to have kids without a partner pay market rents. Fair?

squinty wrote: »

Erm... you are wrong. Council housing is not currently subsidised, well not in the way that you suggest.

It is true that many Council tenants do recieve Housing Benefit to pay the rent, butt he same is true for private tenants. I much prefer to be passing this money to Councils than to private landlords.

The Goverment runs a national housing subsidy system for council housing. This looks at notional costs for managment, repairs and maintenance and the assumed renatl income. If the assumed rental income is less than the other costs, the council get a subsidy from government, but if this is reversed the council what is referred to as negative subsidy - ie they pay central government.

Historically the councils gaining from this system (often London Boroughs and big metropolitans) were offset by those paying in, and there was a balance. However, more recently this has changes, and last year councils paid more than £200million more into 'the pot' than was paid out. In many councils a third or more of rent payers money is siphoned off into central government.

This is only the rent money, the way that govenrment treat the sale of other assets and including the right to buy, and other land mean that councils have paid billions of pounds to central government that could better be used for addtional council housing.

In your example you ar not comparing like with like - you think it is wrong that council rents are cheaper than the private sector. Personally I think thats a good thing. Private landlords are in it to make money, they charge enought rent to cover their mortgage and to make a profit, this is on top of (until recntly) an asset that was appreciating. Councils are about providing good quality affordable housing.

You are however right about rent, but perhaps not in the way you think. As covered above council rents are not subsidised - certainly not by local tax payers as. Council Housing is provided by law from within a ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account which cannot recive subsidy from council tax payers. However, you are right about local rent levels being too low at times - this is beacouse the local authoity do not set the rent. this is set by following a government formula - if local authorities do not follow this fromula they can be penalised by Government. Local authorities should be free to set thier own rent to reflect local conditions

Prior to 1979 council housing was seen as an option for many people. The RTB and sucessive governments have changed that - council housing is now seen as the housing of the last resort, and council tenants as the lowest of the low.

I suspect the main thing wrong with Council Housing is peoples perceptions.

michaels

A lot of the housing stock round here is ex council - given that there is a shortage of properties for sale pushing up prices I can not even imagine what private housing would cost if the council properties had not been sold off under RTB...