What effect (if any) will the changes to housing benefit have on the rental market?

Masomnia

I just can't get my head around that £1,100, why on earth should I bother to try and find a job when I graduate in July?!

We live in a very nice Victorian terrace in a nice area and our rent is £390 per week! Student rent so maybe a little lower, but still.

Looks like Labour are relying on people like me who actually have an ounce of pride and don't actually want to exploit the tax payer, which claiming a rediculous sum like that clearly is, to make up the difference.

MrEnglish

Whats most shocking to me is that this change coming in is bringing it DOWN to £1,100 per week.

Those poor familys on benefits that are at the moment getting taxpayer to pay more than 1100 a week for their rent.

How will they cope, now they are only going to have 1100 a week to pay their rent.



Dont forget they will also get 100% of all their council tax paid. Every time a female in the household has another baby they get loads of extra money, 500 quid for 1 a grand for twins and so on. Plus again next few years. Then the odd 190 here and there on top.

They get food tokens on top of the couple of hundred pounds benefits (tax credits, JSA sicknessben)

They get 500 quid in a savings account for every time they get knocked up.

I say every time a female in the household because these days they are as young as 13.

drc

I get the feeling that nuLabour think it is a priviledge to be working and those that do so must be punished.

What is funny is when some families who are reaping tens of thousands of pounds in benefits every year are described as "poor" and "vunerable" simply because they are on benefits yet workers who earn much less, have to pay for everything (and tax and NI) and are generally worse off than their benefit counterparts are presumed to be "middle class" or "well off" simply because they have the "luxury" of getting up at 6am on a rainy day to stand on a packed stinky tube for an hour.

NuLabour has bankrupted the country on its idea that we all must be equal and if you chose not to work you are somehow a victim and must be helped for society failing you. Nobody is responsible for their choices anymore and nobody should strive to be better off else they make somone else feel inadequate.

ukcarper

carolt wrote: »

Surely you do it in voucher form - give voucher to landlord, landlord cashes it.

Easy.

Why can't it be paid directly to the landlord.

ukcarper

drc wrote: »

I get the feeling that nuLabour think it is a priviledge to be working and those that do so must be punished.

What is funny is when some families who are reaping tens of thousands of pounds in benefits every year are described as "poor" and "vunerable" simply because they are on benefits yet workers who earn much less, have to pay for everything (and tax and NI) and are generally worse off than their benefit counterparts are presumed to be "middle class" or "well off" simply because they have the "luxury" of getting up at 6am on a rainy day to stand on a packed stinky tube for an hour.

NuLabour has bankrupted the country on its idea that we all must be equal and if you chose not to work you are somehow a victim and must be helped for society failing you. Nobody is responsible for their choices anymore and nobody should strive to be better off else they make somone else feel inadequate.

This was going on under the last Tory government. Last night George Osborne said they were going to reform the benefit system perhaps they should tell us how. The trouble with LHA is that is what the rents are in the areas they apply to. You could restrict the size of house people can have and make them move to another area after all that is what home owners would have to do but the real solution is more social housing and I personally can’t see that happening.

drc

ukcarper wrote: »

This was going on under the last Tory government. Last night George Osborne said they were going to reform the benefit system perhaps they should tell us how. The trouble with LHA is that is what the rents are in the areas they apply to. You could restrict the size of house people can have and make them move to another area after all that is what home owners would have to do but the real solution is more social housing and I personally can’t see that happening.

Or they could just do the opposite and limit LHA allowance rates so they are, say, 75% of the average rent for a specific bedroom property for an area which would mean people would have to choose to rent cheaper properties and be a little more squashed (as they do in the private sector) or they would have to go out and work if they wanted a more expensive property and top up the rent with their wages. This would also bring down rental rates throughout the market since it is LHA that pushes them up in the first place because landlords know they can get more from LHA. A win-win situation for a) the taxpayer b) the private working tenant c) the benefit tenant (since they get to enjoy the joys of working/economic responsibility ).

SingleSue

MrEnglish wrote: »

Whats most shocking to me is that this change coming in is bringing it DOWN to £1,100 per week.

Those poor familys on benefits that are at the moment getting taxpayer to pay more than 1100 a week for their rent.

How will they cope, now they are only going to have 1100 a week to pay their rent.



Dont forget they will also get 100% of all their council tax paid. Every time a female in the household has another baby they get loads of extra money, 500 quid for 1 a grand for twins and so on. Plus again next few years. Then the odd 190 here and there on top.

They get food tokens on top of the couple of hundred pounds benefits (tax credits, JSA sicknessben)

They get 500 quid in a savings account for every time they get knocked up.

I say every time a female in the household because these days they are as young as 13.

Just to be clear...

The rate of LHA or housing benefit allowable is down to the area you live in...in my area, the most I could get in LHA is as I put in my previous post (just under £137 a week), not every benefit claimant would be able to find a property with rent of upto £1100 a week, only those in really expensive areas.

As explained before, you can receive some housing benefit even if you work, you do not have to be solely on benefits to be eligible. It wouldn't be full benefit and you would have to top it up but it is available for working people too.

Food vouchers? Erm, never heard of that and have never received anything like it!

Not all those on benefits are baby making machines, some claim benefits due to illness, being widowed, having a role as a carer to an elderly relative or a young child, recently losing their job etc.

Not all females on benefits want to have more children...I certainly don't! (Not that I can even if I wanted to)

Not all those on benefits have never worked in their lives, some have actually been very productive members of society and have paid their way for all of their working lives until very recently.

Some of those on benefits have children too old to have been eligible for the child savings thing, the large lump sums etc or maybe at the time they were pregnant, were working and earnt too much for it.

Sometimes it is better to say....there but for the grace of god go I. Misfortune can and does happen despite best laid plans, to stereotype does no good. It is not one size fits all.

lemonjelly

vivatifosi wrote: »

LJ, if you're still around and posting, can you go into a bit more detail as to what the rules are? Having lived next door to one family where five people lived in a one bedroom house and they made a rudimentary bed over the bath every night (thankfully the've managed to move to a bigger house), and know of several cases round here where children's bedrooms are actually their conservatories (with all of the privacy and safety elements that entails) I really want to understand why some are entitled, whereas others, because of home ownership and/or wages, are not. It does strike me as rather bonkers.

I'll try to be brief...

LHA is housing benefit for people in privately rented housing. The idea is to make people more responsible for their own financial affairs - I can see the reasoning here - I see clients who will tell me that "they don't pay rent - the council pays it". It is a mindset we need to change. If your rent is paid into your bank account, & all of a sudden 1 week it doesn't turn up, you'll know about it & do something about it. Previously, you could claim housing benefit (hb) & have it paid direct to the LL. A lot of benefit claimants don't regularly read their mail, so if the council write to them with a problem with their hb, the claimant wouldn't always respond.

LHA/hb is a means tested benefit. How much you qualify for depends on
a) your income
b) your savings
c) your personal circumstances

Your income is calculated from wages, benefits, money from trusts, tax credits, pensions & the like. DLA for example would be ignored, but pretty much all other benefits are classed as income. Some income can be disregarded (eg between £5-£20 from wages)

Savings - if you have under £6k, savings don't affect hb. If you have between £6k-£16k your savings affect your hb/LHA, in that for every £250 you have in savings over £6k, you are deemed to have an income of £1 per week (I wish I knew a savings acc with that interest rate!) Savings/capital includes assets. If you have over £16k, you are not entitled to LHA/hb.

Your personal circs - this is a nightmare to explain, please bear with me.
The secretary of state sets out various allowances to calculate what a person in each set of circs needs as a minimum per week to survive. So, there is an amount for a single person, an amount for a couple, an amount if you have children, an amount for a disabled person, an amount for a carer and so on. This builds up to what is called an "applicable amount". To calculate your applicable amount you stack all the allowances up (they all have a financial value) which apply to you. The total gives you what the sec of state says you need each week. This is how JSA/IS are calculated.

To work out hb, you compare income to the applicable amount. If your income is below the applicable amount, then you get full hb/LHA (provided there are no rent restrictions). If your income is above the applicable amount, you may qualify for some hb/LHA, so you work out the difference between the 2 figures, & have to carry out a calculation.

This is a very brief overlook, & there is a lot it doesn't take into account. For example, rent restrictions.

In my experience, hb/LHA costs have escalated at the same time as BTL. Private LL's have been consistently increasing rents, knowing that hb/LHA will cover it. From where I sit, it is they who are milking the system, not the claimants.

In addition, I have no time for LL's bleating about the fact that they sometimes struggle to get the money from the claimant. That is a risk of the business you are in, sorry. Most tenants do pay the rent, & virtually all LA's have a LL liaison officer. Under hb/LHA law, legally there is some specific information the LA has to give you. Further, if the rent is 2+ months in arrears, the LL can have the money paid directly to them to avoid the risk of homelessness.

Private rents are the real cost to the system here. & this is combined with a lot of private LL's letting out sub-standard - or worse properties. For example, an environmental health dept will condemn a property. If they shared this info with the benefits team, then this would prevent the LL moving another tenant in a week after the condemnation. But they don't share the info, & this does happen.

Fridge2

ninky wrote: »

i disagree lj. this would be expensive to police and involve site visits etc. why not just pay benefits claimants a set amount (in the same way the employed get a set amount) and then it's up to them to find accommodation just as it is for the waged? how could anyone argue with that?

Well as I am a landlord myself, I'll tell you why.

There is no way I would have anyone claiming benefits renting from me unless the money was paid directly to me. I simply don't trust them to hold their end of the bargain by paying up on time.

And yes, blah blah, I know that not every claimant will be like that, but I am simply not prepared to take the risk.

In fact, I think I will keep it simple and not rent to benefit claimants at all.

bambam101

We could always do what we did in the good old days, and build council houses, so we don't have to pay massive rents to private landlords, you could even use all the unemployed builders and carpenters who are presently suffering because of the economic downturn to do it. Some of the comments on here about making people live in tent cities etc are shocking, I wonder how they would like it if they ever found themselves to be unemployed (which could be a distinct possibility over the next three years) to be treated in this way.