How to help unemployed single mum onto the housing ladder?

jakehamble

Thank you Fran

I must say I have been a little disappointed by some of the judgements that seem to be implied in many posts, and in particular insinuations that we are trying to defraud the benefit system, or that my sister is a 'skiver'.

The point of the exercise is to help her into a position where she reduces her dependence on the tax-payer in the long term. Why is that so offensive?

noyk

seven-day-weekend wrote:

Our holiday home, but we will come back to the UK in the next five years.

Anyway,why should we not have a house in the UK? It is bought and paid for by us with no help from anyone else, we have had it since 1976. Also, it is our son's home; why should he be chucked out?

No-one else paid for our house in Spain, either.

I'm not saying you can't have a house in the UK or abroad but from your original post you make out that it's incredibly tight. Now, let me know if i'm being harsh but you have a holiday home and your virtually pleading poverty (for your son at least) caused by this legislation.

I would guess that there are many people on this board who would envy your position.

seven-day-weekend

noyk wrote:

I'm not saying you can't have a house in the UK or abroad but from your original post you make out that it's incredibly tight. Now, let me know if i'm being harsh but you have a holiday home and your virtually pleading poverty (for your son at least) caused by this legislation.

I would guess that there are many people on this board who would envy your position.

My son is hard, up, he is on JSA at the moment. He has to live somewhere and there would be no chance of him getting a Council property.

We live in Spain, yes, that is our choice, and I know we are luckier than a lot of people (except it's not just luck), but we only have a very small income from my husbands occupational pension and we need that to live on here, if we were in the UK we would probably qualify for benefits.

I've just read another thread where someone has four times as much income as us and our son put together, and more than half of it is benefits, and they are wondering how they are going to manage.

So yes, although we have two houses, paid for by being sensible and not over-stretching ourselves (Our houses are worth about £220,000 for the two , not a great deal these days), we do not have a lot of spare income.

I wasn't pleading poverty, I was panicking . :eek: I've got over it now.

noyk

seven-day-weekend wrote:

My son is hard, up, he is on JSA at the moment. He has to live somewhere and there would be no chance of him getting a Council property.

We live in Spain, yes, that is our choice, and I know we are luckier than a lot of people (except it's not just luck), but we only have a very small income from my husbands occupational pension and we need that to live on here, if we were in the UK we would probably qualify for benefits.

I've just read another thread where someone has four times as much income as us and our son put together, and more than half of it is benefits, and they are wondering how they are going to manage.

So yes, although we have two houses, paid for by being sensible and not over-stretching ourselves (Our houses are worth about £220,000 for the two , not a great deal these days), we do not have a lot of spare income.

I wasn't pleading poverty, I was panicking . :eek: I've got over it now.

Maybe i was a bit harsh, i understand your situation better now (though i have no right to judge) and i do recognise that there are many people on this board who do not know how lucky they are, even when they have significant debts.
FYI, I am fortunate in one respect and that is i have a job i enjoy and get paid well for, but i cannot afford to buy a house for myself and girlfriend which at 28 i would really like to do. We want to start a family and to some extent, yes we could in rented accomodation but it's not ideal with an assured shorthold tenancy (which means the landlord can kick us out with 2 months notice without any good reason). So thats where i am, and why i responded the way i did because you are asset rich. It seems age (via goverment/monetary policy) is dividing the generations.
Could you help your son get on some night courses or something to help him get a job. Plus i'm sure that the HMO regulations don't need to effect you, my friend at work who has a number of BTL (in HMO occupation) in west london is quite sure that he's going to be given at least a year or more to sort things out.

seven-day-weekend

Thanks Noyk for your reply.

Yes, we are asset rich, but we don't actually have much money to live on.

My son has AS which we've only just realised and this is one of the reasons he is finding it difficult to get a job. He applied for three a couple of weeks ago (all of which he had experience in) but heard nothing. I think the problem is he is 26 and they will employ a 17-year-old and pay them less.
We do try and help him as much as we can from a distance.

Thanks for your advice about the HMO regulations. After I talked it over with my husband, we both think that by the time we have to do anything, ifwe have to do anything, we'll be back in the UK and it won't be a HMO any more.

Good luck with your house hunting, I hope you find something soon.

Fran

noyk wrote:

.....So thats where i am, and why i responded the way i did because you are asset rich. It seems age (via goverment/monetary policy) is dividing the generations.

There are plenty of older people living in rented accommodation who have never been in a position to buy!

Could you help your son get on some night courses or something to help him get a job.

If he's on Jobseekers Allowance, they tell him about free courses available.

seven-day-weekend

Fran wrote:

There are plenty of older people living in rented accommodation who have never been in a position to buy!

If he's on Jobseekers Allowance, they tell him about free courses available.

Yes, he has done some courses and been on some placements (one he continues with on a voluntary basis).

The two courses he would like to go on they will not fund and they cost £1000s. So we're all trying to save our pennies!

noyk

Fran wrote:

There are plenty of older people living in rented accommodation who have never been in a position to buy!

If he's on Jobseekers Allowance, they tell him about free courses available.

But probably not privately rented, or if they are they have been renting the place for a long time and thus have assured tenancies which provide a lot more saftey for the tenant than modern AST's.

When i was out of work and on JSA in 2001 for 9 months or so, the Job centre (in Woking) we're pretty useless, they didn't provide much help terms of courses etc. Admittidley i was a little down at the time and so didn't ask for much in the way of info and i wasn't very proactive, but i truly don't remember it being offered. It's truly depressing being out of work for a significant amount of time, in that situation i was lucky to get a few temping jobs at places like the post office.

ABN

When I first got married back in the early seventies there was not the glut of rented accommodation that there is today. We had to rent a “flat” above a paint spray shop. The only form of heating was an open coal fire in the living room. In the winter it is was so cold and damp that our clothes were quite literally frozen stiff.

We then had 2 children. The youngest had a weak chest and suffered badly from the paint fumes and the cold/damp. The council eventually, due to his failing health gave us a council house on one of the worst estates in the area.

I was working and the wife stayed home to look after the children. Apart from the council house we received no other state benefit.

When the children were 4 and 6 respectively the wife left for a more exotic life,l leaving me as a single WORKING father bringing up 2 young kids.

Thus I can speak from experience having been in a similar situation to your sister. As such I feel I have the right to feel very offended by this thread.

As to whether your defrauding the benefit system or not. I don’t know enough about it to say if you are legally defrauding them but from a moral standpoint I can say YES you are.

As to whether your sister is a skiving from my experience in life and on behalf of all the working single parents who can’t be here because of their circumstances, but who’s tax from their HARD EARNED money you would be using for your own gain, I can say YES she is.

noyk

seven-day-weekend wrote:

Yes, he has done some courses and been on some placements (one he continues with on a voluntary basis).

The two courses he would like to go on they will not fund and they cost £1000s. So we're all trying to save our pennies!

What courses are they? Are they in IT, not that many courses in IT that cost 1000s are worth it.