Renting problems.....as well as some advice on council houses needed

BT_man

Don't you get paid quite a lot of money for fostering?

heybigsaver_2

angeluk69 wrote:

If I were you I would tell friends/family/the neighbours dog to stop using your house as a storage area or maybe you could charge them for the space that you sooo desperately need, then you might be able to afford the rent.

89 pts is quite generous considering you don't need 4 bedrooms, it's people like you that make me mad... I have 2 kids(DS &DD age 5 and 2) they have to share a bedroom and we have hardly any space for them to play or do anything and yet we cannot get a council house and we have been on the list for nearly 5 yrs. People like you think 'how can we get cheap housing, ohI know...lets start fostering and then make out we are overcrowded!'

This sort of attitude absolutley appauls decent peopl like me and my family as we struggle everyday to be able to do what we can for our kids and still don't get the help that we truly need.


(sorry if my post upsets anyone apart from OP but I needed to voice my opinion)

Clear your house and downsize, be decent and respect the fact there are far more deserving people on council lists genuinely waiting for housing

We want to downsize, as I said, agency fees are VERY expensive, it would cost over £1000 to move out, money that could be used on the rent.

We would need a two bedroom house anyway, because there are two of us...and the one room is for fostering, which has nothing to do with trying to get a bigger house, we genuinely want to look after children and have been in the application process for a long time, weeeelll before all these renting problems started, so for one, please don't judge us and think we're doing it to get a bigger house. There are other ways, why would we go through all this training and have all aspects of our lives looked into..just to get a bigger house?

You're also not the only one with problems, every penny goes towards bills and rent, we have no extra money, we can't afford to move out of here! That is why I have asked for advice, not abuse. Just because you have a family with children, it doesn't mean that you are the only one in need of a house.

heybigsaver_2

clutton wrote:

i actually do know someone who is using "fostering" as a mean to getting a larger flat, and only intends doing it for a short while - i think it stinks.

Angela i am not saying you are doing this btw.

but, i do agree, get rid of this huge quantity of stuff, its only "stuff" and once its gone out of the door, you will have great difficulty remembering what it was.

It angers me that people would foster to get a bigger house, it definitely doesn't work like that, when we were having training, I heard that people only fostered so the council would extend their houses to build an extra room. Anyone that wants to foster should do it because they want to, not from what they will get out of it.

heybigsaver_2

cathy2702 wrote:

Hey there

Would you approach your landlord and just say to them that you love where you live, you take good care of the property and want to be in it longterm and would they meet you half way over an increase. I did this with my landlord and he has kept my rent the same for 3 yrs now. I do things like pay for the window sills to be repainted, oil fire burner to be serviced and things like that. They may seem small but he really appreciates it.

The only other option other than moving to a smaller, cheaper place is to earm more income, or maybe put a statement of accounts onto the DFW forum and see if you could make any small savings

HTH
Best of luck
Cath

Thanks, we will contact him and see what he says, and also ask if he has any smaller properties. (to avoid agency fees...we could then move out!)

heybigsaver_2

titewad wrote:

They are not in overcrowded housing,in fact the opposite.
What's upsetting some people is not the fact they are maybe a low income family,or that they can't afford to pay the rent with two family members having moved out.It's the fact that still require a property the same size so that they have bedrooms available to store the property of the two family members who have moved out.

Not at all, the stuff is being moved out gradually! Once we move out, there isn't going to be ROOM for their things, the property we live in is very big, and there is no way I'm expecting to have a house even half the size.

The extra room is purely for fostering, of which we are starting very soon. Considering we've been told that we'll be on the list for over 5 years we have a long time to go before we get a place, why would we waste years of our life fostering children JUST to get a bigger house?

Christ...I really can't see why there has been such an uproar!

Again, I asked for advice, we can't afford to stay here...or move out, therefore, don't have many options.

S4311y

This ia a follow up to my 1st comment & i feel that now i have looked back on what i said that really i should appolagise as i probably reacted like that due to my frustration with my local H.A! So i am sorry for my outburst & will def think before i feel the need to give my opinion again :cool:

littlesaint

If you have a four bedroom house, why not try subletting the 4th room. We won't tell

lynzpower

heybigsaver

Only just caught up with this, sorry I misunderstood, I thought you and your mum were a couple!

Having quite a lot of experience in social services there are 2 avenues

have you been approved as carers yet? There really is, im sure you understand, no point in securing extra room in a property if you do not get approved as carers.

Secondly, I know what foster carers round here get paid, and I have a fiar idea of the rate countrywide. You, IM sure have a good understanding about what the rate you will be expecting is. That rate is the premium for you providing shelter and a home, so therefore its that money which is to be used towards increased accomodation costs.

Have you tried to find LLs who wont charge you the upfront fees? How much are we REALLY talking about here?

black-saturn

Sorry but I agree with some of the above posters. You really need to look at getting rid of some of your stuff and moving to a 1 or 2 bedroom house/flat so that you can live within your means.

Also one thing to remember is that the landlord can't put the rent up by a big jump. He has to put it up so that it's in line with other properties of the same kind in that area. If he's charging considerably more than other landlords with similar properties in that area you can appeal against it.