Just 5000 people exceed new maximum housing benefit

puddy

no, one child for a 2 bed place, the child has to have their own room

GDB2222

Generali wrote: »

It should be the case that £1,800,000,000 withdrawn from a housing market worth overall £4,000,000,000,000 IIRC (certainly of the order of trillions) shouldn't make a difference. Markets are funny beasts though.

Are you sure about those numbers, Gen? i think the total current value of BTL mortgages outstanding is approximately £130bn. Bear in mind that only 25-30% of BTL properties are supported by BTL mortgages, although some more may be supported by other borrowing, eg on the owner's own house.

"Since its introduction in July 1996, following an initiative launched by the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), BTL mortgages have grown to over 991,600 by end September 2007, with a value of over £116 billion (CML, 2007)."

Source: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/507390/pdf/684943.pdf

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Are you sure about those numbers, Gen? i think the total current value of BTL mortgages outstanding is approximately £130bn. Bear in mind that only 25-30% of BTL properties are supported by BTL mortgages, although some more may be supported by other borrowing, eg on the owner's own house.

"Since its introduction in July 1996, following an initiative launched by the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), BTL mortgages have grown to over 991,600 by end September 2007, with a value of over £116 billion (CML, 2007)."

Source: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/507390/pdf/684943.pdf

The numbers refer to the overall size of the housing market, not just BTL. If a BTL property goes onto the market then it is competing for sale with all properties, not just BTL ones.

The numbers are from memory so I am happy to be corrected. I am as fallible as the next person, as long as the next person isn't Emile Hesky!

Degenerate

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

And then you have the people who pay inflated rent to their parents & relatives & get a little back each month..

Yes, but the MP's expenses thing is behind us now.

chewmylegoff

silvercar wrote: »

What about the people who receive some contribution to a rent above £400 a week, who will be taken off LHA completely as a result of this change?

i don't understand. Are you suggesting that if you were currently receiving £300pw housing benefit but topping this up and renting somewhere for £500pw, you would lose the £300pw because of the new cap at £400pw?

that's not my understanding - i think the way the changes have been set out someone in that situation would be unaffected. could be wrong though as the detail hasn't been set out yet as far as i can see.

chucky

Generali wrote: »

Ah, I see, it's a selective quotation:



That is not the same thing as 5,000 getting more in housing benefit than the new limit. Not the same thing at all. Naughty boy Hamish_McTavish!

i read on the way home tonight that 170,000 people rent privately and receive the allowance in London - not all of London has a £400 rent though

silvercar

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i don't understand. Are you suggesting that if you were currently receiving £300pw housing benefit but topping this up and renting somewhere for £500pw, you would lose the £300pw because of the new cap at £400pw?

that's not my understanding - i think the way the changes have been set out someone in that situation would be unaffected. could be wrong though as the detail hasn't been set out yet as far as i can see.

No, I was talking about a low paid worker who gets some help with rent but not all. So if they rented somewhere at their LHA limit, their earnings may mean they get LHA of £300 and contribute £200 from earnings. If the LHA level drops to £400, does their personal LHA drop to £150 or stay at £200.

We keep being told that there are far more people in receipt of some LHA than those who get it all paid, so the effect on them is worth noting.

Generali

chucky wrote: »

i read on the way home tonight that 170,000 people rent privately and receive the allowance in London - not all of London has a £400 rent though

Indeed. I would imagine in London there will be three lots of people hit by this:

- the p!ss takers, 5 bed house in Chelsea (a pretty small group I would guess)
- divorcing middle classes who at present sign on and take the kids out of the family home in [nice suburb] and move into a rented place round the corner until the assets get divided up
- people living in nice areas that, like I was, are out of work and struggling to get something else

Basically the government has set the safety net a little bit lower.

Shakethedisease

Oh well, at least it got the benefit bashers excited !

Seem's Osborne et al didn't bother basing their policies on actual REAL claims, just hypothetical ones ( or one's reported as fact in the Daily Mail ). I wouldn't normally beleive anything a politician says but..

http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog.php?id=463

It is tucked away at the bottom of page 5 beneath the headline 'Osborne's £104,000 claim "not based on real cases."'


I must admit that even I, immune though I am to most Tory spin, let out a little 'tut-tut' when the Chancellor reported that 'some families' receive £104,000 a year in housing benefit.

Yet the little Guardian report suggests this may not be so. In this era of Freedom of Information, surely if such sums were being paid in such a controversial benefit, we would know how many, where they lived and who they were. Not so. 'We don't have any figures on how many people are claiming that rate,' a spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions is quoted as saying.

But the same spokeswoman admits the £104,000 is based on what a family who were housed in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the wealthiest parts of the UK, WOULD receive IF they were given a five bedroomed home. In other words the chances are there are no such families taking £104,000 at all.


In a weird form of mitigation the spokeswoman says that whilst they have no records of such large claims (we are only the government, eh?) a search of the websites of the Sun and the Daily Mail would 'throw up stories of people being paid the same if not more.'

So let us be clear, dear, if I may patronise you as much as you appear to be patronising the Guardian reading public. The Chancellor made an eye-catching claim, one that will be used to justify major cuts, without any government knowledge that such a claim was justified, beyond reports published on the websites of two tabloid newspapers not best known for their objectivity. Interesting approach to communication of major policy decisions.

Oh well, never let the truth get in the way of populist policies and just make it up and twist it as we go along and as it suits. Government ( any ) back in business then !

Nothing ever changes does it. Spin still alive and well.

chewmylegoff

silvercar wrote: »

No, I was talking about a low paid worker who gets some help with rent but not all. So if they rented somewhere at their LHA limit, their earnings may mean they get LHA of £300 and contribute £200 from earnings. If the LHA level drops to £400, does their personal LHA drop to £150 or stay at £200.

We keep being told that there are far more people in receipt of some LHA than those who get it all paid, so the effect on them is worth noting.

well thinking about it, i assume that if current HB for a 4 bed in london is £500pw, and you are assessed as being able to contribute £100pw towards this, so you receive £400pw, then it is likely that you will lose £100pw of housing benefit, as entitlement is based on income, so logically you would be assessed as still being able to contribute £100pw towards the cost, so you would receive £300pw.

this seems fair enough really. someone in that situation will just have to pay more top-up, or move to a cheaper house. might have to lose a bedroom and be a bit more cramped. big deal.