The End of Social Housing for Life

mustrum_ridcully

I fear this will end-up nothing more than a spongers and wasters charter.

Why go out and earn a living when you might be forced to rent in the private sector (or take on the burden of a mortgage assuming you can even get one). I can see people either staying on benefits or going in and out of employment in order to live in a council house - a better bet than dealing with 6 month ASTs or dodgy LLs who issue s21 notices when work is requested.

If the government proposed to reform the private rental sector in order to remove some of the above problems then I might be able to support their plans. However, they aren't going to do that.

Personally speaking what I'd do is:
- Remove right to hand the CH to kids
- Remove right-to-buy or mandate that right-to-buy money MUST be used to build new housing
- Link CH rent to income, the more you earn the more you pay (if you have a very good income a CH should be more expensive than private renting or mortgage)
- Link CH rent to property occupancy, encourage people to downsize
- CH only for people with jobs, disabled or elderly (which I understand is how the system worked in the 50's)

barbiedoll

suburbanwifey wrote: »

That's what I thought - when I read the above poster mentioning cash incentives I searched on the web and found no evidence of it.
Thanks for answering my query.

My local authority offers council tenants who wish to downsize
"£350 per bedroom gained plus help with your moving costs"
Not £50,000 though! :eek:

As the owner of a very small house, I do find it galling that council tenants expect to be rehoused each time they have another child. We only have one kid because we knew that we couldn't afford a bigger house. It's the same with the rise in benefits for each child, I wouldn't get a pay rise if I had another baby! I think that CH tenancies should be up for renewal if the tenants have a change in circumstances, an aquaintance of mine lives in a 3-storey, 5-bedroomed CH, she only has one kid living at home and she is renting out a couple of her spare rooms. All undeclared to the benefits office, obviously. :mad:

As for building more homes, all well and good in practice but I work in the midwifery department of a large London hospital and we are bursting at the seams already. There has been a massive rise in the amount of high-density housing in our area, and a lot of the tenants are having more and more babies. They will all need bigger and bigger homes in the years to come as well as schools, hospitals, transport links etc etc. More social housing is needed, without a doubt but it's not the only expense associated with a rising population.

Graham_Devon

suburbanwifey wrote: »

That's what I thought - when I read the above poster mentioning cash incentives I searched on the web and found no evidence of it.
Thanks for answering my query.

There is the Cash Insentive Scheme.
http://www.underoneroofexchange.co.uk/exchange9.html

Transfer Incentive Scheme.
http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/HousingPlanning/HousingOptions/MoveHome/TransferIncentiveScheme.htm

Payments range from £150 up to £7500.

Each council has it's own payment structure.

Just searching google for either of those, will list loads of councils, and you can see payments for each. Aberdeen's, for instance, is up to £3,000 per bedroom, whereas Lambeth is up to £1,000 per bedroom.

All your moving costs will also be paid for, and services provided, plus you can also claim redecorating fee's.

It most definately exists!!

Busybody

I have known people who have spent all their adult lives and raised families in the same council house!! And they were in decent jobs..

I think a good way to go about it is that if they want to stay in a particular house and they are earning they should be allowed to buy the house or get out! Any money raised should go to renovating all the empty properties that are standing doing nothing!!

concerned43

The answer is not in short term tenancies as this would create a barrier to many getting better paid jobs, nor can they expect to raise the rent to 80% of market value - some of these houses are hovels! with the tenant expected to maintain and decorate the property!
Instead the government should follow the Scottish government who has recently passed a law that prevents new tenants from buying their house.... they also ensure that when a major building company is building houses that they also have to build a certain amount for social housing also (part of the agreement to build on the land)!

Jowo_2

concerned43 wrote: »

... they also ensure that when a major building company is building houses that they also have to build a certain amount for social housing also (part of the agreement to build on the land)!

I think something like this could already be in place in England but it's unpopular with developers and deters buyers who don't want to live with vulnerable social housing tenants.

some developers in London have paid sums to their local council in order to be exempt from having to offer a proportion of their properties as affordable (don't know if this is buying or renting).

i don't really see why it is the responsibility of a private company to act as a branch of social services and do the government's job for them - it's a welfare role.

olly300

concerned43 wrote: »

they also ensure that when a major building company is building houses that they also have to build a certain amount for social housing also (part of the agreement to build on the land)!

They already do that in England.

With the recession builders have either gone two ways. They have either:
1. Stopped building the development
2. Tried to and sometimes successfully sold the unsold properties to HA for social housing. This means that entire developments that were suppose to be private if they are good enough are now social housing.

ceridwen

eve13 wrote: »

Why not be fair and say that everyone, social housing tenants, private rent tenants and home owners should all move out of their properties if they are under-occupied? Its still hard earned money whether its rent or mortgage. Or make it compulsary for every under-occuped accomodation owners/renters to take in lodgers. Where I live some owners have 5+ bedrooms for just two people while in my part of the village 2 bedrooms are the norm for 4+ families (incidentally I don't think theres anything wrong with this, lived in same when i was a kid and later when I had a larger family 2 kids + 2 informally fostered kids. It taught us to be more tolerant).

Presumably said tongue in cheek??;)

I think it has to be borne in mind that no-one would be hoping/expecting that Council tenants who have more space than they are deemed to "need" should move if it wasnt for the fact that there is a shortage of Council housing. Not a word would be said if there was enough Council housing. From this - I can understand why so-called "under-occupiers" would turn round and say "Well - its not MY fault if there arent enough Council houses - so why should I suffer by having to move?" One cant fault that logic - and I could sympathise with that.

Now...back to owner-occupiers with property deemed "too big" for them.....errr...how fast could I get a builder in to knock down my upstairs walls (ie so that there WAS only ONE bedroom - just a rather large one)?;):rotfl:. Must admit that personally I would actually do exactly that if the need ever arose...

ukcarper

mustrum_ridcully wrote: »

I

- Remove right to hand the CH to kids

Is there a right to above.

lemonjelly

ukcarper wrote: »

Is there a right to above.

There are 2.

The right of succession is where a child can take on the tenancy after the parent(s) pass away. A sucession can only occur once, & the child (or certain other family member) has to have resided there for 12 months.

There is also the right of assignment, where a still live tenant can assign the tenancy to a close family member as above. Again this can only occur once & they must have lived there 12 months+. This usually happens when a tenant is going into hospital, or is diagnosed with alzheimers or similar.