£480 wk ben cap not enough for families in London to live on.

drc

Flight2quality wrote: »

True of course. But the main issue here is can the government just go cold turkey and cut total benefits down to 480 a week per family? This will be catastrophic for all families betting about 250 per week housing and council tax benefit. Most of those affected will be in inner London, but riots and social unrest could spread far more than it did in 2011.

It's interesting to note that now Labour are jumping on the bandwagon and suggesting that the welfare state needs to be radically changed, taking their que from the Tories and the change of opinion of the population in general in regards to welfare. There is a long article in The Guardian about Liam Byrne's vision of a new welfare state from a Labour perspective.

wotsthat

Flight2quality wrote: »

But the main issue here is can the government just go cold turkey and cut total benefits down to 480 a week per family? This will be catastrophic for all families betting about 250 per week housing and council tax benefit. Most of those affected will be in inner London, but riots and social unrest could spread far more than it did in 2011.

Would it be catastrophic for you if your housing benefit were cut and you had to use some of your own money to pay for your own housing?

You'd probably have to cut your massive silver purchases from 3/4 of a silver coin/ month to 1/2 silver coin/ month.

It's probably completely normal to be a precious metals expert and be in receipt of housing benefit. I'm pretty sure Richard Branson and Lord Sugar both get HA (although they might have to move somewhere cheaper soon).

If I was cutting benefits in any significant way I'd do it in winter. Who wants to riot in crappy weather?

I'd also be trawling sites like these looking for people hoarding wealth whilst in receipt of benefits.

Darthvader

dealer_wins wrote: »

Anyone who uses the word "prop" needs castrating without anesthetic.

What is a better way of describing the way the government has been pushing up rents and house prices by paying £1000s per week for poor to live nice areas.

domcastro

The inner London estates need breaking up. I'm hoping the benefit caps will improve London. The voluntary unemployed need to be separated from one another. Yes, they'll probably riot and loot but next time they'll get shot with rubber bullets and then have to move

967stuart

here's an idea, how about they stop leaching off the state and actually go and work and pay their own way ?
Bit of self respect goes a long way, bloody spongers.

robmatic

Darthvader wrote: »

So you can see huge population movements out of London and price collapsing when these props holding up high prices come out?

Apparently there are lots of people who commute into London? Maybe they will move further in?

dickmysuck

Darthvader wrote: »

"Family size also affects the scale of the reduction in income, not least because of plans to put a £25,000 cap on the total value of benefits that can be paid to any family, regardless of size."


But in London housing benefit and council tax benefit will make up most of that £480 per week?


When are these cuts coming in? What will this do to the property market especially in London?


£480 wk cap is not enough for most families with kids to pay rent/council tax and have enough to live on in London.

Even if they could find somewhere to live in London for less than £300 wk rent/council tax they would prefer to live far away from London where less than half of their £480wk cap would go on rent and council tax.



Say a family in London could find a place for around half that £240 wk rent, council tax would make it around £270 of their allowance used up. Could they really live on about £200 per week for food and bills and everything else?

The trouble is there are so many households in and around London who are getting more than £240 wk housing benefit. Some a lot more, as has been said some get up to £4000 a week just for rent plus council tax benefit.

Where on Earth are all these families going to go?

Everyone keeps saying well if they can't afford to live there then they shouldn't live there. But the situation is that large numbers of low income families are living in high income places like London. Because housing benefit had no limit for so long, rents have been pushed up very high in some places. Remember that newspaper article of that Somalian family getting £4000 a week just for rent to live in big house in the city?

First problem is where are they all going to go? Just outside London will soon get chocka block and they will have to go further afield to find rents cheaper than £240 wk for a place with enough bedrooms.

Second problem is what will happen to the London property market when housing benefit stops pushing up rents? Will anyone move into these empty properties and pay such high rents of £4000 a week out of their own pockets? No I don't think so either.

The landlords will want to make these big houses into a number of smaller flats, but planning is getting very hard for that sort of thing.

What will almost certainly happen is the downward spiral of rents in London, bringing down with them house prices. When the downward momentum gets going the foreign property owners will get scared and pull out on mass. But they will find too many properties all flooding the market at the same time and not enough buyers.

If all this happens at the same time as mortgages getting more expensive and harder to get then look out below. This bear market in housing might find a bottom sooner than most expected.

daveyjp

dickmysuck - your comments re the potential fall in rents and capital values is exactly why the Govt are holding off implementing this. It will upset the Boards of many of the companies who have large portfolios of residential property and these people have the ears of those making the decisions.

I agree that to pay HB at £1,000+ per week is absolutely crazy - the only possible way back from that is regulated rents and the return of the Rent Act, not a problem if you are going to build thousands of new social housing units and cut out private landlords altogether, but is this on the agenda?

drc

daveyjp wrote: »

dickmysuck - your comments re the potential fall in rents and capital values is exactly why the Govt are holding off implementing this. It will upset the Boards of many of the companies who have large portfolios of residential property and these people have the ears of those making the decisions.

They're not holding off. The housing benefit caps came in on 1st Jan 2012 for existing tenants.

IronWolf

Living in central london myself I can see the effects of this starting to bite. Rents have fallen by almost 10% in the last year in my area