Social housing on new estate - where do we stand!

Hump

ILW wrote: »

Not sure which planet you live on.
If a social tenant is so bad they have to be evicted, the council will then just have to rehouse them. Due to this rather bizarre situation the councils tend not to bother.

Starter tenancies and Introductory tenancies are regularly ended by a straightforward procedure where the tenant breaks the rules of the tenancy by, for example, not paying the rent/ causing ASB - and councils usually find the evicted family 'intentionally' homeless and decline to rehouse. Now everyone has a story which disproves the assertions made above - and I did recognise in my earlier post that people would disagree BUT the purpose of the earlier post was to try (just to try) to comment on the gulf of difference between say a problematic Owner Occupier vs a problematic Social Tenant

mrs_motivated

ILW wrote: »

Not sure which planet you live on.
If a social tenant is so bad they have to be evicted, the council will then just have to rehouse them. Due to this rather bizarre situation the councils tend not to bother.

If tenants are evicted for ASB, they can be excluded from the council register. They normally find a private rent, usually in dire condition because only private landlords who don't care about references will take them

ILW

mrs_motivated wrote: »

If tenants are evicted for ASB, they can be excluded from the council register. They normally find a private rent, usually in dire condition because only private landlords who don't care about references will take them

That is the theory, but if they have children (who are often the problem) it rarely happens in practise.

taz8130

Further to this there is a little known bit of case law that came about back in 2010, in Octavia Hill Housing Trust v Brumby.

Lord Atkin stated: "It seems to me clear that if a man permits an offensive thing on his premises to continue to offend, that is if he knows that it is operating offensively, is able to prevent it and omits to prevent it he is permitting the nuisance to continue; in other words he is continuing it."

Basically what this means that if a Housing Trust fails to act with regards to ASB in a timely and effective manner to stop the ASB, it can be held responsible in the eyes of the law. In certain situations, rather than building a case against the tenant of social housing by completing a log of all the incidents, you can use this information to go after the HA.

Unsurprisingly, the HA's don't make you aware of this bit of case law when you go to them with a complaint about a tenant.

whalster

This is a subject that really gets my goat
Firstly a few points in previous posts that are bang on , most people in social housing are not chavs they are hardworking honest people , secondly both side of grandparents to me were in rented houses one private one council and as has been said above they took great pride in their council house which they moved into after the war and paid rent on until the last decade or so of their lives which was rent free as their daughter/my mother bought it for them .
I have been in construction since leaving school and the rubbish that is spouted about the lack of house building always amazes me ! Over the last 12 years I have averaged 10 new houses built per year not a lot by the big boys standards I know. Even in this short space of time it has become increasingly difficult with regulation not only with social housing provision but all the building control effectively becoming a rubber stamp operation but with all pre-planning reports that are now “needed” this is a big problem and puts thousands of pounds on a house price before a machine hits the ground.
Sorry to go on a tangent above – the social housing element is paid for by ALL THE OTHER RESIDENTS ON THE SITE it is not hard math’s we build 15 houses 2 have to be social housing , there is a formula for payment up to a certain limit no where near the cost the reat is divided up amongst those buying the other houses so pushing house prices up for the private sector and keeping those young people who do not qualify off the property ladder .
This was all started by daft Yvette Cooper and a daft academic from York university they have about as much idea as the man on the moon but unfortunately the posh boys who don’t know the price of milk obviously don’t know too much about housing either so have carried on the policy .
The only fair way of providing social housing is to build council houses built from general taxation so we all contribute a little , they need to be run by councils who are ultimately beholden to the electorate not chief executives of housing associations who are on six figure salaries
I hope to keep building in the future but regulation is the problem .
One other brief point,someone mentioned about a private landlord being able to move whom ever they like into a property next door , this is true but that landlord has paid full market value for that property unlike the social housing element on a new site .
As a private landlord I have mainly written in posts on here about slamming letting agent fees which are a disgrace for tenants and landlords but the social housing thing pushes a lot of buttons too .
The politicians really have not got a clue ,you need to be down the hole shoveling the concrete as well as dealing with all the umpteen new regulations a year to understand construction .
As I have pointed out to a lot of the bankers and politicians I have met over the last few years its not the men in boots who caused this problem but the men in suits , and it’s the men in boots who will get us out of it .

**Patty**

tbs624 wrote: »

Not necessarily - if it's the next street the gardens of the properties may ..:eek:.....back onto this row of OO homes.

The OP may have to look out onto a neighbouring washing line full of ..I dunno ....Diadora sports clothing?;)

Purlease.......No self-respecting chav would be seen dead in diadora.

It'll be adidas or nike at least:D:D

mildred1978

A friend bought an amazing new build flat in one of the most expensive areas of London. The estate has 5 blocks, 2 of which are exclusively housing association properties. The other 3 are all privately owned. All good.

The HA promised that there would be sanctions against social tenants that did not adhere to the rules and terms of their leases. Guess what, several do (keep dogs which aren't allowed, park their heaps of junk wherever they like, make noise well outside of agreed hours, domestic violence left right and centre, etc). The HA have done nothing. And now the whole area is being dragged down as the scroats are thieving from the local shops, cars etc.

What a brilliant arrangement. Not.

IHateDida

I too have suffered from social housing tennants - thankfully I have now moved on. The ones that I came across had no respect for their surroundings - littering/pulling up plants on communal ground, very young children unsupervised playing out late at night, I even saw some of the kids digging up a soft play surface! (and all were HA tennants).

Unfortunately those few gave social housing a bad name for me - and never again will I live in a road with planned HA social housing. I didn't see any problems like this being caused by the owner occupiers in the road. So maybe I am a snob too??? (however once bitten and all that.....I have been taught a lesson by some mindless "chavs" who unfortunately has given social housing a bad name).

I also saw the problem with unsold houses on a new build estate - the developer couldn't sell them privately so more went to HA - so never would I trust a developer saying that there is only going to be X number of social houses or none at all - when the going gets tough for them.....they will sell to anyone with the money!

To the OP, I do feel for you if problems occur - but you won't be able to take any legal action - the developer will sell to whoever they like.

DVardysShadow

ILW wrote: »

Look on the positive side.
You will not need to travel far if you wish to buy .... stolen goods.

:money: Money saving tip. If you want stolen goods, don't buy them, steal them yourself.

lukepugh

WOW a lot of replies... wish I had time to reply to them all!

To clear a few things up....
I didn't say that all Social Housing tenants were chavs .... I grew up on a rough council estate and I am not a chav!
The majority of people that live in social housing are not chavs and I have no problem with the majority of people who for whatever reason live in social housing.
BUT .... the real low lives of our society usually end up in social housing and I do not wish to live near to them.

I have worked hard to get away from a council estate and managed to buy my own house only to have "chavs" move into the house next door that was privately owned and let out to a local housing association .... most of the time I got on with them but on a few occasions had arguments about the noise and their behaviour... I tried talking things through but eventually had to take another route and had them evicted. The next tenant that moved in was a single mum that, apart from occasionally playing ridiculously loud music, was not a problem.
Anyway ... my wife fell pregnant so we decided to move to a new estate in a nice area to bring up our daughter.... I don't apologise for not wanting to bring my daughter up around "chavs".... and if that makes me ........ "frightfully ghastly" ... then I guess that is what I am and I will just have to ..... get over myself .......LOL!

OK .... back to the actual question that I asked and thanks to all that replied!
The developer that I purchased my new house from lied about there being social housing on the estate. Judging from some of the replies, as I suspected, there is nothing I can do!

Didn't realise such a simple question would ruffle so many feathers....

Again thanks to those that actually read and understood my question and posted a relevant reply and also to those that added a bit of humour.... but to those "chavs" who’s feathers I ruffled .... get a life!