Sell up and stop complaining about going hungry and cold.

Percy1983

By all means I do agree even I am not immune to major disaster, but to be honest if something that major happened I we lost our home then so be it, life deals some tough times.

My point was a 6 month safety net is should be more than enough to sort the majority of problems.

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu

Percy1983 wrote: »

By all means I do agree even I am not immune to major disaster, but to be honest if something that major happened I we lost our home then so be it, life deals some tough times.

My point was a 6 month safety net is should be more than enough to sort the majority of problems.

Yep, that and a bit of insurance covers most eventualities. To hear how certain people on this forum talk, you'd imagine they were afraid of stepping out of the their front door in case something bad happens to them. Sensible folk cover themselves as best they can and just get on with it.

ukcarper

Percy1983 wrote: »

By all means I do agree even I am not immune to major disaster, but to be honest if something that major happened I we lost our home then so be it, life deals some tough times.

My point was a 6 month safety net is should be more than enough to sort the majority of problems.

I personally think that it could take a lot longer than 6 months you are just looking at it from your personal perspective.

Graham_Devon

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu wrote: »

Housing benefit is paid over an indefinite period, whereas SMI in this context has a limited timespan and then stops (24 months). That's the point I was making, but as I said in my posts, the OP didn't mention Benefits, so we can rule it out of the discussion.

I assumed we were talking about a long-term problem because surely you would agree that it would be madness to make such a long-term decision such as selling a house in order to fix a short-term problem?

If you are on income support, or over over 65, SMI is indefinate.

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

If you are on income support, or over over 65, SMI is indefinate.

I believe Income support is only available to people not available to work.

People over 65 have to be claiming pension credit.

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu

Graham_Devon wrote: »

If you are on income support, or over over 65, SMI is indefinate.

Yes, but income support isn't indefinate as you're supposed to be looking for a job (whether people really are is beside the point) and pensions credit is available for a small minority of people. Contrast this with housing benefit that is available to everyone who rents if their income is low enough - whether they work or not. Anyway, as I said this is not really relevent to the OPs thread as he has stated that he's talking about people strugging but not on benefit. If you want to debate SMI/Housing benefit, it might be better to create a new thread as more people would contribute.

Getting back to this discussion, I think you missed my second point:

"I assumed we were talking about a long-term problem because surely you would agree that it would be madness to make such a long-term decision such as selling a house in order to fix a short-term problem?"

Do you/other people agree?

Graham_Devon

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu wrote: »

Yes, but income support isn't indefinate as you're supposed to be looking for a job

Err, the same for Housing Benefit. :undecided

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Err, the same for Housing Benefit. :undecided

Income support is only available to certain people and if you are able to work you can't claim it.

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Err, the same for Housing Benefit. :undecided

"If you're on a low income, whether you're working or not, and need financial help to pay all or part of your rent, you may be able to get Housing Benefit. Find out more, including who is eligible and how to claim."

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/On_a_low_income/DG_10018926

As you can see, Housing benefit is not just paid out to assist people who are temporarily jobless but paid out to people who have low incomes, whether working or not.

Can we now move the discussion back to talking about struggling homeowners who aren't on benefits? I keep asking the same question (repeated again below) and you seem to be avoiding it by diverting the conversation back to SMI (apologies if I am wrong, but that's how it seems). As I said, if you want to discuss SMI then why not create a new thread instead of keep taking this off topic?

Here is the question on the 3rd attempt:

"I assumed we were talking about a long-term problem because surely you would agree that it would be madness to make such a long-term decision such as selling a house in order to fix a short-term problem?"

Do you/other people agree?

lessonlearned

Percy1983 wrote: »

I agree, but going back to my situation, we have 2 incomes coming in yet we could still live easily on 1 wage, so we are far from the edge so it would take a much bigger push to get us over the edge. So the odds on us both being out of work for the same 6 months is highly unlikely.

Yet if you have 2 incomes and have maxed yourselves as you say I job loss could cause big problems.

2006 - two incomes, a growing business, a second property paid for, small mortgage which we were paying down, no debts, ISA's, and several savings accounts.

Disaster strikes - husband develops serious illness, I'm forced to give up work to care for him.

State will not help - we have too much in the way of assets.

2012 - he's in a state nursing home, we're broke, the state have taken virtually everything.

It can and does happen...