Britain's Hidden Housing Crisis

Revill

Errata wrote: »

Hang on there, just because someone is driving a car it doesn't mean they own it.

The fact that they even have access to it means that they are in no way in a worse a situation as they could be, and still living a life with a good level of comfort and convienience.
Im arguing the case that the worst that happened to them is that they had to live with the inlaws for a few months and not have any skiiing holidays for a while.
Whilst i dont begrudge them their troubles, i think that shining a light on them, takes it away from highlighting many more disturbing stories off ACTUAL suffering and hardship.

The kind that my colleagues and i see every day, but gets ignored else where.

SailorSam

Errata wrote: »

Hang on there, just because someone is driving a car it doesn't mean they own it.

Even if they never owned the cars, if you're in debt and in fear of losing your home you start to make cutbacks in non-necessities. At least one car could have gone. If they don't own the cars they must be paying finance. They're certainly paying road tax and insurance.

gingin_2

melysion wrote: »

I dont understand why the rich family and the lady with cancer didn't just get a private rental. They are plenty of time to find something didn't they?

Or am I just being thick? I mean - thats precisely what I would have done.

Glad things were looking up for Kevin in the end.

I thnk there must have been more to the lady with cancer, maybe she remortgaged and had no equity and it wasn't mentioned. The family with the 500k I/O mortgage were astounding, especially when they drove off in the Lexus. Granted it wasnt a new one but it would have been worth the deposit and first month's rental on a property, surely?

Errata, just read your post. Yes, you could be right. I made my assumption because it was a family car and they said they had one car left but it could have been family's. I still think they were crazy to have taken on a £500,000 I/O mortgage and not have paid off any equity or identified that they needed to downsize.

Desperado99

Errata wrote: »

Hang on there, just because someone is driving a car it doesn't mean they own it.

I assumed (maybe naively) that they had borrowed an extra car off the SIL that they were moving in with.

I didn't really understand why they hadnt attempted to sell their house before being repossessed, head in the sand mentality I suppose. One of our neighbours was repossessed a few years back, the husband had left and she simply stopped paying the mortgage because she didnt want to deal with 'his debts', it just seemed daft to me, they could have sold the house, cleared the debts and both have some equity......... but it didnt happen, you never know what goes through other peoples minds

BigAunty

melysion wrote: »

I dont understand why the rich family and the lady with cancer didn't just get a private rental. They are plenty of time to find something didn't they?

Or am I just being thick? I mean - thats precisely what I would have done.

...

It changed quite recently in Englad, and I haven't seen the full documentary yet, but if a homeless household wants social housing from the local council, they know that if they find private accommodation, the council won't need to help them.

Some homeless households would prefer the inconvenience of temporary accommodation knowing that at some stage, they will get social housing as they will considered a priority by the council. If they leave ahead of the possession process, the get no assistance from the council. It is better that they don't help themselves from that perspective.

However, it's also the case that the head in the sand approach that may have contributed to their homelessness, and the fact that they are broke, means they haven't the drive or funds to find accommodation themselves - their credit rating will be shot and they are dependent on benefits which makes them unattractive to private landlords.

BigAunty

worried_jim wrote: »

.... She has £90k equity- sell and buy something you can afford.

...

The Cancer sufferer does not necessarily have 90k equity. The documentary said that when she bought it in 1997, it was 'worth' 54k and now it is valued at 180k.

That's not necessarily equity as they may have remortgaged it in the way that was very common back then to renovate, plus as she split from her husband, perhaps it was remortgaged as part of a buy out.

The documentary also fudged how much the original purchase was - they would have been entitled to a discount if they'd been long term council tenants so perhaps it actually only cost them 30 or 40k which was still not paid off after 13 years.

BigAunty

Miss_Havisham wrote: »

I noticed the family of 6 left the council offices and jumped into a taxi clutching take-away cups of coffee and the kids soft drinks. That's a tenner gone plus the cab fare (they needed to get back to the flat urgently though so fair enough).

....

There's no way that the landlord of their 1 bedroom flat only gave them notice to leave on that particular day after their eldest smashed a window.

It is staggering to think that they left it to the morning of the eviction to go to the council and that they left children alone in the flat at the actual time it was due to take place. They seemed bewildered that the landlords representatives actually had the temerity to turn up when they said they would - it was the parents that were to blame for their childrens distress in the flat by being absent when they knew the repossession was actually due.

SailorSam

BigAunty wrote: »

That's not necessarily equity as they may have remortgaged it in the way that was very common back then to renovate,

If that house has been renovated i wish they'd given the name of the builder that did the work,
so that i could avoid him.
It looked pretty tatty compared to her neighbours.

jh2009

The programme was heart breaking at times to watch, but I tried to think about each case and the facts that weren't broadcast:

1. The cancer lady

This is shown as if this womans been heartlessly evicted by barclays for having cancer and missing a few payments.

The programme mentioned she'd divorced. I suspect her ex was paying the bulk of mortgage until he left her, and she had a low paid part time job. The clue to her low income was that she was looking after her grandchildren during the week, so her income was probably insufficient to afford that house.

Shes already 9k down in payments, so maybe barclays looked at her low income (even if she went back to work), her divorce, her arrears, etc and saw the bigger picture that this was only going to get worse. She mentioned paying more when she was on her feet but no real detail was provided and my guess is it was not enough or built on more debt. We could've come back in 2 years and found her still in the house but 20k down and whats Barclays supposed to do in that situation?

I feel for her with her health. But I wonder if that just came along later and masked the true reasons for her problems which were that after her husband left her she was living well beyond her means but seemed to want to take no action to deal with it.

2. The large family of 6 evicted from the council house

I agree with other posters that a council would not lightly evict a family with 4 kids.

My suspicions are they were the family from hell that most council estates have. It wouldn't surprise me if they believed they were untouchable with 4 kids and so missed payments, ignored letters/invites to meetings, and spent their cash on things like their sons x box. I imagine they got the shock of their lives when the council actually evicted them.

The father seemed to be working hard on his bus driving job, and kept his dignity I thought when his family were being evicted. I wondered if the wife was the real problem here. You saw her temper when she got back to the flat as they had started the eviction. I wonder if the bailiffs evicting them had a lucky escape having that film crew there to protect them from her.

Again the broken window i agree was probably the tip of the iceberg. In their new hotel you could see how lively the kids were in that hotel garden. No real criticism seemed to ever be levied at their parents inability to send their kids to school.

(iii) The 500k house family.

Sad but this was a classic recession tale of someone who bet it all on red in the good times and lost. It seemed to me they had an affordable smaller home, but gambled it all on his business carrying on. His business sounds like it relied on one client so when that failed his house and financial affairs were built on sand. He was unlucky and there must be others in the same position who will get away with it.

They were clearly hoping to ride it out, but I lost a bit of sympathy when they blew the sale of their 2nd car on christmas. Their surviving car was one of those 4x4 tanks you see housewives needlessly driving around residential areas to take their kids to school in. They could've bought some more time and saved some cash if they'd traded down to a 2nd hand mini metro.

At the start of the programme they said they were proud to have come from humble starts so you thought they would've been able to take a step back and downsized.

4. Kevin

The most genuine of cases. Could tell he had a good life in america, though they didn't go into much detail and i suspect he was all maxed out on credit there.

With him you sensed any help was a bonus and he was grateful to see it and then taking responsibility for rebuilding his life. He retained his sense of humour and wasn't blaming the banks, council, or anybody else.

When the programme at the end said he was seeking work in investment banking, they might have been unfair to him implying he was after a 6 figure salary. Obviously he'd rather do that than mcdonalds! But i sensed with him he would take any sort of role and see it as a way to fight back.

BigAunty

On another forum, someone looked up the cost of the lady's property as the address was mentioned on the programme and said it cost £40k originally and a nearby property sold a few years ago for £160k.