arrears have increased by 340% following the housing benefit cuts

MacMickster

Didn't the housing benefit cuts coincide with housing benefit starting to be paid to the tenant rather than the landlord? I suspect that this may have far more impact on rent arrears than the relatively small cuts in benefits.

I am also surprised that few people with a spare room seem to consider taking in a lodger. Surely that would provide the ideal solution, bringing in rather more income than the cut in housing benefit, and making sure that more properties are fully utilised at a time when we have a shortgage of housing.

Pobby

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-22960321

Thanks to my wife for the heads up. On the news this morning.

I am know seeing problems in my family as to what this whole fiasco around the totally counter productive huge rise in housing has achieved, along with the all the shenanigans of keeping the bubble intact.

Did you hear this before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCQREoAmsu0

Delara

ukcarper wrote: »

Have LHA rates increased a lot recently.

Over the last 10 years until the cuts started they went up. I dont know if thats right about £4000 every week for some families but I remember hearing about £2000 every week housing benefit. So yes to answer your question LHA rates increased a lot in the last boom part of the cycle.

ukcarper

Delara wrote: »

Over the last 10 years until the cuts started they went up. I dont know if thats right about £4000 every week for some families but I remember hearing about £2000 every week housing benefit. So yes to answer your question LHA rates increased a lot in the last boom part of the cycle.

How many people over £2000 a month let alone a week where I am a fairly expensive area in the south east the max is £1300 a month and a 3 bed is £895.

Delara

ukcarper wrote: »

How many people over £2000 a month let alone a week where I am a fairly expensive area in the south east the max is £1300 a month and a 3 bed is £895.

See what I mean, yes after the cuts rents are falling. And the full effects of the cuts have not really started to bite yet.

ukcarper

Delara wrote: »

See what I mean, yes after the cuts rents are falling. And the full effects of the cuts have not really started to bite yet.

But rents aren't falling

grizzly1911

Delara wrote: »

See what I mean, yes after the cuts rents are falling. And the full effects of the cuts have not really started to bite yet.

How many people got more than ukcarper is suggesting?

How many got £4000 per week? How many got £2000?

You keep quoting this figure - perhaps a few 10s of people got it in very specific circumstances?

grizzly1911

Pobby wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-22960321

Thanks to my wife for the heads up. On the news this morning.

I am know seeing problems in my family as to what this whole fiasco around the totally counter productive huge rise in housing has achieved, along with the all the shenanigans of keeping the bubble intact.

Did you hear this before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCQREoAmsu0

From your BBC link;-

"The spare room subsidy changes will bring fairness back to the system - when in England alone there are nearly two million households on the social housing waiting list and over a quarter of a million tenants are living in overcrowded homes."

If these figures are right something tells me charging £14 per surplus room, without providing anywhere for the impacted people to move to, isn't going to solve the problem.

It is merely an act of desperation and spite.

IveSeenTheLight

Delara wrote: »

How someone could make a case that they would have still gone up so much without the high housing benefit payments is laughable in my opinion. But that does indeed seem to be what Iveseenthelight is arguing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23122369

No my point was to get people to question exactly how much they think private rents has increased as a result of Housing Benefit.

I do recall that is was computed by someone to be circa £8 per week / month (I cant recall exactly, sorry)

I let out three properties, none of which are to HB claimants.
If I take one of those properties as an example.
It's a two bed flat, which I've increased the rent by just under 10% in the last 6 years.
In that time I've also seen my costs go down in terms of mortgage rates.

Now this two bed property is let to two students who share the rental costs.
Arguably, there could be a time when two students believe it's too expensive to rent and choose alternative accommodation, but the market is strong that ultimately students could choose different universities based on the cost of living.

An alternative view is that they could also consider sharing between 3 or 4 students ( I know HMO would need to be applied for), thus reducing their individual outlays.

This may as a result reduce the standard of living, however it could also be considered that society as a whole is overspending and there needs to be a reduction of living standards as a result of reducing costs.

It doesn't seem that long ago 70's, 80's 90's when it seemed there was more per household and more shared / rented rooms etc.

grizzly1911

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

It doesn't seem that long ago 70's, 80's 90's when it seemed there was more per household and more shared / rented rooms etc.

Are there simply more single person, would be, households (relatively) than there would have been back then.

More people leaving home, going to university, with less returning home at the end of the course and moving straight into an accommodation need. With greater numbers at university many more properties have been taken out of the system for HMO use.