Good Old Fergus!

worried_jim

It may appear unpalatable but it seems to be a well thought out business decision to protect his investments.

Rinoa

Not very smart of the govt. to give housing benefit direct to the tenant when universal credit comes in. Just asking for trouble.

gazter

Rinoa wrote: »

Not very smart of the govt. to give housing benefit direct to the tenant when universal credit comes in. Just asking for trouble.

housing benefit is already given to the tenant with the exception of social tenants.

What is not very smart is allowing a system of temporary help (which is what the welfare state is supposed to be) to be so different from the world of work that you begin to lose the skills that are necessary to survive outside of welfare.

Welfare should mirror the world of work to allow people to move between the two with minimum of fuss.

If i dont pay my rent/mortgage there is a very quick set of consequences. I get evicted or the bank starts the process of selling my property. There is no reason why tenants on housing benefit should be infantalised.

If people have problems managing their money, you do them no favours by managing it for them.

(obvious exceptions exist for people who have learning difficulties)

chewmylegoff

Pretty foolish behaviour. If I was a HB tenant in one of Wilson's properties I would just keep paying and resist eviction proceedings. Turn up to court and read out the article. Even if the judge issued an eviction order (pretty unlikely in my opinion in the circumstances as I doubt wanting to replace the tenant with an east European will be considered an adequate justification for eviction by a judge) he's hardly going to award costs against the tenant (and even if he does they won't be able to pay). It will cost the Wilsons an absolute bomb to do this.

Yorkie1

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Pretty foolish behaviour. If I was a HB tenant in one of Wilson's properties I would just keep paying and resist eviction proceedings. Turn up to court and read out the article. Even if the judge issued an eviction order (pretty unlikely in my opinion in the circumstances as I doubt wanting to replace the tenant with an east European will be considered an adequate justification for eviction by a judge) he's hardly going to award costs against the tenant (and even if he does they won't be able to pay). It will cost the Wilsons an absolute bomb to do this.

Assuming the s.21 process is correct (dates, service etc), then the judge will have no discretion. No justification needs to be given for the eviction under the s.21 process.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

chewmylegoff wrote: »

It will cost the Wilsons an absolute bomb to do this.

It will cost them next to nothing.

Issue S21 notices to end tenancies in normal way as they come to the end of the 6 month AST period and refuse to allow any new claimants to rent his houses.

His stock of properties will be claimant free by June or July.

Thrugelmir

The article appears well balanced. From a business perspective the decision seems reasonable nor are the Wilsons in isolation.

The issue of how high rents are, is a totally different matter.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Rents have been rising so as to ration the limited supply of housing through price. There are not enough houses to go around, so some people must be excluded. .

They already are excluded, hence why they rent and get money to support them through the benefits system.

So how do you propose they are excluded further?

These are single mothers with Children Hamish. While I don't want to pull on the heartstrings here for effect (not that you appear to have any strings to pull on). Where exactly do you feel they should fit in?

You are against social hosing in terms of the government owning it, and believe the private sector has picked up the tab. Yet they clearly haven't. So I'd be interested as to where you feel these people and their children should live if not in social housing provided by the state and not in landlord accomodation with the monies provided by the state.

We are extremely lucky to live within a state that looks out for those who can't reasonably support themselves. However, this sort of thing that the Wilsons are doing completely undermines this.

If the Wilsons get their way, which I find doubtful without a fight, over 200 adults and 2-500 children will be homeless. What should be done here, in your view?

"The market" is doing what it should, maybe..... But you are only looking at it from a monetry perspective. You are not taking into account that this market operates within, and benefits greatly from a social welfare aspect. Therefore, there needs to be some benefit to society, in terms of housing these people.

If the private sector is not willing to do that, then we need real social, government owned housing, but you are against that too, suggesting that the private sector does a better job.

Loughton_Monkey

However odious the Wilsons are, they are simply doing what most landlords (I would have thought) will be doing. The rental market is generally very healthy and it is madness for any business to accept bad payers (and all the extra costs associated with them) when they don't have to.

The tenants are likely to be protected because of the local authority's legal duties, although it will give them headaches. Finding another 200 rental properties to take them in will be next to impossible.

The whole fiasco was fully aired and discussed at the time of Universal Credit and this problem was well known and forseable so I have no sympathy for the Government.

All it needs [needed] was an extremely simple 'tick box' on Universal Credit applications to enable DWP to guarantee direct payment of full rent to landlord out of UC. I'm sure the Wilsons - and any other landlord - would accept that.

The principle of the whole thing is, to me, pretty clear. We have one of the most generous benefits systems in the world. We choose to pay up to full rent for a lot of people, together with extra money on top for food, energy, and other essentials.

If and when such a recipient deliberately spends that money on something else, it is tantamount to theft, but probably not in the legal sense. Others see it as "use of landlord for free credit rather than Wonga", which is, at best, taking the p1ss. All of this can be avoided by the most simple and cheap system of paying that part of the money direct to the landlord.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

What should be done here, in your view?.

Build more houses.

For years you denied there was a housing shortage.

Then you supported the very changes to benefits that are now causing landlords to refuse claimants as tenants.

When will you ever learn?

We need to build more houses. There is no other solution.