Homeless figures treble amongst private rental tenants

BigAunty

How might the changes to the homelessness process in England under the Localism Act influenced the increase in the figures?

The definition of homeless by councils is having no security of tenure past the next 28 days so virtually anyone served an S21 could consider themselves homeless (though of course, only a minority go to the council for housing assistance).

Before the act was brought in, councils were notorious for gate-keeping, telling the tenants to ignore the notice and saying they wouldn't act until the landlord had gained a court order and if the tenants moved out before then, they would be considered to have made themselves intentionally homeless. Therefore councils did their best not to record homelessness cases, trying to delay acting, putting some tenants off from proceeding with their application.

My understanding is that under the Localism Act, that stripped away the council's obligation to offer social housing to the homeless (they can offer a private tenancy instead), they were expected to act as soon as the S21 was served and couldn't gate-keep anymore.

I don't know what happens now in practice since Local Councils in England can't shrug off someone approaching them when served notice from their landlord like they used to in the past.

antrobus

CLAPTON wrote: »

In reality, you have no interest in proposing a workable private sector housing system.

I'm getting that impression too.

CLAPTON wrote: »

...Your vision is a state run subsidised social housing system, offering life long tenancies at cheap rates irrespective of continuing need or level of income.

The problem with that solution is that the state has run out of money. Four years of 'austerity' and it's still short by £100 Bn.

antrobus

BigAunty wrote: »

....My understanding is that under the Localism Act, that stripped away the council's obligation to offer social housing to the homeless (they can offer a private tenancy instead), they were expected to act as soon as the S21 was served and couldn't gate-keep anymore.....

Interesting, and apparently correct.

where an applicant has been given a notice under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, the applicant must be treated as homeless from the date the notice expires. It is not necessary for a possession order to have been sought by the landlord for the applicant to be considered homeless.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/homelessness-changes-in-the-localism-act-2011-supplementary-guidance

JencParker

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

The government recognises that there is a need to grow the private rental market

Private rented sector


You'll find that they have tried to support this via a "Build To Rent Scheme"

Only because they don't want to provide any homes - they sold off all the council houses cheaply and never replaced them, wiping their hands of those most vulnerable. Typical Tory.

Bantex_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Which is a great argument for government finding hundreds of billions of pounds to embark on a mass social house building programme.

However if governments, (and they all do no matter which party) expect the private sector to fill that gap in the meantime, then it has to be done on commercial terms that make sense for both parties.

At the moment, we arguably have a system that many landlords don't want, where it's difficult to do longer term leases, too easy for both parties to terminate with little notice at the end of a short term lease, but too hard to evict for good reasons (such as non-payment) during that lease.

I doubt many landlords would argue against a fairer system for all.

Perhaps one that combines longer term leases with stronger rights for good tenants (fewer voids for landlords, makes commercial sense) along with it being much easier and faster to evict bad tenants, such as those that don't pay the rent.

The problem we have at the moment is a significant minority of irresponsible tenants who abuse the current system, trash houses, pay rent late if at all, and then are advised by people on these very boards how to use every possible legal loophole to delay their eviction for up to 6 months!!!

Causing financial stress for good landlords and blocking those houses from being occupied by the responsible majority who would look after a property and pay the rent on time....

Do both those things, ie, create 2 year leases that cannot be ended early except under very narrow circumstances on either side, AND then create a mechanism that lets landlords get bad tenants out of the property within a reasonable period of time, say, 6 weeks from start to finish, and I doubt many people would object. Other than perhaps the army of MSE barrack-room lawyers on the housing boards... But I'm sure they can find something more productive to do.;)

Banks will not lend on that basis though.

Bantex_2

BillJones wrote: »

Were it my attitude, you may have a point.

It is very telling, though, that you want to turn the debate away from the great mass of people to a negligible subset, with learning difficulties so severe that they cannot make their way in the world.

As ever, the left like to pretend that the right would have these people starve. The fact is that this is pretty much never the view of anyone. Everyone, right and left, wants a strong safety net for those who need it.

The difference is that people like you seem to insist that we only look at this small set. You simply do not want to admit to the vast, unexamined set of people who did have choices, and who simply made the one that was easy at the time, and then later decided that they wanted the same outcome as that gained by people who made the hard choice.

Why is this? Why when someone brings up people whose choices were bad, do you disingenuously respond about different people entirely? You yourself used the term "not that bright". When I responded to it, you dishonestly switched to talking about people with "learning difficulties".

You have misunderstood my post. I was not referring to people with learning disabilities but the hundreds of thousands of people working in the critical but low paid in the care sector.
People are needed to do these jobs even if they did not do well at school.
Seems wrong to me that these people should never have any security beyond 6 months.

wotsthat

Bantex wrote: »

Banks will not lend on that basis though.

I could wander into Nationwide tomorrow lunchtime and walk out with funds based on 36 month tenancies.

You've bought into an urban myth.

Bantex_2

wotsthat wrote: »

I could wander into Nationwide tomorrow lunchtime and walk out with funds based on 36 month tenancies.

You've bought into an urban myth.

They will not lend on a basis that they could not repo if payments stopped for 3 years. Hence the AST.

wotsthat

Bantex wrote: »

They will not lend on a basis that they could not repo if payments stopped for 3 years. Hence the AST.

Not Nationwide - didn't seem to be an issue.

Rinoa

BigAunty wrote: »

How might the changes to the homelessness process in England under the Localism Act influenced the increase in the figures?

The definition of homeless by councils is having no security of tenure past the next 28 days so virtually anyone served an S21 could consider themselves homeless (though of course, only a minority go to the council for housing assistance).

Before the act was brought in, councils were notorious for gate-keeping, telling the tenants to ignore the notice and saying they wouldn't act until the landlord had gained a court order and if the tenants moved out before then, they would be considered to have made themselves intentionally homeless. Therefore councils did their best not to record homelessness cases, trying to delay acting, putting some tenants off from proceeding with their application.

My understanding is that under the Localism Act, that stripped away the council's obligation to offer social housing to the homeless (they can offer a private tenancy instead), they were expected to act as soon as the S21 was served and couldn't gate-keep anymore.

I don't know what happens now in practice since Local Councils in England can't shrug off someone approaching them when served notice from their landlord like they used to in the past.

Good point. So in effect, the homeless figures in all probability haven't trebled, they're just recorded now whereas they weren't before.

Still, it gives Panorama and the BBC another excuse to bash those nasty Tories.