Tenancy and general housing issues board

dag_2

I don't know if this has been asked before - but can we have a board that deals with housing issues for those who are excluded from the property market?

My vision is to have a board where you can discuss all the sorts of things that Shelter might give advice on. For example, tenancy rights, lodging rights, deposit disputes, inventory disputes, lettings agency fees, homelessness rights, council housing, housing benefit, furniture, flat-sharing issues, moving home, and grown-up children leaving home for the first time.

I appreciate that there is some cross-over with other forums - notably the "In My Home" forum, the benefits and tax credits forum, and the house buying and selling forum - however, I think there are a set of moneysaving-related issues that are peculiar to non-homeowners, that homeowners don't usually appreciate. I think it therefore justifies a separate board.

Thing is, from time to time, the sense of exclusion from the property market can cause a sense of bitterness and resentment. Moneysavingexpert is an excellent information resource - however, the fact that it's got a property buying and selling board, but not a tenancy board, kinda rubs tenants up the wrong way. As a result, the property buying board gets spammed with "Let's crash the housing market" posts.

Given that there's a benefits and tax-credits board, the fact that there isn't a tenancy and housing issues board seems even more odd. Tenants are often earning too much money to get any benefits, but don't have enough money to buy a house - kinda stuck in the middle.

More to the point, posts on a single very-important money-related subject are appearing in different parts of the forum - and this is making it difficult to get the best out of the forum.

Anyone agree? Thanks.

Fran

Yes that sounds like a good idea to me too. It would be handy if there was a Housing board and it was split into owners and tenants with homeless as a subsection perhaps? It can cost you if making mistakes when renting and there's issues to do with landlords too.

dag_2

Yes that sounds like a good idea to me too. It would be handy if there was a Housing board and it was split into owners and tenants with homeless as a subsection perhaps?

Yes, perhaps.

That said - I could be wrong - but I doubt there would be enough threads about homelessness to justify it being separate from tenancy - at least to start off with.

Of course, there's some cross-over between home buying and tenancy subject areas - for example, leaseholder valuation and service charge disputes. I guess that sort of thing could go in either forum - but it would still be good to have two separate ones.

Thanks, appreciated.

Fran

dag wrote:

Yes, perhaps.

That said - I could be wrong - but I doubt there would be enough threads about homelessness to justify it being separate from tenancy - at least to start off with.

Of course, there's some cross-over between home buying and tenancy subject areas - for example, leaseholder valuation and service charge disputes. I guess that sort of thing could go in either forum - but it would still be good to have two separate ones.

Thanks, appreciated.

You can be homeless whether owner or tenant so perhaps it should have it's own space.