How to get a council house!

[Gibber]

Not many in Shetland would want to do my job (if any) hance why I have been recruited.

 

What do you do?

[Gibber]

But purchasing ex-council properties is the only way some people can afford to get on the property ladder hence also taking the burden away from the housing waiting list.

 

Why should taxpayers directly fund private property ownership? Where's my financial help onto the Ferrari ownership ladder from the local authority?

[Gibber]

Well, that's what it was supposed to be, wasn't it?

 

Yes, I'm just pointing out that it's not really any kind of alternative to the "responsibility or expense of an unfurnished house" that aerial said in that you were still held responsible for living in the hostel (probably more so considering the specific list of rules there) and the expense was nothing especially notable by comparison.

 

Come to that though, what "tailoring" do couples and anyone "sorting themselves out" (whatever that may be) need? It gave them a roof over their head and someplace to eat and wash. Does society (and the taxpayer) really owe anyone more than that, and how is what was available there any much different to what the same folk get now. Bunged in an often inadequately kitted out flat away from everybody and everything at say the Ness or Hillswick, where they loathe being every second they end up spending there.

 

There's a massive difference between living in a hostel and a flat. Badly kitted out and in the middle of nowhere may be issues but having your own home is not comparable to living in a hostel. One is a home one is emergency accomodation.

 

Your post means that you don't think society should provide council housing?

[exciseman]

Not many in Shetland would want to do my job (if any) hance why I have been recruited.

 

What do you do?

 

I bet he disposes of hazardous waste.

[Ghostrider]

Come to that though, what "tailoring" do couples and anyone "sorting themselves out" (whatever that may be) need? It gave them a roof over their head and someplace to eat and wash. Does society (and the taxpayer) really owe anyone more than that, and how is what was available there any much different to what the same folk get now. Bunged in an often inadequately kitted out flat away from everybody and everything at say the Ness or Hillswick, where they loathe being every second they end up spending there.

 

There's a massive difference between living in a hostel and a flat. Badly kitted out and in the middle of nowhere may be issues but having your own home is not comparable to living in a hostel. One is a home one is emergency accomodation.

 

Actually, I was referring to the use of flats as emergency accomodation vs. a hostel as emergency accomodation, in which the SIC seem to have opted for the former option. A flat on a full tenancy (intended) as someone's permanent home is a whole other matter, and debate.

 

I'm not sure I agree that there is a "massive" difference between hostel and flat living, granted the nearest I've experienced hostel living was in the JC at the AHS, which isn't really the same thing, but I live, and have lived in a SIC flat for over 14 years (albeit having been forced to with a gun to my head, and leaving it has never been and still isn't an option). Granted you aren't directly sharing any living facilities with other people, and they're only in your face when you go out your front door rather than your room door, but other than that as far as I find it all othe rnegatives apply.

 

Your post means that you don't think society should provide council housing?

 

Very curious how you reached this conclusion. To be honest though (despite living in some) I have never been entirely sold on the concept of council housing as we know it. Don't get me wrong, as an alleged "civilised" society the many paying a little each to put a roof over the head of those struggling for whatever reason to do so themselves, is not in itself a bad idea. Where it all goes a bit wobbly IMHO though is when you factor in a local authority owning properties specifically for the purpose and especially when they are the landlord of them as well.

 

I am no fan of a local authority being the owner and/or operator of any more "services" than is absolutely unavoidable, as they're just pretty crap at doing it, and housing is one of the more glaring examples of that crappiness.... I'd be far more in favour of a LA's role in housing being that of regulation and licencing, and as administrator of rent subsidies from the public purse where tenant and landlord demonstrated the accomodation in question was neither inadequate nor excessive for the tenants reasonable needs, that the rent charged was reasonable in the current market prevailing at that time, and that the tenants income was inadequate to cover any such charge and also leave them with adeqaute to fund an acceptable standard of living.

[BigMouth]

But purchasing ex-council properties is the only way some people can afford to get on the property ladder hence also taking the burden away from the housing waiting list.

 

Why should taxpayers directly fund private property ownership? Where's my financial help onto the Ferrari ownership ladder from the local authority?

 

Mortgage payments attracted tax relief for many years. As do pensions now.

[Shaun Howe]

What do you do?

 

Google me

[unlinkedstudent]

But purchasing ex-council properties is the only way some people can afford to get on the property ladder hence also taking the burden away from the housing waiting list.

 

Why should taxpayers directly fund private property ownership? Where's my financial help onto the Ferrari ownership ladder from the local authority?

 

Mortgage payments attracted tax relief for many years. As do pensions now.

 

Mortgage payments haven't attracted tax relief for blooming yonks - mid 90s at a guess?

[unlinkedstudent]

Not many in Shetland would want to do my job (if any) hance why I have been recruited.

 

What do you do?

 

I bet he disposes of hazardous waste.

 

I bet when and if you meet him, you gonna regret saying that.

[Gibber]

Your post means that you don't think society should provide council housing?

 

Very curious how you reached this conclusion.

 

When speaking about emergency hostel accommodation you said

 

Does society (and the taxpayer) really owe anyone more than that..

 

but subsequently you have shown that that conclusion isn't your opinion.

[Angel]

. Then some of the same people took it upon themselves to lecture everyone else about anything and everything. There was no topic on which one person in particular was not an expert. It became tedious beyond belief, and after the long-running argument about whether or not one might reasonably walk up someone’s garden path to express an interest in purchasing their house, large numbers of Shetlinkers gave up on the forum and have not come back. Which is a great shame - a community resource destroyed by the egos of a very few damaged individuals.

 

Perhaps you could offer them some pro bono psychotherapy / counselling for the good of (the other members of) what used to be a community?

 

Thats probably one of the most accurate posts you'll find on this forum. I remember the garden path one well

 

I very rarely post on here after that, I posted asking for information on derelict houses and was well and truly jumped on, accused of all sorts. I never would've 'walked up the garden path' and asked them to sell their house, it's just a ridiculous statement.

 

I actually wrote to the nearest neighbours and had a few lovely phone calls with the neighbour of the house which was derelict and had been for 12 years and we had some lovely chats about the history behind the house and he gave me contact numbers for the folk who owned it so I could have a chat to them. So you see, I'm not the house breaking into/old lady bullying monster I was made out to be.

 

On the topic of housing it is a very hard situation, there aren't enough houses to house the people who want and need to be housed and not enough money around to build more. Sadly, it is the 'junkies' etc that do have priority because thats the way it goes they're 'in need', if you can support yourself you're not so much 'in need' in the same way. It makes it harder with mortgages being the way they are, coming up with the deposit can be tough, but will be worth it in the long run.

 

OP just hang in there, keep your eye out on the solicitors sites for properties, and do some research into buying. The way the rental market is going, council and hha rent are steadily increasing and I reckon will be better off to build/buy in the near future anyway. It all feels very unfair when you are waiting and doing everything you are , and having a car I know should't affect things but it will, they're maybe trying to get people housed as soon as possible and if thats in a different area of choice but you can still drive to work etc. then that won't be seen as an issue. It's just the way of the world right now.

[unlinkedstudent]

 

I very rarely post on here after that, I posted asking for information on derelict houses and was well and truly jumped on, accused of all sorts. I never would've 'walked up the garden path' and asked them to sell their house, it's just a ridiculous statement.

 

I actually wrote to the nearest neighbours and had a few lovely phone calls with the neighbour of the house which was derelict and had been for 12 years and we had some lovely chats about the history behind the house and he gave me contact numbers for the folk who owned it so I could have a chat to them. So you see, I'm not the house breaking into/old lady bullying monster I was made out to be.

 

 

Except I don't recall (and after just skimming all 8 pages of the thread too couldn't see it but given the current state of my eyesight, no doubt someone will find it if I said it and if not, no doubt make it up) saying "up the garden path"; I didn't call you an "old lady bullying monster" either.

[shetlandpeat]

us, Angel did not say you called her that, just the feeling she got was that was the implication. If you are now going to tell her that is not how she felt, who would you then be to tell her how she felt. What would that make you? What is more worrying, is you responded and you went back to prove something that was not said, yet many here remember it quite well. Give it up.

 

From recent paper reports, it seems that 200 households will be affected by the housing benefit reforms. All these, according to some of the posts here may have some sort of social issues and are the problems in the whole benefit system, even though more than you would like to think claim benefits because they cannot earn enough. I would then wonder, how many of these 200 odd households did have folk at work, but due to a lower income, had to claim, but due to a lack of stock, could not move.

[tooney1]

Except I don't recall (and after just skimming all 8 pages of the thread too couldn't see it but given the current state of my eyesight, no doubt someone will find it if I said it and if not, no doubt make it up) saying "up the garden path"; I didn't call you an "old lady bullying monster" either.

Look at your first post on that thread UL - you fuel your own rant by barging in with unreasonable and unfounded accusations, and create some wildly specultive and negative scenario without knowing any facts whatsover. What an imagination!

[unlinkedstudent]

Except I don't recall (and after just skimming all 8 pages of the thread too couldn't see it but given the current state of my eyesight, no doubt someone will find it if I said it and if not, no doubt make it up) saying "up the garden path"; I didn't call you an "old lady bullying monster" either.

Look at your first post on that thread UL - you fuel your own rant by barging in with unreasonable and unfounded accusations, and create some wildly specultive and negative scenario without knowing any facts whatsover. What an imagination!

 

Whatever.