Bedroom tax/ universal payment

[dead mans hand]

Is social housing not for life? Is it going to be that if you can't afford to pay for the extra rooms that you have get out.

 

Or on the other hand why should people be provided with a house for life even when they have spare rooms. There are other familys out there who need a three/two bedroom house.

 

Is it not better to have 1 credit for people not working and a cap on the amount of housing benifit they get paid? £500 per week seems fine amount to live on and pay your rent council tax from. Is it not?

 

What do you think??

[Wheelsup]

Is social housing not for the needy and not for people on living wages?

[danzig]

How are people in work that are on low incomes ment to be able to afford private rent costs in shetland? The cost of renting is extortion due to people cashing in off the oil and gas. I am of a generation that can no longer walk in to a bank and get a mortgage and I know I could afford that over private rent! So what exactly constitutes social/council housing?

[dead mans hand]

Yea its a great thing on paper but when it comes to it....

 

So where are people ment to move to?

 

There was a bit on the news that one of the councils in London were looking for 70 houses anywhere in England as they were getting ready for the bedroom tax. and that was just the start.

 

so you may have lived in your house for 30n years family moved out then you get moved away from your community. This goernment never cared much for communities anyway.

[ArabiaTerra]

Is social housing not for the needy and not for people on living wages?

 

Define "living wages".

[daveh]

Many years ago, when newly-married and with a baby, my then wife and I were re-housed from our shabby tiny privately-rented flat into a two-bedroomed council flat.

We were in the council flat for just about 30 months whilst we saved whatever we could to get enough for a deposit on a small terraced house with a small garden so that our little girl could play outside in safety. We moved out of the council flat when we had secured our mortgage.

 

Subsequently another needy family moved into the council flat shortly after our departure. A couple of other families that we were friendly with, in the tower block, said that they had no intention of ever moving out and, whilst we saved up to move on, they happily enjoyed good holidays and changed their cars each year.

It seems that there is still, as there was back then, many who regard a council property as being theirs for life; irrespective of how much their income may increase over time. Outside many council properties, you will see cars with fairly recent registration plates whilst the rent being paid is subsidised by the taxpayers and ratepayers.

Morally, that is totally wrong in my eyes.

[Wheelsup]

Define "living wages"

 

Very emotive question; depends how many bairns, dogs, publicans you require to support.

 

What level of household income do you think should be getting Social Housing?

 

under £20K? I know people on that who have managed to buy their own home, also people on over £30K who are quite happy to tie down a social house and let da cooncil worry about the maintenance

 

I understand if you can't work have no independent income you still can get social housing if available? so thats OK, no?

[shetlandpeat]

This is already being introduced. So it ain't no new news.

 

If it also applies to Scotland, I will let you check.

 

http://www.channel4.com/news/council-housing-ministers-defend-tenancy-limits

 

Details of the agreement changes have already gone through council chambers.

 

Odd to start about it over a year after it was announced. To kin late.

[ArabiaTerra]

Many years ago, when newly-married and with a baby, my then wife and I were re-housed from our shabby tiny privately-rented flat into a two-bedroomed council flat.

We were in the council flat for just about 30 months whilst we saved whatever we could to get enough for a deposit on a small terraced house with a small garden so that our little girl could play outside in safety. We moved out of the council flat when we had secured our mortgage.

 

Subsequently another needy family moved into the council flat shortly after our departure. A couple of other families that we were friendly with, in the tower block, said that they had no intention of ever moving out and, whilst we saved up to move on, they happily enjoyed good holidays and changed their cars each year.

It seems that there is still, as there was back then, many who regard a council property as being theirs for life; irrespective of how much their income may increase over time. Outside many council properties, you will see cars with fairly recent registration plates whilst the rent being paid is subsidised by the taxpayers and ratepayers.

Morally, that is totally wrong in my eyes.

 

Fair play and good for you.

 

However there is an alternative argument that can be made. By choosing to save for a deposit and buy your own place, essentially you've committed a substantial portion of your earnings over the next 27 1/2 years to investment in your house which means that money is not available for spending in other areas. It essentially vanishes from the economy.

 

Your friends and neighbours who didn't make that choice are spending that money on holidays, which pay the wages of airline staff, hoteliers, restaurants etc, cars, which pay the wages of car factory workers, garage owners etc. My point is that their money goes back into immediate circulation and keeps the economy ticking over.

 

Now I'm not saying that all that money spent on cars and holidays directly benefits Shetland, but think of all the businesses in Shetland which depend on tourism. These businesses depend not just on people being able to afford to take holidays, but that they also choose to take holidays rather than putting that money into an investment which locks it up for decades.

 

It's a choice. You choose to do one thing, your friends and neighbours choose something different. Both are valid. So for you pronounce a moral judgement on your friends and neighbours is a bit rich.

 

Also, by taking a council property at council rent levels, you were able to save a deposit. If you'd been paying market price for the council property could you have done that?

 

The availability of subsidised council housing was what enabled you to save that deposit. It's what gave you that choice.

 

You've benefited from that ladder, now you're advocating pulling the ladder up after you. Where's the morality in that?

[daveh]

^^

 

That was a fair and reasoned response but I disagree with you on a number of points.

By us saving for the mortgage, we were placing monies into a bank for it to then lend it onto others who could easily have been boosting the economy by borrowing to pay for cars, holidays, house improvements etc.

 

Once we moved into our small terraced house, we employed local tradesmen to do various repairs and improvements as they became necessary and we could afford to pay for them. That was boosting the economy, surely.

 

Your were, I think, suggesting that we would have helped the economy more by staying in our council flat, after we had saved enough to move out but I saw that as being a drain upon the community who would have had to subsidise us being there indefinitely. Far better for us to vacate and give someone else the chance of improved accommodation. I fail to see any justification for council tenants to regard the council tenancy as being theirs for life as many did back in my time and seem to do now.

 

The fact that a reduced rent, payable by us for 30 months assisted us to save for a deposit is very largely irrelevant. It was always our intention to move out and I feel that it was our scrimping and scraping, selling our old car, not going on holidays etc for 30 months that made the difference.

 

One other thing - you refer to my having "pulled up the ladder". I have done nothing of the sort. Families in need should be definitely be able to benefit as we did back then by having access to council houses and flats.

 

I just don't accept the "subsidised council tenancy for life" approach. If folks have enough gross income, not net income after all their outgoings on cars and holidays, there should be a phased move towards them relinquishing their tenancy for others to take it over.

 

Anyway, I don't presume that you will agree any of my points but so be it.

[bon scott]

Very interesting point about having money. That might be the answer if you earn above 26 thousand ( this being the threshold for the amount of benefits you can clam, you should pay a percentage of what you earn to your rent. I wonder how that would go down??

[Muppet]

All this seems to be taking for granted that social housing is subsidised or cheap rents, but is that really the case?

 

Firstly is it not the case that housing and rental money is ring fenced. i.e. that the money received in rent can only be used for housing and that housing has to be paid for through rental income only. If that is the case then it can hardly be considered as being subsidised.

 

Then compare a situation of lifelong rental versus lifelong home ownership. Rents will increase year on year while a mortgage will remain constant other than interest rate variations and will eventually stop when you will pay nothing.

 

I own my home and after 20 years of paying a mortgage, I presently pay less than 2/3 of the current rent on a similar council house.

 

By my reckoning, even if you factor in the cost of maintenance and insurance, it is cheaper in the long term to buy a property than rent a council property and at the end of the day you own a valuable asset.

 

For people starting out trying to get on the housing ladder, then social housing will be cheaper at that point in their lives than home ownership, but subsidised housing for life? I can't see how it is.

[daveh]

^^

 

How much have you paid over the years on various house repairs and refurbishments ? I have paid a fortune for all sorts of things such as double glazing, installing central heating, re-wiring, fencing repairs, outside painting, plumbing repairs, roofing repairs etc.

[Muppet]

Well I've owned three houses over that time and the only time I've had to pay anyone for work was when I replaced all the windows in my first house. All the other work I've done myself. Maybe I've been lucky with the condition of houses, but I would still maintain that over a lifetime, ownership will work out cheaper than renting.

 

That of course is assuming you compare similar similar sized properties.

 

I took out a mortgage over 25 years but you could be renting a house for 60 years or longer.

[shetlandpeat]

The reasons for that could be the artificial level of interest, it is kept low to stop a mass of repossessions. What it does do is make it really hard for savers to make money on their savings and pensions. It is also limiting the incomes for councils, they have to use short term deposits and on call deposits. In theory, money should be easier to borrow, but with uncertainty in the job market, the higher cost of living, the lessening of your disposable income it seems banks do not want to lend. It could be deduced that keeping your payments low we are all paying for it elsewhere.

 

As for renting or buying, the choice should be there.

 

the otherside is that if you did lose the income into the house, your family will not be facing a housing problem once the HB stops paying your interest.

 

It certainly limits movement of folk if you move towards buying. With the current GOV saying folk should move to get work, it may not always be fair of practical.

 

If I were to buy, I would need to find about £10,000 plus costs, a little under my yearly take home pay. to buy a property priced at far more than 5 times my take home pay. Where is the logic there? End up doing all that work so the council can take it off me to pay to have my harse wiped when I am older in comfortable surroundings. Not much of an incentive...