Davy51 Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 I was talking to a friend yesterday who has recently moved into a flat in an old converted building.The flats were brand new & the idea was that a minority of flats would be occupied by benefit claimants while the great majority were for paying tenants.Guess what, the private tenants are steadily moving out because they can't afford the rent, to be replaced by benefit claimants.A great incentive to get off benefits & get a job , if you can find one ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 I take it that your friend can afford the rent then. :unsure: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Hence the need for a cap on rents and a council house building programme = housing demand reduction = house price reduction = employment creation in the building sector = less folk on the dole etc etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleopatra Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 If anyone can figure out what he's saying then please let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Who? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davy51 Posted May 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 If anyone can figure out what he's saying then please let me know. Well it means the best way of affording rented accommodation is to be on benefits & receiving housing benefit which will pay the rent & council tax for you.It also means that rented accommodation is out of reach of a lot of working people particularly ones trying to get off benefit reliance. Unfortunately, a lot of working people are also not in a position to get on the property ladder either & eventually improve their lot in life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleopatra Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Well it means the best way of affording rented accommodation is to be on benefits & receiving housing benefit which will pay the rent & council tax for you.It also means that rented accommodation is out of reach of a lot of working people particularly ones trying to get off benefit reliance. Unfortunately, a lot of working people are also not in a position to get on the property ladder either & eventually improve their lot in life. Not you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleopatra Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Who? You. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 sure you're not a blonde?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Guess what, the private tenants are steadily moving out because they can't afford the rent, to be replaced by benefit claimants. A great incentive to get off benefits & get a job , if you can find one ! So why don't the private tenants apply for housing benefit if they are that poor? You don't need to be out of work to qualify. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleopatra Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 sure you're not a blonde?! no Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Hence the need for a cap on rents Can't do that.... free market and all that. Only in your communist utopia would that happen! council house building programme = housing demand reduction = house price reduction = employment creation in the building sector = less folk on the dole That is far too simplistic i'm afraid Obs.... a) There isn't any money to build houses for the council sector....B} There are far too many people wanting housing (and more every year) for that to make an impact on demand or prices.........C} The only employment created will be for the usual foreign cheap labour and so that would have little long term impact on our dole queues Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asperity Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Be careful Baz, Obs may get badly hurt being brought back to earth so abruptly :shock: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Don't need a cap on rents, and it wouldn't work anyway - if I want to rent a luxury 2 bedroom penthouse apartment with concierge service, secure parking, roof terrace & jacuzzi, then I should expect to pay more for it than for a two bed flat in a tower block. A rent cap would only force down quality and REDUCE the number of properties available for rent. What's needed is a cap on housing benefit at a level which someone who is working and earning an average wage could match. That will force landlords to accept lower rents than they can currently get by letting to benefits tenants, which in turn will lower property prices generally since Buy to Let will only be a viable financial proposition at lower purchase prices. That brings property ownership back into the realistic expectation of the hundreds of thousands who now have little option but to wait to inherit and hope that care costs and taxes don't eat up too much of it. Which in turn stimulates the building industry, creates real jobs, boosts tax revenues, etc. etc. etc. Also, a person who works couldn't then be priced out of a home by someone who won't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Guess what, the private tenants are steadily moving out because they can't afford the rent, to be replaced by benefit claimants. A great incentive to get off benefits & get a job , if you can find one ! So why don't the private tenants apply for housing benefit if they are that poor? You don't need to be out of work to qualify. They do. If you are on Housing Benefit and want rented accommodation, they can quite often get help or the rent paid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Believe they had a "cap on rents" in London prior to Boris (according to Ken), and their Council own most of the land required (land being the major cost) - it all worked before after WW2 - so nothing Utopian about it. As for a cap on rents reducing luxury apartments fine - we're housing for need not want: and should Landlords wish to keep their properties empty (can't see why,but); compulsory purchases would sort that out.. btw Baz - more homeless people = more demand = housing price inflation - or is that tooo simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Landlords won't keep their properties empty in response to your rent cap. Many of them will subdivide houses and rent them out as multiple low quality bedsits or student accomodation instead. Many more will go the luxury route and upgrade their properties so they can rent them as company lets for travelling businessmen who would otherwise be staying in hotels, or sell them at the best price possible. Some will convert residential properties for office and other business uses. Some will even demolish multiple properties to build large houses on the land. Those that do stay in the family rental market will be making less return on their investment - and so will be looking to cut costs wherever possible. Maintenance will be cut back, so will any kind of energy saving measures - which tend to benefit the tenant not the landlord. Landlords will also be looking to reduce the number of void months between tenants when they have no rent at all coming in - so they will start to insist on locking tenants into longer and longer contracts with exit penalties if the tenant wants to move out. One way or another there'd be even fewer genuinely affordable decent homes for families. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davy51 Posted May 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Guess what, the private tenants are steadily moving out because they can't afford the rent, to be replaced by benefit claimants. A great incentive to get off benefits & get a job , if you can find one ! So why don't the private tenants apply for housing benefit if they are that poor? You don't need to be out of work to qualify. I don't know the ins & outs of the benefit culture ,i'm afraid ,but what i can gather the margins have been tightened to the disadvantage of people in a certain income group that means they are no better off in work than claiming benefit , a kind of poverty trap.I am only saying what has been told to me concerning a particular property. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dizzy Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 How come the council/housing associations pay more monthly rent to private landlords than the landlords can achieve through renting to private working people and families ? Is this some sort of incentive to encourage landlords to allow benefits claimants to be housed in their properties as there are insufficient council/housing association owned properties availabe? Many home owners/landlords used to shy clear of renting to DHSS/benefit claimants for whatever reasons but surely this trend has resulted in rental prices being upped leading to other youngsters or families who ARE working not being able to afford them or being seen as the under dog. I don't know how to say this without it appearing very rude or incensitive .....but since the new Walton Locks housing development near us has been built and has filled up with people I have noticed a huge increase of young parents with their kiddies walking by to school each day and, again without wanting to sound rude, from the look and ages of them there is no way that they could have possibly afforded to buy houses and appartments over there so are they renting? If so how do they afford that (or is it being paid for like Wavy says) as I believe a high proportion of units were handed over to social type housing. I think I now just hate myself after posting that as it sounds far worse than I mean it to sound but I don't know how else to say it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davy51 Posted May 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 How come the council/housing associations pay more monthly rent to private landlords than the landlords can achieve through renting to private working people and families ? Is this some sort of incentive to encourage landlords to allow benefits claimants to be housed in their properties as there are insufficient council/housing association owned properties availabe? Many home owners/landlords used to shy clear of renting to DHSS/benefit claimants for whatever reasons but surely this trend has resulted in rental prices being upped leading to other youngsters or families who ARE working not being able to afford them or being seen as the under dog. I don't know how to say this without it appearing very rude or incensitive .....but since the new Walton Locks housing development near us has been built and has filled up with people I have noticed a huge increase of young parents with their kiddies walking by to school each day and, again without wanting to sound rude, from the look and ages of them there is no way that they could have possibly afforded to buy houses and appartments over there so are they renting? If so how do they afford that (or is it being paid for like Wavy says) as I believe a high proportion of units were handed over to social type housing. I think I now just hate myself after posting that as it sounds far worse than I mean it to sound but I don't know how else to say it I think one of the problems with the building i am talking about is that there are single occupants in the flats who are working & cannot claim benefit & when council tax & other running costs are mounting up they cannot afford to live.It is the price they are paying for trying to be self sufficient.I suppose from a landlords point of view rental from a benefit claimant is guaranteed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 I think one of the problems with the building i am talking about is that there are single occupants in the flats who are working & cannot claim benefit Living as a single person means their council tax will be reduced. If they are working but not earning a big salary they can claim Housing benefit, or Working tax credit or both. If they don't qualify for any benefits then the amount they are earning can't be all that bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Surely that's one of the problems with our system; if housing was provided at cheap enough rents, which would mean de-facto "public" housing; less HB would be required in the first place. It's all happened before; thanks to the Luftwaffe, we had a housing shortage, which had to be rectified Asap; it got people into employment and paying taxes: unfortunately austerity on it's own doesn't do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davy51 Posted May 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 Living as a single person means their council tax will be reduced. If they are working but not earning a big salary they can claim Housing benefit, or Working tax credit or both. If they don't qualify for any benefits then the amount they are earning can't be all that bad. Maybe these people need the benefit of a benefits adviser then...anyway off on my hols in a couple of hours. Majorca ,hope to find somewhere to watch the rugby on Sunday . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 Dizzy.... people tend not to shy away from benefits claimants anymore as they get the money paid direct to the landlord every month so there is no chance it can be spent on booze fags and plasmas..... The same can't be said anymore for private tenants who can do a flit at anytime!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 The payment levels for housing benefit are set locally by the Benefits Agency - supposedly based on the market rent prices for certain types of property in the local area. The quality of the accomodation is not a factor used, just the number of bedrooms. So landlords will always charge at the top end of what they know housing benefit will pay, and often ten, twenty or thirty pounds a week over for the nicer properties - which the tenant will have to fund out of their other benefits or income. When the benefits agency pay these rents, and the tenants do the top-ups, over time this pushes up the average rents in an area so the benefits agency raises their assessment of the market rent in the area. I've even seen cases where the landlord agrees on the quiet to hand the top-up back to the tenant, because it's served its purpose by pushing up what housing benefit will pay out next year. The other deep seated problem with housing benefit - in common with many other benefits - is that it is paid at much higher rates to people with more children. This is what leads to the phenomenon of smart, new build properties filling up with young parents who would NEVER be able to afford them otherwise. They have either been bought by Buy to Let landlords and rented out on housing benefit at rent levels which childless, single, working people can't afford - or, they've been sold as shared ownership "social housing" which gives huge priority to single parents (who can also claim housing benefit on the rent of the 50% they haven't bought). Is that fair??????? Does your boss give you a huge payrise just because you've had another child? Does your boss even CARE how many kids you've got? Why should ANY kind of benefit be any different? Is it any wonder that people chose not to work, when they can enjoy just as high a standard of living by knocking out a few kids? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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