General Chat

"The housing ladder" is one great ponzi scheme which is encouraged by governments of all stripes as it is the main source of tax and employment.

Any rational person would not confuse investment / savings with where they lay their head but that is just what most Brits believe. fwiw Australia has the same mania.

Just in case rational persons decide not to tie themselves up in a mortgage the private rental market is rigged. Further rigging goes on with artificial restriction on building land and the availability of mortgages.

The best quick n cheap reform I can think of is to make it tax attractive to landlords to offer fixed term 5 / 10 year rentals rather than 6 months.

Other reforms which would drag the English housing market into reality would be:

scrap stamp duty tax,
charge capital gains on sale ( as most countries do at between 2 and 8% ),
scrap grabbing proceeds of house sales to fund social care,
force buy to let mortgages to include capital repayment and demand a 10% cash deposit
stop regarding every blade of grass in SE England as green belt
mortgages limited to 15 years and realistic ability to pay
dump inheritance tax below £ 1 million.
stop the war on second homes ( except for full council tax )
MPs not allowed to charge mortgages against parliamentary expenses ; rent only

Of course such changes would soon have the housing market heading way south, banks collapsing all over again as mortgage assets shrink in value and riots as a discontented populace realized that residential mortgages are a ponzi con.

The upside of course would be millions of affordable houses and far less need for social housing. But then how do you get from here to there ? Collapsed ponzi schemes always have a great many losers. Ask Cyprus.

So the mad scheme continues to continue sucking the life out of the British economy.

Margaret Thatcher's chickens will be long with us.

I do not fully subscribe to much of the benefit bashing and nation of scroungers being fuelled in the popular right wing press.

I know many people who are on benefits or have been on benefits and most never believed that they would ever be in that situation.

In the late 1980's and early 1990's I was renting a house in a residential area of Bromley where many of my neighbours were in decent paid jobs in the City of London, when the recession following Black Monday in October 1987 struck. The events that followed began to take there toll as Stock Markets and Financial Institutions around the world were hit hard resulting in many people losing their jobs, including quite a few of my neighbours.

House prices were hit hard and a lot of my neighbours who lost their jobs also found that the value of their homes had fallen and their mortgage were now more that the value of their house.

They were out of work and struggling to male ends meet, so they claimed benefits, my local councillor said to me at the time that she had never known so many people in the area to be out of work and never seen so many For Sale signs, she had lived in that area for over 30 years. I do not recall the popular right wing press at the time calling people scroungers etc.

I accept that there are people defrauding the system, there are people who do not want to work, but in my opinion that is the minority, and it is right that they should be targeted to stop them abusing the system.

However, the majority are where they are at the moment, because of circumstances beyond their control, they would be over the moon to be able to get a proper job and the chance to get their foot on the housing ladder.

No, not offended :-) not by you anyway.

There are a few other's who are making me wish I was in a position to wave a magic wand so I could show them, if only for a short while, just what it's like to live on benefits. Some people have no empathy whatsoever.

You don't need to apologise to me Cat......it's fine...I'm just glad I haven't offended you x

Muffy, I'll apologise to you.

For years, both in rl and on the internet, I've heard people say that sometimes implying that those who haven't have squandered other times coming right out and saying it.

I use other websites too and in the last couple of weeks especially there have been threads benefit bashing, using Daily Mail examples, (that is the paper not the readers), to generalise about how all those on benefits are scroungers/spongers. I'm afraid this thread was the one that bore the brunt, where I lost patience and ended up snapping at you. I'm sorry for snapping at you.

I do know where you're coming from. I have a relative who bought at a bad time and is now in negative equity. For many years successive governments have targeted the middle, making things harder.

I suspect this government is using the worldwide recession to set the w/c and m/c against each other. While we're all busy having a go at each other they can target us all leaving their rich friends laughing.

I know Muffy. Everyone who isn't a millionaire is (apparently ) scum.
Oh for a time when empathy is a virtue, not a foible :-S

They are still screwing the ones who did buy the overpriced houses Maggie...we're not immune from this at all !!!

A certain person - forename Adolph - comes to light

You have not done what was expected of you (buy an overpriced house) .....you are scum and shall suffer!!

Meanwhile, us politicians (millionaires all - thanks to dad/grandad etc) who own lots of propery between us will be raking it in

i know all about local housing benefit capping
son is un employed and 29 yrs old
lha rules state that under 30 he is only entitled to a room in a shared house and will only pay £50 per week
he is in a cramped 1 bedroom flat private landlord £100 per week so we have to top his rent up
he has now had a letter from the council and he has to pay towards his council tax out of his £71 per week dole money

Already happened, terryj.
And as housing benefit will be capped soon - the occupant will STILL be losing out.

its to free socisal housing up
so they want you to private rent or pay the differance

Possibly.

I may be wrong ...but I suspect the majority will swallow the decrease in their benefit and stay put.

i can see a situation were some one is forced to leave a 3 bedroom social housing property and move into a 2 bedrooom private rent and the private rent will cost in benefits more than the social housing would have cost

i can see a situation were some one is forced to leave a 3 bedroom social housing property and move into a 2 bedrooom private rent and the private rent will cost in benefits more than the social housing would have cost

Do you know what the rent differential in cost is between a 3 bedoomed and a 1./2 bedroomed home - and I specifically use that word - is, Haribo?

I think i'm right in saying that the bedroom tax does not apply to anyone over 61! if this is true, then what a farce, after all, its mainly the over 61's who are rattling about in houses after children leave home, spouses die etc. I own my ex council house (not bought at a discounted price from the council though, never been a council tenant) Where I live, there are 4 three bed houses in the cul de sac with one person in them aged between 70-80, I find this outrageouse when there is so many young families living in over crowded conditions

In the local paper today a couple have just lost an appeal to keep the council house that they shared with the wifes mother.
The couple left the house when married and returned to look after the mother for a while in 2005 then again in 2007 when the mother had dementia. Just before the lady died she signed away the tenancy even though she didn't understand what she was doing, this is apparently the reason used in the appeal.

The headline says 'Kicked out after 45 yrs' but they haven't lived there for 45 yrs they left.
The council have said they have offered them alternative places but they were refused
Why should this couple get to keep a 3bed council house when couples with small children are having to share a room because they have no chance on the list

Agree with you, Muffy.
My nephew is buying a house (deposit courtesy of my sister - from money received when BIL died of asbestosis), but, even with him and his partner working, they can only afford the interest :-|

*Just getting a little sick and tired of the implication being that if you don't own your home then it's because you haven't worked hard enough. <--not just this thread but this thread is getting it.........*

I really hope my posts didn't come across that way as that wasn't at all my intention. I apologise if they did.

I was trying to point out.that home owners are penalised too and are not immune from unfairly having to pay through the nose..wasn't trying to suggest anything more than that.

Some people work hard all their lives and can never afford to buy their own home. That's one of the reasons social housing was invented in the first place. With the price of houses nowadays it's even more likely that many people will be able to afford to buy. Working 40 hours per week on minimum wage earns you less than £13,000 a year before tax and by the time you've paid the bills/bought food etc then there isn't much left, if anything, to save for a deposit.

Just getting a little sick and tired of the implication being that if you don't own your home then it's because you haven't worked hard enough. <--not just this thread but this thread is getting it.

Bedroom tax should only be applied if someone refuses to downsize imo, not if there isn't anywhere for them to downsize to.