To think that anyone could have watched Panorama tonight and still believe in the Right to Buy?

Traditionally in Germany most people rented and not houses but blocks of flats. You see them lining the main road into German cities. Then there are THE RULES. People here in the UK don't like too many rules so the rules on how a lot pf people live in flats together are not even laid down.

There are the times when you can't make noise. Night time and after lunch. No loud house work on Sundays and holidays and no mowing the lawn on Sundays. No washing machines going in the night nor dishwashers or showers too early in the morning.
Where I live each family or tenant takes turns to sweep up leaves or wash staircases. If a cleaner is employed then all have to pay their share.
A new rule is no grilling on balconies more than once a week.
I no longer live in rented accomodation but I did my bit and had do all my washing for babies during the day.

I think the real problem is too few houses in the right place and too many people. My parents bought their council flat and lived there for many years until they bought a bungalow which suited their needs more. Buying it had no effect on the housing available. They would have lived there anyway. Perhaps, councils should have used the money from the houses sold to build new rented accomodation (I believe that will be a requirement this time as it should be).
3 of my GDs are renting as is my daughter. The chances of buying even a modest home in this area (Surrey) is out of the question for them. We were lucky and bought our house when prices were relatively low and went without new cars, furniture etc. to pay the mortgage. Difficult when interest rates soared to 15%.
Now, the government want to start building on green belt land - these won't be affordable or local authority/housing association homes. I'm pretty certain these will be executive homes with large prices.
I also remember prefabs - many of my friends lived in them and they were compact and every inch counted. Each one had a small garden. Some were built as 'estates' and other were a few put on a vacant corner or plot between conventional houses.
We do need a good, well regulated private sector with secure tenancies. We also need provision for landlords to be able to evict bad tenants quickly to free up houses for those who need them.

I would echo your "We do need a good, well regulated private sector with secure tenancies" NanaDenise and it is interesting to read your post MargaretX about "the rules" for German tenants. Didn't council housing have rules when it was at it's height? I'm sure I remember some lovely estates where people were working and looking after their homes.

I've no problems with rules. We lived in a block of flats for several years when we got married in the late 80s and it was utter mayhem! Tenants could do as they pleased when they pleased, at any time of day or night, because "I have the right to play the radio when I want to". Nobody seemed interested in the neighbour's right to peace and quiet.

I do think that rules are a necessity if you share a space with many others.

In the early 70s as a summer holiday job, I worked as a rent collector for the local authority . The rent was collected from the tenant at their home and the city was divided into areas each with a manager and a stable team of rent collectors ( I was coveting holidays). This meant the tenants were known to the staff, the homes were visited fortnightly , arrears were caught early whilst still manageable, warnings were given if gardens were starting to get out of order and there was generally a mutually helpful relationship

Going on about renting. I lived in the UK in our council house with my German husband. One day- rent day I was upstairs and the rent man came into the house, went to the bottom of the stairs and called out for me to come down. My husband was appalled. No rent collector in Germany can go into the house which is rented out without the permission of the tennant.

I was very secure in this house, it passed to me after my mother died. Now when I go on a roots journey to Sheffield I see that the house is well cared for having been bought under Margaret Thatcher's buy your council house scheme. Still, I can't see that as long as so many people are unable to buy that council houses should be available to buy. We need more rented houses. more council houses - Architect built like the district I grew up in with a park, tennis courts and a shopping centre.
Those were the days!

I agree durhamjen that it really shouldnt be difficult to keep a control of how much HB is paid in respect of a property. The HB is paid direct to the tenant rather than the landlord, but it has to be claimed by the tenant so surely giving the address which is then entered in a simple spreadsheet shouldn't be too difficult? Then from this same office, the check can be made on council tax banding records as to the size of the property. If it is 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom or a HMO (House of multiple occupation). I know that local authorities are very stretched, but a small team of people monitoring this would surely save more in fraudulent claims than they cost? If a house has 3 bedrooms there should be a check if 6 separate people apply for HB on the property. This would not only help to put the brakes on the terrible landlords and their ex[exploitative practices, but would also help to catch the claimants who make multiple HB applications. It would also ensure that the appropriate licences are issued for HMO properties. When caught out, I would like to see these landlords be fined to the amount of HB that they have stolen from the taxpayer, not the £5000 maximum fines which are just written off as a business expense. We all are aware that right to buy on HA properties is a proposal on the Tory manifesto, but regrettably I have yet to hear of any pledges from Labour to remedy the desperate housing situation, or have I missed it?

I think the problem is still that so many of the councils are short of money - so are desperate to not only bring in income from houses, but not to have to maintain properties in desperate need of possibly even being rebuilt, let alone modernised. They invested all their money and lost it all.

DS's student rentals have been lovely, mainly because the landlords have employed estate agents to look after them, and they have three-monthly cleanliness checks, which DS also had at his last flat. I was there last week and it really isn't bad. they were even bought a tumble drier when they complained that they couldn't get clothes for five people dried in the winter.

Private rentals for however are a different matter. They vary hugely. We have often had to rent for a while, while selling our own houses in order to move for work. I was once shown over a house that was literally falling down, it looked as if the demolition people had been in and left the job halfway through. The estate agent looked at my face and said, Yes, well, it was worth a try!' He explained that it belonged to an extremely miserly old man who hoped that someone would come along and renovate it for him, then he would kick them out and put up the rent. Yet the rent wasn't even all that low!

I do have some sympathy with those wanting to buy their council houses. Especially the ones who have been there for years, have become attached to the house and have a good network of friends. But many of us have to leave a house we love. Life is like that.

You missed it, GillT.
Labour pledge to put a cap on private rents and restrict letting agent fees. They have pledged to build 200,000 new homes a year by 2020.
They will also legislate to make three-year tenancies the norm, as I stated above.

I like that idea, we spent a fortune on removals alone. We had moved to a new let, the owner put it on the market the next day and gave us notice after five months, so that we only had six months there. No warning that she had wanted to sell, otherwise we wouldn't have taken it. 12 moves over 21 years, only four have been our own houses, that's a lot of removal company payments.