Britons ‘to be priority on council house lists’

Callistemon21

Casdon

paddyann54

a 3 bed private rental here is still around £550, there really aren't many aggreived young families.There will be the odd one on FB complaining about WHO gets the newbuilds but thats human nature Theres always somebody who wont be happy
There are 3 one bed flats on rightmove for under 60K 2 bedroom flats at @70K so housing is ,in the main,still affordable for young folk in this area ,my 20 year old GS has just agreed a mortgage and has a flat in mind

It depends where you live though, I don’t think what you describe is typical. I just checked online, there’s actually only one property advertised for private rent reasonably close to me and it’s £825pcm. You wouldn’t find anywhere here to buy under £150k, in the worst part of a town - and I live in rural Wales, which is not an expensive part of the country. What we are finding is that lots of people want to move here for the lifestyle, particularly since lockdown, and the demand for the local rental market is phenomenal. The council are still building homes, but the waiting lists are long, so people private rent whilst they wait for council housing to become available.

A one-bedroom flat here which is the cheapest on the market at the moment is on the market for 'offers over £170,000'. The cheapest house (2 bedrooms but very small) is £225,000.

Rents are very high too, £825 pcm for a flat, £1,500 pcm for a 3 bedroomed house but very few available.

I'm sure people in London, the South-East and bigger cities would find that cheap, that's why they are relocating.

In our commuter belt village flat rentals start over £900 per month for a one bed flat.

New build two bed flats start from £350,000, you might be lucky and get a doer upper for between £275,00-£300,000.

There should be more social housing.Yes I was one that bought mine, otherwise I would never have been a home owner
That money should have been allowed to be used to build more social/council housing, ethelwasherel.

Social housing here seems to be built in and amongst new private estates. That, however, means that not so much is being provided.

GrannyGravy13

Stillstanding your posts come across as very bitter.

There are plenty of good landlords, they are not all bad.

If all the private landlords were to disappear do you think that would really help the housing situation.

Thanks for this GrannyGravy.
I'm a landlord, we bought a very small flat as a second property when we retired and downsized, thinking one of could use it when we are very old. We haven't put the rent up since we started letting it in 2012 and all our tenants have been happy.
Our current tenant is an elderly widowed man who doesn't want the bother of owning a property, though I think he and his wife used to own one. The property is well-maintained and we use a responsible letting agent who looks after our tenants well.
Do people really want to force people like me to sell our property?

AGAA4

The two bedroom flat next door to me has been rented for £1000 per month. Renting is not cheap now.

My daughter is renting a two bedroom flat for her and her children in St Albans. The rent is £1400 a month!

Do people really want to force people like me to sell our property?
Has anyone said anything of the kind? Unless I've missed something, in which case I apologise, people are talking about the folly of letting council tenants buy, not saying that anyone should be 'forced to sell'.

There are very few one bedroom flats. It’s one of the reasons the bedroom tax was wicked. Many separated fathers were allocated 2 bed flats. It meant they could have staying visits from children.
In came the bedroom tax so these men’s rent went up. Wages and benefits didn’t. In the areas I worked, there simply weren’t one bed flats

Still standing, what a cold, critical, cynical view of people you’re expressing here

Totally agree ....but doubtless even if councils built more housing there would be NIMBY's objecting .... There should be a way to stop illegal immigration ......and illegals should NOT be given priority over British nationals ....can you imagine what would happen to Brits if we decided to land on someone else's shores illegally .........would we be given : healthcare (before the nationals !) housing (likewise) money, free education, more than the nationals of that country ? what do you think !!! as for social housing being sold ...dont start me off ! My ex husband (and his new family ) having been a compulsive gambler all his life, and renting from the Council, who turned a two bed into a four bed by knocking into the house next door, on a village green in Suffolk......bought the house from the council when his next wife inherited money from her father ....bought the house for £58,000......now worth over £500,000 ...how can that be right !!! for a time they were homeless and living in a hostel .......why should the Council ever have allowed him to buy it ! I did consider buying a house to rent out ...but Landlord's have NO rights ...and if you have a difficult tenant there is little you can do ...have to pay for all kinds of energy tests, have a gas certificate, Landlord insurance, and all the expenses of having to evict a tenant if necessary ! so I decided against it sadly .............no idea what a quick solution would be ...houses or flats take an age to build (BUT where I live there is now a huge commercial estate of office buildngs, hotels, etc EMPTY following COVID ...could easily be turned into living accommodation ...the two big hotels have en suites, a large communal room, resturants, AND Brits would not be complaining about the FOOD not being to their liking ! grrr

Exactly on what level would that be precisely.

Are you claiming that all forces families are the same? That would be racist on so many levels.

Whether it is workable or not depends a little on what you expect this plan to do.

Anyone, in any country, who is on a waiting list for accomodation and who is a citizen of the particular country, is very likely to feel ill-done-to if newly arrived immigrants or refugees are given priority over them.

In the same way, people who have chosen not to have children, or been unable to have the family they wanted may feel unfairly treated if couples with children go to the top of the list - which is the usual practice I believe in any country.

Whether they are morally or ethically entitled to feel that immigrants, refugees and parents with dependent children should not be entitled to special considereration depends entirely on each individual's sense of right and wrong, and I certainly have no desire to try to influence anybody's views.

If by workable, OP you meant will it discourage migrants?

No, I don't believe it will, because as far as I can see most migrants have no realistic views of the countries they are seeking entry to and no amount of telling them that we have housing shortages, high prices for basic commodities and unemployment will make any impression upon them, as all these things are far lesser evils than whatever they are fleeing from.

Do think people who serve in our forces should be looked after better, surely they deserve a home.
Social housing should not be sold, if the tenants want to buy, find another property to buy.
People born and working here should have priority.

Allsorts

Do think people who serve in our forces should be looked after better, surely they deserve a home.
Social housing should not be sold, if the tenants want to buy, find another property to buy.
People born and working here should have priority.

They are prioritised.
www.gov.uk/government/news/social-housing-to-be-prioritised-for-veterans

As landlords we only charge LA rates which are the same as Housing Associations (HA). When I lived in an HA property it was amongst Council Properties. Despite living in the same houses, we paid an enormous amount more to the HA compared to the Council Tenants. Then, if they chose to buy their houses, they got up to 40% off to buy it. I'd lived for years paying sky high rents in private properties as did a lot of people who couldn't get a Council House but no allowances were made for them! It struck me as being a give away the country could ill afford whilst moving the rest of the housing stock over to Housing Associations so they could charge much higher rents.
I have no problem with residents in Britain being given properties first as eventually immigrants would get the same privileges. I don't think it should necessarily be done by nationality but length of residency and then need. I actually think it would be more to the point if legal asylum seekers were given temporary accommodation villages where they were assessed to see what their needs are. If you have been repeatedly bombed, seen people killed, lost loved ones and been driven out of your home, you are likely to have mental health needs which need specialist help. If you've been forced out of your homeland, you are likely to need help with the English language. You might need help in how to integrate and how to access the systems we have or get back into training so they can work at jobs they may have loved or retrain. Let's not throw these poor people into the midst of resentful people before they are able to cope.

GrannyGravy13

Stillstanding I find your posts racist on many levels.

Oh and we are a ^Forces Family^

Still standing was talking about an illegal let. I do not care what race the person is who sells their flat keys to the highest bidder, because we had so many illegal tenants on my patch two of us would do night visits to those estates with real problems to try to stop the practice. We were in court every week to get our property back, so I am sick and tired of people throwing the “racist” accusation about. Just think that it matters to those on a waiting list for years. And that list is from all races of local residents. You would have hurled the same accusation at me. I had a wonderful 4 bedroom house which we did up thinking of the lucky family would get this prime property. It went to a Middle Eastern family who were very critical of the house. They actually asked me who I would send to tend the garden. I felt so let down. They were probably refugees and so were on the top of the list. I did not care about their race but I did care that this was a wonderful house and all they did was to moan! Years of experience taught me a lot about the people we served. I cannot forget one old lady living alone who fell into arrears. She paid the arrears of at 50p a week, while others with high debts of thousands had their arrears written off but that was not my decision. I lived in a Council house all my life in Liverpool and in Australia until I moved to Govt owned property in the wilds of the NT. in fact it was not until I came back to UK that we owned our own home. I have a lot of sympathy with Council tenants and I agree that the money earned from selling Council property shoukd have used to build new housing. The Conservatives should have introduced it but as they didn’t why didn’t Labour change it after 1997?

AGAA4

My mum and dad bought their council house around 1970. My outspoken DH said it wasn't right that council houses were being sold. My parents took it personally and held it against him for a long time. I believe he was right. Far too many properties were sold off.

It was the huge rebate they were given too. That certainly was unfair. If a private landlord were to sell , as my brother did, moving abroad, no rebate for the time they were renting. The tenant had to buy at market price.

Shinamae

AGAA4

The two bedroom flat next door to me has been rented for £1000 per month. Renting is not cheap now.

My daughter is renting a two bedroom flat for her and her children in St Albans. The rent is £1400 a month!

Even before inflation, St Albans was and is one of the most expensive parts of the country to live.

Some European countries have houses or apartment blocks for all the generations to live in. I know that in the expensive areas near me this is happening already.
I don’t know if this makes for a happier life or not.

Being born in one country and having only that nationality does not equally mean you work and/or pay your taxes

What happened at y MIL’s estate might solve the problem of downsizing when the family have left. It was an estate built fort war veterans and their families. After the families grew up, the three bedroom houses were turned into two flats. This meant the original tenant could stay near friends and the locality they knew.

Dd2 bought a ex council house - a probate sale - that had been bought by the former owners in 1971 - well before Thatcher. I was surprised that such sales had evidently happened long before Right to Buy.

It was around 7 years ago and she paid almost exactly 1% of what they’d paid - dh had a good old nose on the Land Reg to find that out.

Doodledog

*Do people really want to force people like me to sell our property?*
Has anyone said anything of the kind? Unless I've missed something, in which case I apologise, people are talking about the folly of letting council tenants buy, not saying that anyone should be 'forced to sell'.

stillstanding Doodledog - said tenants should go on a rent strike, the courts wouldn’t be able to cope with all the evictions and property prices would crash - her dream, she said. Nasty doesn’t come close to describing it - and the racism.

Germanshepherdsmum

Doodledog

Do people really want to force people like me to sell our property?
Has anyone said anything of the kind? Unless I've missed something, in which case I apologise, people are talking about the folly of letting council tenants buy, not saying that anyone should be 'forced to sell'.

stillstanding Doodledog - said tenants should go on a rent strike, the courts wouldn’t be able to cope with all the evictions and property prices would crash - her dream, she said. Nasty doesn’t come close to describing it - and the racism.

I was beginning to think it was just me that thought stillstandings posts were racist and blatantly nasty.

You’re not alone. I considered reporting but thought it better for people to be able to read and judge.

It's another version of this but instead of jobs/money, it's homes. There aren't enough council properties due to the great sell off but it's easier to blame 'immigrants' than admit that the previous governments (Con and Lab) have caused it or allowed it to continue. The only way to solve the housing problem is to introduce a massive building plan of social housing (not private 'affordable' housing) and get everyone back into good quality accommodation. If a social housing tenant wants to become a home owner then they'll have to go out onto the open market to buy and not pay a knock down price for the house they live in. I lived in a privately rented house for 15 years and, if my landlord had wanted to sell, I'd have had to pay the market value. Why should social housing be any different?

Housing Association tenants don’t have the right to buy, thank goodness, though it has been suggested.

There is very little private affordable housing. The vast majority of the affordable housing built as part of private developments is transferred to housing associations or local authorities. There is considerable resistance by developers to provision of social housing for rent on private developments because - and working for developers I’ve seen it before someone calls me a snob - the behaviours of people buying shared ownership housing and those renting social housing, and the way they look after their properties, can be very different.

I really don't see how cheap housing is to be achieved. Building costs are high. How can it be viable to build a house to be rented cheaply when the initial costs are high? Cheap council homes for poor people are a thing of the past. If nothing else, this concept would cause resentment among the vast majority who are stuck with high rental costs.
Slightly off-subject, I was interested in Prince William trying to help homelessness in the Duchy of Cornwall. There will be a lot of homelessness in the future, I fear.