£106k per year council house

One More Solo said:
There are plenty of low income earners in London that have to live within their means without leaning on the taxpayer. However, I work with far too many people that would actually end up worse off by working more because of their various income assessed tax credits and benefits. That is just a grossly unfair and surely unsustainable system.
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I'm not sure they'd be worse off financially, it's more likely that they just don't benefit from working more hours because the more hours they work they less they receive in other benefits, so they end up earning the same but working more, it's a hard problem to address.

You have to earn a lot of money to get far enough over that benefit line to feel that it's worth it, but that's hard to do in a lot of places, down here in Cornwall for example the majority of people are on minimum wage, a whole county where the majority are eligible for benefits even if they work full time, and usually it's the rate of rent that's to blame, that's why so many people need benefits even while they are working, something needs to be done about the cost of rent, it's ridiculous.
 
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Yeah at the end of the day we're all kind of missing the point. It's not necessarily the benefits that are the problem its the fact that it costs £8,000 a month to rent a house in a 'fairly' nice part of London :)
 
Scam said:
Yeah at the end of the day we're all kind of missing the point. It's not necessarily the benefits that are the problem its the fact that it costs £8,000 a month to rent a house in a 'fairly' nice part of London :)
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Market forces at work. if people are not willing to pay the rent prices will fall along with the house prices.



st johns wood is probably one of the best areas in london. Even if I really made it in life and we had a combined income of 200k a year its still unaffordable for my family of 4 (when we have kids) to live in a 3 or 4 bed house in St Johns Wood, the cheapest place that is not a hole is around 1.2m but you really need to be looking at close to 2m for a nice house with a garden.

so families that work hard and don't claim of the state live in the suburbs and take the train in. You can get into london within 30 minutes for many of the suburbs so these guys have no justification in saying that the need to stay int the area for work. They can travel in like the rest of us.

Nice 4 bed house for rent in croydon which is 30 min from central london by train.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-32518045.html
again nice enough 3 bed
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-32188396.html

4 bed in barking
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-33883550.html

or this place in 20 min into central london on the train
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-35932310.html
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-21107772.html

Maybe get these people to move out here and give them subsidised travel?
 
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Dr House said:
Market forces at work. if people are not willing to pay the rent prices will fall along with the house prices.
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I think we've all learned now that there's no such thing as 'market forces' in the UK housing bubble. If we carry on as we are accepting these 'market forces' then rent will simply skyrocket. Even more than it is already. Those that can afford to buy will buy, and buy up more and moer to rent out to those that can't. Those that can only rent will have to pay more and more just to have a roof over their heads. The situation as it is, is unsustainable. We already have a huge generational wealth divide because of the housing bubble.

Dr House said:
Maybe get these people to move out here and give them subsidised travel?
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I agree with this (in fact I was going to post it).
 
Send 'em up North, there's plenty of budget housing up here. You could make arguments about unskilled labour shortage etc, but I don't care tbh, it seems farcical to me that taxpayers have to give such massive subsidy to these people just so they don't have the inconvenience of moving/living in a poorer area. What a slap in the face to hard working people who would love to live in such desirable areas but can't afford it.
 
Why aren't members of the government being made accountable is my question. It's our money they're frittering away.

If HS2 turns into a white elephant the people in charge should be criminally prosecuted for wasting over £30bn. But they won't, they'll be retired and won't give a toss.
 
Jonnybmac said:
indeed, £500 a week is still outrageous! how do they justify these amounts? I cann imagine london being a lot more expensive than up here but seriously, i thought 500 a month was expensive when you can rent houses for 300 a month round here never mind 500 a week for benefits!

this countrys doomed, they should make people work for their benefits cleaning up streets and if they refuse then stop paying them! too many people pee me off going and buying a bottle of cider when your on your way for a grueling nightshift, seeing the same people daily knowing your first day of the weeks wage is basically going to funding them!

should also stop people having babys if they cant provide for them, bit like china where they have a cap of one child is it? the countrys already over populated with limited jobs, and would stop kids being raised by lazy dole bums getting taught how to cheat the benefit and create more of the lazy ba**ards :@
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The quality of education is also deteriorating. The government should sort that out.
 
jak731 said:
The thing is housing benefit covers up to the 30th percentile in an area (it will pay up to the cost of the bottom 30% of houses listed in descending order of cost). In these areas these houses fitted into the 30th percentile. The only change now is that there is a cap.
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So 2000 a week is a thirty percentile figure.
I do not believe that.
 
Dr House said:
Market forces at work. if people are not willing to pay the rent prices will fall along with the house prices.



st johns wood is probably one of the best areas in london. Even if I really made it in life and we had a combined income of 200k a year its still unaffordable for my family of 4 (when we have kids) to live in a 3 or 4 bed house in St Johns Wood, the cheapest place that is not a hole is around 1.2m but you really need to be looking at close to 2m for a nice house with a garden.

so families that work hard and don't claim of the state live in the suburbs and take the train in. You can get into london within 30 minutes for many of the suburbs so these guys have no justification in saying that the need to stay int the area for work. They can travel in like the rest of us.

Nice 4 bed house for rent in croydon which is 30 min from central london by train.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-32518045.html
again nice enough 3 bed
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-32188396.html

4 bed in barking
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-33883550.html

or this place in 20 min into central london on the train
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-35932310.html
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-21107772.html

Maybe get these people to move out here and give them subsidised travel?
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Just to add some real facts:

The HOUSING benefits cap is:
£250 for a one-bedroom property
£290 for a two-bedroom property
£340 for a three-bedroom property
£400 for a four-bedroom property

Each area has is own cap. The above are MAXIMUMS in the most expensive areas. So for example, in east london, the cap for a 4-bed will fall according to the bottom 30 percentile average rent.
So basically to sum up, the benefit claimants live in the worst housing in inner london which is very fair. And also people on housing benefits have a tough time even getting landlords in decent areas to agree to let to them - because would you really want to rent you £1m flat to a benefit claimant?


In inner london, the above rents really doesnt go a long way. But the fact they still even allow benefit claimants to live in inner london is frankly stupid!
They are trying to stop the poor being pushed out to the suburbs; yet that is exactly what is happening for the average joe. So why should those that dont contribute have special treatment?

The cap is going in the right direction; but more needs to be done. I would love if they stop giving housing benefits in certain (expensive) areas, even if its not socially acceptable. Who cares if the poor cant live in nice areas.. They should have worked harder when they were at school!
 
Something that I'm interested in, people keep saying that why should people on benefits be allowed to live in these areas if the average working Joe can't afford to live there but surely the average working Joe is entitled to claim housing benefit/top up also?, not saying that's a good thing but is that not that case?

I lived in a room for years due to a low income, I used to get annoyed seeing people on the dole in flats so eventually after getting depressed living in my room I rang the council and asked them if I moved into a flat if they would supplement my earnings with housing benefit and they said yes, in my local area they pay up to £109 a week towards your rent for a 1 bedroomed flat.
 
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Last year theyclaimed average salary to be 26k, which seemed high to me, but thats the figure they stated.
Paying 2k a week on rent.... Average joe as you call him, will need to earn 150k to clear his tax and rent and leave nothing for himself.
Not too many do that.
 
Scam said:
The sad fact is there's probably thousands of cases like this - especially in London. There was a guy on BBC London News interviewed about his housing benefit. They were going for the angle that his family is going to have to move when the cap hits them, so being somewhat sympathetic at first. But then they showed him outside his 'family home' in Maida Vale and I started guessing how much the rent was. Turns out it was £8,000 a month!!

http://www.westendextra.com/news/20...e-plight-family-get-£8k-month-housing-benefit

And I can't get over stupid articles like this: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...uld-force-thousands-of-pupils-to-move-home.do

Oh no people can't afford to live there any more because taxpayers aren't going to pay their ridiculous rents. Newsflash morons -- if I wanted a 3-story townhouse in Chelsea, turns out I can't afford it. You can't always live where you want. Why do you think people pay thousands of pounds a year commuting. Get over it, morons!!
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I live in Maida vale, and it ****es me off no end that we have people like that living around here. Generally speaking you will have had to work hard, and earn well to be able to afford to rent or buy in Maida vale. It is shocking that through are taxes we effectively have to pay for others to live in a much nicer\bigger property next door.
 
No wonder they are queuing around the channel tunnel entrance - much to the agro of the French!! boarder control in the UK is acomplete joke anyway ( the boarder control "Officers" are merely an expensive job creatiion skeme) come on Camers call me Dave do something
 
I think that the fact that the reason Londons housing prices are so high, is not helped by Russian property barons (or whomever owns these places and never lives in them, simply an investment) who pay millions of pounds for houses, just to increase price of neighbouring places.

Yes i realise that it is legal, but doing to raise the areas prices, should be highly frowned upon.

Of course on topic, this is hardly the worst problem that the public sector has, there are fraudsters at work siphoning millions out of the NHS, usually managers.
 
StriderX said:
I think that the fact that the reason Londons housing prices are so high, is not helped by Russian property barons (or whomever owns these places and never lives in them, simply an investment) who pay millions of pounds for houses, just to increase price of neighbouring places.
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I think you will find that is probably not true.

Prices are high because people are willing/ able (via cheap loans) to pay.
 
StriderX said:
I think that the fact that the reason Londons housing prices are so high, is not helped by Russian property barons (or whomever owns these places and never lives in them, simply an investment) who pay millions of pounds for houses, just to increase price of neighbouring places.

Yes i realise that it is legal, but doing to raise the areas prices, should be highly frowned upon.

Of course on topic, this is hardly the worst problem that the public sector has, there are fraudsters at work siphoning millions out of the NHS, usually managers.
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Yup, the arab and russian billionaires own large parts of London. Its an international hub, and draws investment from the richest people in the world.
Benefits do have a tiny affect on average rents at the bottom end of the market, but nowhere near as much as people think.
 
"But Labour and some campaign groups claim the cap is forcing families onto the streets."

Bloody well get out on the streets, learn what it's like to live rough.. get a job and work your way up like the rest of us! Because, I for one, do not enjoy going to work to fund your luxury expenses when given the current economic climate, I can barely afford my own..

/rant :p
 
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