council house rent.is

Is it fair that in a row of council houses theres only one are two tenents paying full rent. people on benefit should be made to pay something towards their rent.then those paying in full could pay a bit less.

It wouldn’t work that way, Albion.
In my opinion, having a council house (formally known as social housing) should be means-tested.
I wouldn’t be having couples in council houses, both working, with £40,000 cars on their drive, if I was in charge of it. Or people claiming council tax benefit who are paying £3000 a year caravan site rates!

In the financial year ending April 2023 Wigan Council was number 1 in writing off social housing rent arrears of £4.5 million.
Number 2 Hackney wrote off £2.5 million, number 3 Welwyn Hatfield £2.4 million, number 4 Barking and Dagenham £2.3 million and number 5 Birmingham £ 1.7 million.

Nothing much being said in reply to the comments of Albion, tonker abnd Gaffer.

One wonders why!

is the council tax fair when single people pay more than anyone else ? .

Take in a lodger and share the rent It is the same with a lot of things in life for a single person. If there is not a second wage going into a household you could argue that you are paying more for every thing elect gas rates water Tv Licence etc Food most pre wrapped food caters either for two/four people.If you eat bread a large loaf may go stale before you can use all of it but a small loaf is not much cheaper to buy.A lot of hotels charge more for a single room than a double.I am not going down the road of only 25% discount on the rates this was debated not long ago on WW. Look at it another way a married couple with only one income pay exactly the same has a single person but pay full rates and rent is that fair

Its not fair when many getting housing benefit can afford to buy a second property, static caravan, boat etc while others are finding it hard to afford and maintain the one property they can afford.

tonker is right when he says it should be means tested on what incomes are coming into a property in addition to the person receiving the housing benefit.

The reason why many will not fill in the annual electoral registration form as it tells the Council who is livng at a property, hence the reason why many do not vote as they are not registered to vote!

well said Owd Codger

Social housing 'IS' already means tested, and that 'means test' decides where abouts on the Social Housing waiting list applicants are put, councils decide who to offer a tenancy to on the basis of 'need'.

As regards getting rid of tenants who have become rich and can afford to buy their own property, the first thing a rich tenant does is to buy their council house at a knockdown price, I don't agree with that, selling council properties to tenants is bad, it goes against the idea of providing Social Housing.

I think that in the 1960s they had the right idea in building millions of council dwellings, but they went about it in the wrong way, the properties were badly designed and the infrastructure on the new estates in the form of shopping precincts and open spaces were also badly designed, creating no go areas blighted by anti social behaviour, and the New Towns of the 1960s I think were an excellent idea, but they were badly designed, and on top of the design problems, they were of poor construction, with no quality control, they were basically crap.
I think that they should now build New Towns again, with a mix of Social and Private Housing.

unlike MPs who buy 2nd houses in london with taxpayers money then sell them & pocket the money like maria miller ? .

If the new towns were built along the lines of the world’s first garden city Letchworth and Welwyn garden city residents would have a good quality of life. In reality only the building of several new towns will solve the housing shortage.

yes down south & no suprise there .

Perhaps the large number of new towns down south in the counties around the expanding borders of Greater London might have something to do with the massive incease in the population of the city which has occured over the past few years!

Ol man River. I gots me da council house wid de benefits.

Whups said, “ is the council tax fair when single people pay more than anyone else ? “

And he was one of the loudest shouters when Margaret Thatcher announced the Poll Tax policy !

PS, Chicken George, I’d call mimicking a blackie an act of racism, simply because it’s done in fun.
ARE YOU A RACIST!

Owd Codger said, “….. something to do with the massive incease in the population of the city which has occured over the past few years!”

What City’s this?
It can’t be London, as nobody can afford to live there!

yes i was tonker & i,m still shouting it was unfair then & it,s still unfair .

How is council rent worked out Is there still a charge for having less occupants than bedrooms(bedroom tax)? Do families who have a two bed house pay the same has a family with four bed rooms? Its the same with Council Tax(rates) how is that calculated?

tonker,

It is London and I suggest you check the figures showing how the population has increased over the past few years instead of coming out with a bland comment that people cannot afford to live there.

You need to pay a visit to Tory districts like Richmond, St John's Wood, Uxbridge etc which are nothing like the Labour districts like Bethnal Green, Hackney, Lambeth etc where affordabilty of living in the capital is concerned!

peterp

Council Tax is a local tax paid by most adults to their local authority. Whether you own or rent your home, it will be assigned to a specific valuation band that determines the annual cost of your bill.

Valuation Band: The valuation band for your home is based on its value as of April 1, 1991 in England and April 1, 2003 in Wales. Each band corresponds to a different level of property value.

The original Poll Tax or as it was called the "Community Charge" was a good idea, because at the time the domestic rates bill on a two up two down terraced type of house in Wigan was about £180 per year, and the idea was that instead of charging the house 'rates' they would charge the people living inside the house instead, and the charge in somewhere like Wigan would have been about £80 a year, so a single person living in a property would have benefitted with a much lower annual bill, than the 'rates' but if four adults were living in a property, then the council would receive around about £320 a year from the previously described property, rather than just the £180 for the 'rates' bill, under the notion that four adults of varying ages, required more council care, than a single person requires, as in they create more rubbish, they need more policing, they need more library services, they need more leisure services, swimming pools etc etc etc

A much fairer system

BUT

Thanks to the Labour Party of the time, the "Community Charge" scheme was ruined, because the councils could set their own amount of Community Charge and the Labour Councils, instead of bringing in a charge of something like £80 a year, the charge was more like £300 per year, so a house which had been charged £80 a year under the domestic rates system, a four adult house was then charged collectively £1200 a year

So it was your fault Whupsy, yoo and your precious Labour Party (of the time) ruined the 'Community Charge' and I think we are NOW all far worse off because it was politically 'sabotaged' by the Labour Party

Owd Codger, you did say the population of the city. But you really meant Greater London, which is a Metropolitan County containing 2 cities and many boroughs (a Wigan word?).

Whups seems to be a bit lost. First it’s unfair, then it’s not, then it is, then ……… errrrr. ……… as long as it’s nowt to do with tories it’s fair !

PS: How many Wiganers (including plastics) say they live in Manchester? I’ll bet you don’t !

TTS when the dreaded "poll tax" was being implemented it was said every person over the age of 18year old was liable to pay their own poll tax . When it came into force I asked who would pay my wife's tax has she did not work and did not have an income i was told by the council I was liable to pay her tax so I had to pay double Even the modern rates system wants overhauling . I live in a modest 2 bed bungalow with a small galley kitchen extension and I pay tax band "C" every other bungalow in the road pays tax band "B" Near by are ex council houses which all have double height extensions and 3/4 bedrooms plus additional living areas and they all are in tax band "A"

PeterP

As regards paying your wife's poll tax, you were what was known as the 'breadwinner' in your household, your job was going out and earning a wage, I presume you wife's job was looking after the home as a housewife, that was the norm at one time, and if you were both happy with that arrangement, then so be it, as two people no doubt you paid more than on the old rates system, but there are winners and losers in everything, you can't please everyone, because nothings perfect.

As regards your neighbours houses, which were council houses, and now as private houses which have had extensions built, and will probably be worth more than your house, if I was you I would be bloody well fuming about them still being in Band A, but that is because the valuation from 1990 is still in force, I think that residential properties should be revalued every five years, sooner if they have had an improvement which increases the value of the property.

wrong again tonker the poll tax had everyone paying the same even if you lived in a 10 bedroon mansion or a 2 bed semi & that was wrong & brought thatcher down . now why shud single people pay 75 % when a couple pay 50% each . is that fair ? .

tonker

Many others would have realised that when I said City of London, I was referring to the whole of the Greater London area and not just the original City of London between St Pauls Cathedral and the Tower of London were i suspect, the population has gone down as a result of business and other commercial interests taking over the area in the years since the second world war.

Whups

The ‘poll tax’ was a cost of services tax. The cost of services provided by councils was to be shared equally by the number of residents in a council area. It had nothing to do with the value of the property one lived in. That was what the rates system, and the current version was based on.
So I think we can confidently say that Tonker was correct.
Since the introduction of the poll tax the number of single person homes has grown significantly although the growth of such has now levelled off. Currently there are over 8 million homes occupied by a single person. Perhaps the poll tax wasn’t a bad idea after all.

Gaffer

Surely, the term "Poll Tax" is what it says, a tax on a individual who votes in a poll and not a property which could be occupied by any number of people paying the same Council Tax based on the value of the property than someone living on their own.


I am sure that it would be better for many residents like Whups, but would they enjoy supporting a idea of Thatcher?

“Poll” is “Head”
ie: poll count = headcount.
poll tax = tax per head.u

Double Take !

The Peasants were revolting LINK

i think your on something if you think i,m going to back anything of thatchers .

Here's one for you, Whups .....

?

Tonker translation please

That was sent to me, on Whatsapp, by a friend of mine who is a scrap metal dealer, in Spain.
On the gravestone, it says .......

here lies
Margaret Thatcher
"THE IRON LADY"

The bloke, a scrap metal collector, is saying, .......

"Bring the van over here, Mate. Here is scrap material"!

in that case

Whups

Have you considered taking in a lodger of the opposite sex, then your problem might be solved in more ways than just the one of paying the Council Tax?

Just a suggestion to help you out!