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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Why is Haringey Council not enshrining the rights of tenants in the HDV?

I just cannot get my head around the fact that Claire Kober is so brazenly promising tenants will be looked after in the HDV yet won't put that in writing. It is either the ultimate in double speak or stupid.

Or is it?

By the time the HDV has rebuilt the first new block ready for occupation by tenants decamped to other places, I think they are counting on the law having changed to means test tenants. So Councillor Kober will look like the most amazing socialist ever when she announces that perhaps as many as 500 families that were on the waiting list are to be given tenancies in the new developments. How will they be able to do this? I suspect that there won't be too many tears shed by Londoners when they put a ceiling on the income you can have whilst occupying a council flat. It's the next logical step in the war against social housing and our HDV toting councillors know it.

Am I bid a combined income of sixty thousand pounds to start with? £70K?

Tags for Forum Posts: claire kober, council housing, haringey council, haringey development vehicle, hdv, social housing

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What, you mean a wheeze like thousands of self entitled private landlords (including many politicians) getting paid housing benefit from our taxes rather than that money (£9.3bn) being used to build new council homes so people are protected from those greedy private landlords?

Oh that's just another aspect of the whole residential property letting wheeze.

I can see why someone might call them greedy but the problem is that it's just become so natural for this to be. I mean one day I might come into some capital and want to become a landlord and live off the income of the property I own so perhaps I should keep quiet about questioning this, like everyone else.

There isn't a set amount for a 3 bed, it will vary depending on the property. In the local authority where I work (which neighbours Haringey) the average rent for a 3 bed is £210pw so that's a reasonable guide.

So that's £910pcm. If you can sublet your 3 bed council flat and not get caught, that's £1000pcm you pocket and no maintenance cost risks. I'm just pointing out that it is natural for market disparities like that to be arbitraged.

Anyway, depending on how you see your glass that's either a great deal for council tenants or a complete shafting for private renters.

Aside from the obvious point that if you are caught sub-letting a council property and you have moved out you will be evicted and barred from council housing, where is the person who is sub-letting living?

If they are in the property as well, they are taking lodgers which is permitted under a secure tenancy provided they inform the tenancy management office. In some cases, where people are struggling to even manage the lower council rents, this is advised as a way of maximising income. They are rarely "pocketing" surplus income but finding a way to make ends meet. This is incidentally quite rare as most people live in council properties that are deemed adequate for their needs and are not permitted to take in extra people that would cause overcrowding. Some older folk on secure tenancies were permitted lodgers to cover bedroom tax but the impact on housing benefit for most makes this a less than desirable option. Disabled people hit by bedroom tax often needed the spare room for equipment and to allow overnight carers.

New tenants are not permitted to share their property at all.

And a reminder. Private renters are being shafted. Time to talk fair renting rates.

There has to be a formula for fair renting rates that still allows landlords to be paid fair rental as well but I suspect it will have to take into account the incredible capital appreciation (often more per year than the achievable rent) that they also participate in. I suspect this means "no borrowing to let" which the aspirational amongst us are going to see as perhaps affecting them one day. It's hard to hit just the buy-to-let (not yet rich) landlords and not the already-own (rich) landlords. By definition that would be unfair.

Becoming a landlord is not a human rite of passage, it's a business venture which requires you to be adaptable to changes in the market and the law. As the small print always says, the value of your investment can go down as well as up. The government are already tightening legislation on buy to let and making it less attractive tax wise partly because one side effect of property wealthy people buying more shelter than they needed was to elbow out first time buyers which a stable property market needs a good supply of.

Rather than wringing your hands over BTL small businesses, which can simply sell up (and provided they haven't over-reached) get back their stake money at least, look at the hike in business rates for small high street businesses which is likely to be a much bigger killer of dreams of independence and being your own boss.

But our MPs are residential property landlords, not high street businessmen. If we accept that they will operate primarily in their own interests without so much as a whimper then what honestly can we expect?

We have many first time buyers supporting the London Market, it just so happens that they reside in China.

You can't tax landlords without increasing the cost of housing. Just like you can't tax pubs without the cost of a pint going up. New costs get passed onto the consumer eventually more often than not.

If you want cheap rents you want to tax landlords as little as possible but then rent control the rents ideally so they must go down every year.

However that causes everyone to cling on to their rent controlled places forever and new people end up in long queues and corruption starts to develop to jump the queue.

Ultimately you need to meet the demand with supply and build more houses. Ideally with the public purse benefiting in any future rents.
Even with planning permission to build new homes a lot of developers just hang on to the land in order to increase its value
http://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topics/third-of-london-homes-g...
Time to talk rent controls.
Sub-letting a council property is now an imprisonable offence - you can get up to 2 years

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