General Discussion

As on another thread we've been talking about taxpayers' money and how it is spent on public sector pensions I thought I'd start off another thread on the matter of private sector landlords being given taxpayers money by way of their tenants receiving housing benefit. Or perhaps that's a misconception on my part.......(but I don't think so).

It's the principle of this that I'm getting at. Why should taxpayers' money go to private sector landlords?

Largely because, for the last thirty years, there has been massive depletion in social housing stock as a result of its being sold off. The result has been inadequate supply for those on housing benefit without using private landlords. A ludicrous situation, I would agree.

Lynne,

In my view, your posts are always pertinent, interesting and well considered and have helped to raise the general tone of this forum,

Don

And a lot of the Social Housing stock has been re-sold to investors who charge astronomical rents (double what the social landlord would charge ) knowing they can get tenants on HB. Some do not care who rents their houses as long as they get their rent, this can cause problems to neighbours who have lived in their houses for years and payed rent to the Social Landlord.

I agree Lynne it does not appear to be fair and I think the whole issue needs looking at to stop the greed of these people.

This is what the controversy has recently been about re people becoming homeless due to govt limiting housing benefits. Example is someone I know who pays £625 pm rent and the housing subsidy is £495 pm. This particular landlord has not increased his rent for 3 years as he knows his tenant would struggle to pay the difference if the rent was increased and would look for other accomodation.
So hopefully govt limits on housing benefit will effectively stabilise or reduce rents as any sensible landlord would prefer to keep reliable tenants if they knew the benefit was limited.

At one time people claiming housing benefit were asked if they wanted the benefit to be paid directly to them or the landlord, as you realise direct to the tenant often caused problems for the landlord so I think this is not an option anymore.
Councils all over the UK are renting more and more private properties for the reason Brazilnut says, there is no alternative.

I guess whether or not rents will go down will depend on how buoyant the local housing market is and that will vary throughout the country.

And, as I understand it, if/when the Universal Credit welfare payment comes into being then the Housing benefit element of it will be paid directly to the tenant. Landords both social and private are already expressing concern that this may well cause rent arrears to accrue.

And even if rents do drop, as long as the tenant does not have the wherewithall to pay the rent then their rent, part or in total, will be subsidised by the tax payer in the form of housing benefit. Personally I have no problem with this provided the money goes to a social landlord. It is when it goes to the private sector that I object. Like I said in my opening post "Why should public money (taxpayers' money) go into the pocket of private landlords?"

(Oh and Don, thank you for your comments about my postings).

I don't see a problem, in principle, with taxpayers' money going to private landlords. After all, public funds are used to buy all manner of private goods and services, whether it's a school buying supplies, an unemployed person spending his JSA on groceries, or a parent spending their Child Benefit on rusks. I don't see a distinction between this and Housing Benefit paying for private housing.

Moreover, as others have said, public sector housing cannot provide for everyone who needs help paying their rent. Further still, I think it would be unfair to require that anyone in receipt of Housing Benefit live in social housing as a condition of payment of benefit.

What is needed, in my opinion, is better regulation of the rented housing market. As it stands, agents are free to fleece both landlord and tenant with exorbitant fees, while landlords are able to get away with poor maintenance and all manner of unfair practices.

Of course, many private landlords won't take tenants in receipt of benefits anyway, which itself is something I would like to see stopped.

Housing benefit is just one of the ways the government uses tax payers money to prop up house prices and hence residential land prices. I posted about this on another thread.

Remove it and landlords would have no choice but to drop rental prices because the demand would drop off a cliff.

Using taxpayers money to pay for peoples rents is not the same as paying for school suppliers or groceries as bobbleoff puts it. The price and availability of books or bananas is not controlled by the government. Land, and indirectly rental prices, are controlled by the government.

We as taxpayers should be saying we have had enough of the government using our money to fund things that have no benefit to us or the majority of people in this country.

"The price and availability of books or bananas is not controlled by the government. Land, and indirectly rental prices, are controlled by the government."

Mm, up to a point, but it's not quite as straightforward as all that. Besides, dispensing with HB isn't the only, nor the best, means of addressing the (very minimal) extent to which HB levels can influence pervailing rental rates.