Councils of Britain are you ready for Osborne’s Housing Crisis?

Councils of Britain are you ready for Osborne’s Housing Crisis?

10:37 AM, 20th November 2015, About 9 years ago 35

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Councils are going to be on the front line of this complete disaster and we should all make this clear to them. I don’t just mean detailing our own financial predicament and explaining the mathematics behind it. I mean making clear what we are going to do (be forced to increase rents and/or sell-up) because of George Osborne’s Tax on Mortgage Interest and the emergency that every council will face in consequence.crisis

They need to know that they have just 5 years to dramatically increase their own housing provision, because their worst nightmare is coming: their housing waiting lists are going to be utterly overwhelmed by 1) people pushed out of the private rental sector by our withdrawal from the market, 2) housing benefit tenants that we can no longer afford to house. Their current predicament is going to look like a picnic in comparison to what is heading their way.

We have all had those phone calls I am sure, when our council wishes to inquire if we’ve spare capacity for some of their potential tenants: When you tell them no, tell not for any longer after the passing of clause 24 and that you’ll probably have to sell up as a result. Sorry but it’s out of my hands, take it up with George.

I believe we could cause a real stir with a concerted, collective effort in this area. Council’s are going to absolutely hate trying and failing to clean up this mess left to them by the Chancellor.

We each need to direct our e-mails to our local council’s housing departments and key figures in the organisation. I also think that we should share these e-mail addresses on this forum. In addition to contacting my own council I am planning on sending a massive one bearing the title of the forum, so I may need help gathering as many addresses as possible for that.

Gareth


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Comments

Claire Oswald

8:54 AM, 26th November 2015, About 9 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "CaZ " at "20/11/2015 - 21:31":

You mention that local authorities don't want to bite the hand that feeds, but I know that many authorities are looking at being 'self-funding' by 2020, as grants will diminish and authorities will need to produce their own income. Maybe as Clause 24 is properly kicking in then it may give them food for thought.

Chris Bunn

5:00 AM, 2nd December 2015, About 8 years ago

Just a thought there are two sides to every story and maybe we are not looking at the big picture.

If landlords have to sell there are costs involved CGT. Maybe the government are just setting things up for they to be a glut of buy to lets on the market. Prices will then go down supply and demand rule, This will in turn help first time buyers,councils, and housing associations. They will come in and clean up by getting deals. Increasing housing stock cheaper and quicker than building property.
That together with the extra CGT collected and the 3% tax on BLT goes a long way to funding the purchase of property for government. Reducing the public spending on housing costs.

Never underestimate government there are more votes in the hands of tenants than landlords.

MoodyMolls

7:06 AM, 2nd December 2015, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Gareth Wilson" at "21/11/2015 - 16:13":

Very well written Gareth

Jon Pipllman

7:41 AM, 2nd December 2015, About 8 years ago

The natural counter argument to this is that the quantity of housing will not change as a result of clause 24 etc. How is this countered? Consider:

No housing is going to vanish as a result. Sure, some will change ownership, but it will still physically exist and be able to house the same number of people then as now.

So yes, there will be some disruption as tenants are caused to move before they otherwise might and that might cause councils some short term problems (on top of the underlying problems that most of them have right now in terms of availability of housing that they have access to).

How prices are affected remains to be seen. On one hand, if a large LL goes skint and it is the receiver selling her houses at auction, the price achieved might be less than the absolute top of the market. On the other hand, if rents in the market do increase, prices might increase a little as yields adjust upwards to reflect the higher rent.

I never wanted to be a council Housing Officer and I am definitely not going to start applying for the job anytime soon.

Gareth Wilson

11:41 AM, 5th December 2015, About 8 years ago

If you're going to e-mail your council, warning them about the financial impact of Clause 24 and its knock-on effects upon poorer renters and their waiting lists, here is how I now recommend you do it.

Your council will have a page on its website, showing a gallery of all of its executive members. You may need to use Google to find it, it will normally bear the title of "executive members" or "councillors" or "about the council" or something along those lines. You may need to type in a particular job role like "leader of the council" into the search engine along with the council name to find the page.

Once you have found it, click each portrait/hyperlinked name to see the councillors' profiles and copy and paste their e-mail addresses into a list of your own.

Once you've got them, copy and paste these e-mail addresses into your e-mail's BCC box and send it to the whole executive committee.

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