Dozen London Councils Planning To Ship Lha Tenants To Other Areas

[Dorkins]

Why do the HB bars on this chart add up to less than £10bn when the government tells us the total HB bill is over £20bn a year?

Edit: To answer my own question, I suppose the rest of it is HB expenditure on social housing.

Edited May 2, 2012 by Dorkins

[richc]

1. When LHA was introduced in April 2008 a key principle was that claimants could keep up to £15 a week of any saving if they were able to find or negotiate a rent below the LHA rate (so called Excess Payments). The coalition govenment scrapped that. Now there is no incentive for HB claimants to look for or negotiate sub-LHA rents and there's little incentive for landlords to offer them. Even the government's own Social Security Advisory Committee consider it "likely that landlords will respond by simply raising their contractual rents to the level of the LHA rate."

Wrong, again, in your campaign of disinformation. Your beloved Labour Party was the one who scrapped this incentive programme (likely because it was too small to actually alter behavior or the total cost of the programme).

[South Lorne]

Even if the data was available that seems unlikely. There are far too many people on this forum who have no respect for facts, research, or substantive evidence, preferring instead to base their opinions on prejudice, myth, and misinformation.

...the issue here is not about data and charts ..it is about the plan to bus people away from their own areas....this is not acceptable and their councils should be finding their own solutions...I suspect the move is more political than need...

[CrashConnoisseur]

##crap maths warning##

For example, and forgive me for reducing the argument to an ill thought out approach and a bad source for my numbers. It's just to give you an idea of my reasoning. Not to boulster any argument either way... I'll leave it to better statisticians on this site to crunch the numbers.

In N1, there are 504 rentals available for 2 beds over £2000pm and only 56 under £2000pm.

I'll stop you there. I'm not entirely sure which Broad Market Rental Areas London N1 encompasses, but the maximum LHA rate for a 2-bedroom property in Outer North London BRMA is £1,001pm and for Inner North and West London BRMA it's £1,256. Also you'd need to determine if the letting agent and landlord are willing to let to an HB claimant. The majority are not.

'Local Housing Allowance (LHA) Rates':

http://www.haringey....ha/lharates.htm

Edited May 2, 2012 by CrashConnoisseur

[CrashConnoisseur]

Why do the HB bars on this chart add up to less than £10bn when the government tells us the total HB bill is over £20bn a year?

Edit: To answer my own question, I suppose the rest of it is HB expenditure on social housing.

Correct. The majority of HB claimants are in social housing (Council and Housing Association tenancies). They get their rent paid in full (less any deductions for income above the applicable amount, savings, or non-dependent residents). Although social rents are lower they are rising faster (by RPI + 0.5% + £2) and almost two-thirds of social tenants claim HB. The LHA rate only applies to Private Sector Rentals (PRS).

[Dorkins]

Correct. The majority of HB claimants are in social housing (Council and Housing Association tenancies). They get their rent paid in full (less any deductions for income above the applicable amount, savings, or non-dependent residents). Although social rents are lower they are rising faster (by RPI + 0.5% + £2) and almost two-thirds of social tenants claim HB. The LHA rate only applies to Private Sector Rentals (PRS).

But if the government pays >£10bn HB for social housing, where does this money actually go???

[CrashConnoisseur]

But if the government pays >£10bn HB for social housing, where does this money actually go???

Up until this year it went back to the Treasury into the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) from which grants were made to Councils and Housing Associations (for several years the HRA has run a surplus which has been retained by the Treasury). Under the Localism Act rental income is to be retained by Councils who have been loaded up with large amounts of notional debt (the proceeds of Right To Buy having been retained by the Treasury).

Edited May 3, 2012 by CrashConnoisseur

[tlrrd]

##crap maths warning##

For example, and forgive me for reducing the argument to an ill thought out approach and a bad source for my numbers. It's just to give you an idea of my reasoning. Not to boulster any argument either way... I'll leave it to better statisticians on this site to crunch the numbers.

In N1, there are 504 rentals available for 2 beds over £2000pm and only 56 under £2000pm.

So out of a stock of 550 houses available for a typical family on some obsurdly inflated housing benefit rate, the housing benefit only arguably effects about 10% of the total market, so looking at the graph, surely the value of private rentals that are affected are roughly the same in number or value as the number of HB rentals, indicating a much greater potential for distortion of the market?

// ducks and covers from the inevitable shoot-down! //

Not sure where you got you numbers from, this is what I found:

154 units available under 2000

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE^1666&maxPrice=2000&minBedrooms=2&maxBedrooms=2

226 units available over 2000

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=OUTCODE^1666&minPrice=2000&minBedrooms=2&maxBedrooms=2

Based on the LHA caps below, which I believe are for this area, The market has an artificial floor at 1256 GBP per month. I'm not sure how much income they can have from other benefits or work that they could top this up with.... anyone know?

290 * 52 / 12 = 1256

Inner North London BRMA

https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/SearchResults.aspx?LocalAuthorityId=19&LHACategory=999&Month=5&Year=2012&SearchPageParameters=true

Shared Accommodation Rate:

£88.50 per week

One Bedroom Rate:

£250.00 per week

Two Bedrooms Rate:

£290.00 per week

Three Bedrooms Rate:

£340.00 per week

Four Bedrooms Rate:

£400.00 per week

[awaytogo]

Think it through,

The removal of a sizeable number of people from the local renting scene must depress rents unless there are enough other potential renters to replace them.

Do these potential renters exist?

These measures seem to be an attempt to protect BTLers who cannot afford to reduce rents.

This is an attempt to reduce the ridiculously high housing benefit paid to some people who live in these high rent areas who would never be able to afford to live in those areas if they were working. Up to 104K per year for housing benefit is just unbelievable and should never got out of control like it did. The 20k per year limit is still far to high in my mind and i know a lot of people who think the same.

Edited May 3, 2012 by awaytogo

[Rare Bear]

This is an attempt to reduce the ridiculously high housing benefit paid to some people who live in these high rent areas who would never be able to afford to live in those areas if they were working. Up to 104K per year for housing benefit is just unbelievable and should never got out of control like it did. The 20k per year limit is still far to high in my mind and i know a lot of people who think the same.

Indeed, even 10k would be too high.

[Democorruptcy]

Satan replies

Karen Buck (Westminster North, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment he has made of whether local authorities placing homeless households in accommodation in other areas are notifying the receiving authority in all cases; and if he will make a statement.

Grant Shapps (Minister of State (Housing and Local Government), Communities and Local Government; Welwyn Hatfield, Conservative)

It is neither acceptable nor fair for local authorities to arbitrarily place households in accommodation very far away from their local area.

Under the homelessness legislation local authorities must secure accommodation within their own borough so far as reasonably practicable. If they secure accommodation in the district of another local authority, they must notify the other authority in writing.

In all cases local authorities must be satisfied that the accommodation is suitable for the applicant and his or her household. In considering 'Suitability' authorities must, by law, consider whether a specific property is suitable for the applicant and their household's particular individual needs. This includes the location of accommodation.

We have provided £190 million to help families in difficult situations. We want to be assured that local authorities are making full use of this funding.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2012-05-01b.101524.h

Another £190m to landlords.

[Dorkins]

I find it amazing that we have a system where government bureaucrats "place" people in houses. It's straight out of the USSR. Just give people the money and let them make their own arrangements.