Before anyone dismisses this as just another of #IDS ‘fag-packet’ ideas, read Joe Halewood’s take below: and to quote his closing point “ please stop calling this the ‘daftest policy’ you have ever heard. Stop saying you are speechless at this etc, and grow a set of balls and tell IDS and this government (and the next government and the one after that) to go f**k themselves and to start dealing on your terms.”
The Times and Daily Telegraph have a story today – the latest hare-brained idea of the tyrannical despot called Iain Duncan Smith.
If you have worked for a year you get your council or housing association property given to you for nothing!!
Yes seriously!
The plan is outlined here in an article in 24Dash:
Iain Duncan Smith is keen for the party to include a pledge in its election manifesto to give people who have managed to stay in work for a year a free council or housing association home. As part of the deal, the recipient would no longer be allowed to claim housing benefit, and would have to pay out 35% of the proceeds if the house was sold within three years of the handover.
The rationale it then says is this:
According to Tory thinkers, money generated by the policy would be used to build new homes, while the cash saved on housing benefit would outweigh any other concerns.
Ok, leaving aside ‘according to Tory Thinkers’ – if ever an oxymoron in itself – what would this mean?
Take the Smiths, Wayne and Waynetta Smith who live with their 4 children in a council house in London. They pay rent of £130 per week and the property is worth £500,000. They get £500 per week in benefits and housing benefit because of the cap and that is shortly to reduce to £440 per week should the Tories not be voted out in May
Wayne and Waynetta approach a bank to say advance us £25,000 and in year one they sign off completely and receive not a penny in benefits. They then ask for £7k per year for each of the next 3 years to cover the HB they have lost but they sign back on to receive welfare benefits. They put up the property as collateral.
The bank says ok we will give you £50k – £4k more than they asked for on day 1 and charge you 25% interest per year. After 4 years the bank are owed £122k by Wayne and Waynetta and the house is now worth £600k. So the bank force the sale of the house and get their money and Wayne and Waynetta are still left with nearly £400k in their pocket
OK I now that is a bit far-fetched as the bank would charge more than 25% being totally greedy bastards!
Note too the same principle works in depressed low rent areas ‘oop North.’
Result is NO SOCIAL HOUSING IN THE UK AT ALL WITHIN FOUR YEARS – IDS HAS KILLED IT OFF
But where are the old the sick the disabled and the supported going to live? Well it just so happens the banks and their friends have bought a lot of ex social housing properties which they lease back to councils en masse at 5 times the rent they were charging four years before and the Housing Benefit bill goes from today’s £24 billion per year to about £100 billion per year
AND of course the private sector gets their hands on and now owns a further 4 million plus properties and can charge what they like for them and can do whatever the hell they like to their tenants as they have no security and there is no regulation of the Private Sector landlord at all.
READ the rest at : IDS plan to kill social housing in 4 years.
jaynelinney 