Investments - Strategies, Ideas, Options & advice

[Voyager EMH]

Not every private landlord has lots of properties and are millionaires. A lot have inherited houses and using the rental income as a pension scheme.

Also, more controversial, not all people on benefits are poor.

That's what I said.
Some wealthy people receive amounts of housing benefit.

So you do think the amounts of housing benefit being handed out to people who are not poor should not be constrained in any way?
A complete free-for-all and grab-what-you-can with no limits? Tax payers will always foot the bill?

 

[Neilds]

That's what I said.
Some wealthy people receive amounts of housing benefit.

So you do think the amounts of housing benefit being handed out to people who are not poor should not be constrained in any way?
A complete free-for-all and grab-what-you-can with no limits? Tax payers will always foot the bill?

Following your strange logic, are you also against supermarkets and other businesses that take benefits from poor people when they want to feed themselves?

Also, housing benefit is capped and often does not cover the full rent.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Following your strange logic, are you also against supermarkets and other businesses that take benefits from poor people when they want to feed themselves?

Also, housing benefit is capped and often does not cover the full rent.

I think you are wrong to use "also". I have not stated that I am against anyone or any organisations.
Claiming that I have stated something, when I have not, and then extrapolating from it to supermarkets is very poor argument.
So I can not reasonably answer your question in your opening line.

I am not against supermarkets, private landlords, energy companies, local housing authorities, etc

I do point out that "people on benefits" must include some private landlords many of whom are not poor people.

18% of private landlord tenancies involve some housing benefit.
55% of private landlords have 2 or more rental properties.
49% of private landlord tenancies are with landlords who own 5 or more rental properties.

But are we to never ever question the amount of taxpayers money that goes to private landlords? Are they exempt from any discussion with regard to benefits?

 

[The Squirrel]

Strange take. The landlords are not “on benefits”; they’re charging rent for use of their property. The fact that the tenant pays this via housing benefit rather than from employment income is in no way a failing of the landlord. The tennant may be able to take steps to alter their economic status and therefore their payment source, the landlord definitely cannot. The government’s failure to build or buy its own housing stock - when they have it in their power to do so - is also not the landlord’s fault

 

[GreiginFife]

Mega corps avoid billions in tax on UK sales each year but it’s Bob and Hetty getting £70 a week DLA that’s ruining the country.

The planets some folks heids exist on is startling.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Strange take. The landlords are not “on benefits”; they’re charging rent for use of their property. The fact that the tenant pays this via housing benefit rather than from employment income is in no way a failing of the landlord. The tennant may be able to take steps to alter their economic status and therefore their payment source, the landlord definitely cannot. The government’s failure to build or buy its own housing stock - when they have it in their power to do so - is also not the landlord’s fault

At last - a possible solution is proposed to save the taxpayers money.
An initial outlay, but a long term saving, maybe.

And a lowering in demand for private rentals might see rents becoming relatively cheaper over time and thus more affordable rents would mean less housing benefit being paid out.

The owners of all those rental properties might not be so enthusiastic, however. Any government taking this step is going to lose some votes, I imagine.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Mega corps avoid billions in tax on UK sales each year but it’s Bob and Hetty getting £70 a week DLA that’s ruining the country.

The planets some folks heids exist on is startling.

Had a chat with my dentist a few years ago when he was approaching retirement. He tried to find out who owned his business premises. He paid rent to a local agency. The agency paid money to a company that owned the building. That company was registered in Jersey. That company was owned by a company in The British Virgin Islands. He could not obtain the names of anyone who owned the BVI company. I am fairly sure that the bulk of the money he paid out did not attract any UK tax.
Money gets sucked out of the country this way. Property ownership is a very big business.

 

[D-S]

Had a chat with my dentist a few years ago when he was approaching retirement. He tried to find out who owned his business premises. He paid rent to a local agency. The agency paid money to a company that owned the building. That company was registered in Jersey. That company was owned by a company in The British Virgin Islands. He could not obtain the names of anyone who owned the BVI company. I am fairly sure that the bulk of the money he paid out did not attract any UK tax.
Money gets sucked out of the country this way. Property ownership is a very big business.

Could you define private landlords? Are these individuals with small or large property portfolios? Or does the term include all the businesses which own large amounts of private and commercial property?

 

[Voyager EMH]

In post #514, I state quite clearly,

"I am not obsessed with private landlords. Good luck to them."

I do not blame private landlords for anything.
Some of them are in ultimate receipt of housing benefit. This does become part of their income. This is a plain fact that I choose not to ignore.

Another fact is that people have to live somewhere. If you have a property to rent, you can rent it to people who can not afford the rent. Taxpayer pays the rest.

 

[Voyager EMH]

Could you define private landlords? Are these individuals with small or large property portfolios? Or does the term include all the businesses which own large amounts of private and commercial property?

Look it all up in this document.

 

[Hobbit]

The issue with anything private that receives its money from the Treasury, e.g. landlords, PFI’s etc is they need to make a profit. Profit isn’t a dirty word but there are better ways to spend taxpayers money. Build ‘social’ housing. Money goes out to someone who then pays money back into the coffers in rent.

It’s not a difficult equation.

 

[GreiginFife]

The issue with anything private that receives its money from the Treasury, e.g. landlords, PFI’s etc is they need to make a profit. Profit isn’t a dirty word but there are better ways to spend taxpayers money. Build ‘social’ housing. Money goes out to someone who then pays money back into the coffers in rent.

It’s not a difficult equation.

And, theoretically, landlords will return some in tax pain on said profits.

Estimated tax gap (lost tax through evasion and other schemes) £46bn annual, estimated benefit fraud £9.6bn annual.

Yeah, definitely these workshy hucksters.

 

[Bunkermagnet]

And, theoretically, landlords will return some in tax pain on said profits.

Estimated tax gap (lost tax through evasion and other schemes) £46bn annual, estimated benefit fraud £9.6bn annual.

Yeah, definitely these workshy hucksters.

Sadly that doesn't fit the narrative certain persons/media,political parties want to have

 

[Hobbit]

Sadly that doesn't fit the narrative certain persons/media,political parties want to have

And a large part of the problem for us mere mortals is the spin those groups put on everything. Sadly, and the PO scandal is a great example, everyone lies.

 

[GreiginFife]

Sadly that doesn't fit the narrative certain persons/media,political parties want to have

It certainly speaks to the death of critical thinking in much of society today.

It’s not just about media though, certain groups have biases that they need to fill with their own bogeyman.

 

[The Squirrel]

It also seems very very unlikely that the government could build/buy and run a large pool of housing stock efficiently and have the energy and commercial savvy to get strong value for money doing so. As my example of that I'd use ... well basically everything it does.

It's an easy siren call that if you remove the profit-generating business from the process then the government gets to keep that profit and is better off. Unfortunately it's almost always a load of rubbish. In my own field, when the government attempted to cut out the profit-generating businessses it contracts to and set up and run similar services directly in the early 2000s the result of those schemes was that for the same output, the directly-government-owned premises costs were about 500% (not a typo) of what they were paying contractors for the same service. It was a total disaster and rapidly abandoned. People don't learn. 20 years later, someone's just had another go at it in East Anglia and it was the same result with almost exactly the same numbers.

 

[Voyager EMH]

And, theoretically, landlords will return some in tax pain on said profits.

Estimated tax gap (lost tax through evasion and other schemes) £46bn annual, estimated benefit fraud £9.6bn annual.

Yeah, definitely these workshy hucksters.

I believe that is the overpayment figure not the fraud estimate. The £9.6bn is 3.3% of total benefit payments.
The £9.6bn overpayments should be stated alongside the £1.2bn underpayments.

The overpayments are split into 3 parts,

1. Official error
2. Claimant error
3. Fraud

Official errors and claimant errors in over payments and underpayments are often due to both sides not reporting and/or reacting to changes in circumstance quick enough and payments continuing to be made according to circumstances that have changed. This can be merely a time-lag with no fraudulent intent.

A breakdown of overpayments, underpayments and fraud for all benefits can be found in appendix 1 and 2 of this document.
In appendix 1, the total figure for benefit fraud is stated as £6.5bn approx.

 

[Red devil]

It also seems very very unlikely that the government could build/buy and run a large pool of housing stock efficiently and have the energy and commercial savvy to get strong value for money doing so. As my example of that I'd use ... well basically everything it does.

It's an easy siren call that if you remove the profit-generating business from the process then the government gets to keep that profit and is better off. Unfortunately it's almost always a load of rubbish. In my own field, when the government attempted to cut out the profit-generating businessses it contracts to and set up and run similar services directly in the early 2000s the result of those schemes was that for the same output, the directly-government-owned premises costs were about 500% (not a typo) of what they were paying contractors for the same service. It was a total disaster and rapidly abandoned. People don't learn. 20 years later, someone's just had another go at it in East Anglia and it was the same result with almost exactly the same numbers.

Seemed to do it OK with council houses back in the day.

 

[GreiginFife]

I believe that is the overpayment figure not the fraud estimate. The £9.6bn is 3.3% of total benefit payments.
The £9.6bn overpayments should be stated alongside the £1.2bn underpayments.

The overpayments are split into 3 parts,

1. Official error
2. Claimant error
3. Fraud

Official errors and claimant errors in over payments and underpayments are often due to both sides not reporting and/or reacting to changes in circumstance quick enough and payments continuing to be made according to circumstances that have changed. This can be merely a time-lag with no fraudulent intent.

A breakdown of overpayments, underpayments and fraud for all benefits can be found in appendix 1 and 2 of this document.
In appendix 1, the total figure for benefit fraud is stated as £6.5bn approx.

View attachment 60310

Quite, I was going with the higher figure to make a point that even with worst case numbers it’s still not a patch on tax avoidance.

 

[The Squirrel]

Seemed to do it OK with council houses back in the day.

Like how efficiently Hull (for example) ran the modernisation programme of its council housing stock after the huge KCom flotation windfall, as just one example? Installing new heating system and double glazing into abandoned properties soon to be demolished?