Now if they think handing an unemployed person a large wedge of cash and say:
“here you go, spend it on what you want”
is going to work they must be MAD.
The whole idea of benefits is the claimant gets the BENEFIT not the cash. So with housing benefit you should get the house. NOT the cash that pays for the house. Why on earth would anyone work if they got the cash rather than the benefit.
It is like giving a child a load of cash and say “here you go this is for your schooling. Go out and get yourself an education”. We all know that if you give someone something they do not appreciate it as if they worked for it.
At least the government have until 2013 to think about it. BUT if they go through with this then I am sure this will happen, and I think the government knows this as well:
WE WILL BE FLOODED WITH HMOs
HMOs are Houses in Multiple Occupation where adults share a house like students. When 2013 hits and my tenant gets £200 each week in his or her hand to pay their council tax, rent etc. You can be sure that I will not see much of it. I will be forced to evict and the tenant will seek the cheapest form of accommodation possible. This will be a grotty little single room in the unfashionable part of town for £40 a week.
The HMO will be run by a firm, hands on landlord (if you catch my drift), and we will see certain parts our country start to look like those Victorian slums as all an unemployed person wants is the very very basic standard of living. If they wanted something better they would GET A JOB!
This may explain why there are more and more HMO regulations coming in due to the pending problem we will all be facing. Also only over 35s are entitled to have their own place to live. Under 35s have to live in HMOs.
For the speculators out there I would start looking at BIG HMOs. If you can get an old YMCA at around £10k a bedroom then you could get a real good return as demand is going to go through the roof. If you get something with 15+ bedrooms you can afford to put a 24 hour warden in and still make a killing.
Forget anything smaller as once you have paid for the fire alarm, sinks, fire doors and emergency escape route you would have been better off renting it to a single family!
It is sad what we are seeing but I suppose if the government doesn’t have the money we all have to pick up the bill. However I am going to keep my fingers crossed and hope the Lib Dems stand their ground and protect the most vulnerable in society being us, the BUY TO LET LANDLORDS! (only kidding).