Will help to take on a mortgage improve your life?

Details: Published: 10 June 2022

There has been a great deal of publicity this week about the government’s plans to help claimants to take on a mortgage. However, no-one seems to have asked claimants what they think of the idea . . . so we thought we would. Please take part in the poll below.

The plans announced include:

Extending the right to buy to 2.5 million housing association tenants.
Turning ‘benefits to bricks’. This proposal involves changing benefits rules so that the 1.5 million people who are in work but also on housing benefit will be given the choice to use their benefit towards a mortgage, rather than automatically going directly to private landlords and housing associations.
Changing universal credit (UC) rules so that claimants can save more than £16,000 without it affecting their UC, so long as they put it in a Lifetime ISA to go towards a deposit on a house.
A review of the mortgage market to try and increase availability of low cost, low deposit finance such as 95% mortgages.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Thérèse Coffey said:

“For too many people the aspiration to own their home has been taken away. By turning benefits to bricks, we are opening the door to home ownership for those on the lowest incomes.

“By removing barriers and allowing people on benefits to save into a Lifetime ISA, they will be incentivised to put aside a deposit to buy their home.

“And we are also giving people the choice to use their benefit towards their mortgage rather than on rent that pays a buy-to-let landlord.”

Will these new ideas improve your life? Vote in our poll and leave a comment to explain why you voted the way you did.

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Ashley · 1 years ago
People can't afford to eat never mi d save and given people a morage will lead to more people losing there home when they cannot pay it also takes away homes that are needed for for people to rent and mist people who are on benefits don't have good credit so who is gonna give them a morage who is gonna be able to pay for tge repairs this is just another way of take money off people that will NOT go back into affordable housing
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Val · 1 years ago
More stress when people are already struggling.
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Price · 1 years ago
This is an extremely sneaky way of the government planning ahead of time for you to pay for any care home for you may need later in life!
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Mr D Wallis · 1 years ago
We think the Right to Buy is a good idea as we like the idea of owning our own home,being able to change the property as we like instead of a housing association placing too many rules and regulations on us all the time.Also the rents are getting rediculous nowadays probably paying more than we would on a mortgage,so yes bring it on Boris.
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Janet Pockett · 1 years ago
Just like to know how people on universal credit can afford the upkeep example if they needed a new roof where would they get the money
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Karen · 1 years ago
Unless mortgages are stretched to cover disabled people it will mean just another system set up that discriminates. Would your entitlement to housing benefit count towards your mortgage payments?
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  SaVi · 1 years ago
  
  @Karen Yes it would. At the moment it housing benefit covers six months of mortgage payments.
  
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Pete · 1 years ago
Then again, part of the reason they're called sink estates is due to underinvestment and you could put the Right to Buy under that banner. It's a very derogatory term quite frankly and a real sign of the kind of society we live in. Haves and have-nots etc. It's the inflexibility of social housing which really needs to change. You have a bit more control on that front if you're a home owner, you're not subject to the lottery of mutual exchange if you want to move to a new area, say if there's a job you're after or a particular university you'd like to attend although admittedly this may cost ya.

There was a policy introduced by the coalition govt' called the 'right to move' which was supposed to remedy this but frankly it's almost complete crap.

I know it may not seem like a huge deal but being helping people be upwardly mobile is one way to tackle inequality and it's harder to do that for some if they're made to feel like they're stuck in a deprived area albeit with a low rent.
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Pete · 1 years ago
I would be in favour of reforming the PRS and building loads more social housing. I would also argue that it's much more important to do the former than the latter, as even if we build more social housing and end limit the Right to Buy, they'll still be tonnes more private rented accommodation than social.

Personally I think it's extremely important there are paths to ownership for those that depend on benefits. It's completely unacceptable that so much of these benefits end up in the hands of private landlords, especially given how terrible the PRS is what with ASTs and no-fault evictions being rife.

I am of course suspicious of the Tories' intentions here. They want to get rid of housing benefit altogether, not increase social mobility. But politics is a funny old game, a policy proposed by a Tory government might be improved upon a lot by a Labour one. It was almost like this with Right to Buy, but in the opposite direction. Right to Buy was a Labour idea, it was in the 1959 Labour manifesto. It's not a bad policy persay, I mean there's a reason why some estates are referred to as sinkholes.
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Andrew Brown · 1 years ago
The last thing many people want is the uncertainty of a long mortgage and having decimated their safety net just to raise a deposit. More social housing should be built and of course help should be there for those who want to buy where that is a realistic possibility. It would also garner huge resentment. Mr Y ay No 21 doesnt get any benefits and has to pay his mortgage and is out at 6 am and getting back at 6 pm Mrs Y at No 43 on benefits and mortgage being paid by the taxpayer aka Mr Y at No 21. Plus the Governments mantra has always been ' work is the route out of poverty' Now with this policy home ownership is paid by the taxpayer ? It is all totally unrealistic
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lesley · 1 years ago
This has been tried before and did not work. Why is it that the council properties that were sold off are now having to be bought back by councils, because there are not enough council properties to go round?
Selling off council housing has been one of the worst pieces of legislation ever, in my opinion.
Anyway, this only applies if you are already in a council home, or a housing association home in the first. What if you are renting privately, no hope at all.

Considering Housing Benefit is being abolished slowly I cannot see how it is going to work.
The tories are slowly, or already have demolished the welfare state.
In this country the rivers are all polluted, people cannot get NHS dentist, doctors are leaving the NHS and this government wants to sell us something that is not even theirs to sell???????? All public services need a huge injection of cash. Not selling off council housing or housing association homes.
I could see the "hard working" tax paying lease holder next door to me being really pleased if I bought my council flat with tax payers money!!!!
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  John · 1 years ago
  
  @lesley 👋Absolutely spot on. Well said!
  
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Pete · 1 years ago
I can see why people might see this as a bad idea. But if done properly it can be a driver of social mobility.

It's right to criticise the Right to Buy, there have historically been a lot of thing wrong with it however it's one of the only ways home ownership becomes affordable for some people.

More recently, on balance, it's low interest rates that has increased inequality more the the RtB, low interest rates have been a massive leg up to those with access to big deposits and a kick in the teeth to those on benefits and/or with limited capital.

And Buy to Let has made that situation even worse, with a large portion of housing benefit being pocketed by private landlords.
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bobtehbuilder · 1 years ago
id love to be able to use HB to pay mortgage repayments, it'd help me escape this dreadful housing association flat where i cant sleep at night because of the noise from the flat above.
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  Angela · 1 years ago
  
  @bobtehbuilder Contact your HA. If they are breaking their Tenancy Agreement they can be cautioned/ evicted.
  
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Mik · 1 years ago
I very much doubt this will ever happen, it’s just a rouse to take up media time and stop talking about Johnson’s conduct problems. May be it will happen when the bridge to Northern Ireland opens or the airport in the Thames estuary, he previously ridiculously suggested!
Treating disabled people, as aspirational as everyone else is a good thing, and there could be merit in how you spend housing benefit, but the devil would certainly be in the detail. Would the housing benefit amount you currently pay be frozen in time as a benefit for paying your mortgage, what happens if rates change? One person could get a lot more than the next?
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Anonymouse · 1 years ago
To qualify for rent help via uc or on legacy hb then its a given your income even whilst working is low. There is unlikely to be anything to save towards a deposit given the cost of living crisis. Any deposit capital ignored as savings won't address the issue that low income equals low mortgage amount so highly unlikely to be able to afford even a reduced price house. I can't imagine banks queuing up to lend either.
In the past council housing right to buy was established as government owned the housing stock via local authorities. A couple of years ago a pilot project aimed at extending rtb with half a dozen associations didn't result in anything. Housing associations are simply not going to do rtb for all tenants.
The aim here isn't to help people have secure home ownership. It's to reduce the huge multi billion pound housing/uc benefit bill. The rent allowance might be included in a mortgage affordability assessment, but once purchased the assistance stops. The only assistance for home owners is SMI a loan secured on the property.
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Liz · 1 years ago
If it truely was a case that everyone sold built one for someone else instead of decreasing the tiny social housing stock then that would be good. The main barrier would be finding the huge deposit, especially if you can't find a home within the housing benefit limits so are topping it up every month from your PIP. Having bought a house you then need to spend money on upkeeping it and if you are going to be unable to work for life I cannot see how you are going to afford that either when fuel, food and other necessities are so expensive either.

My dad was a housing officer for the local council when the right to buy first came in and he reckons that the main reason the money wasn't reinvested into new homes was that central government demanded local government handed the cash over to them. So with threats at moving more control over the NHS to central govt and a variety of overview bodies being scrapped and ministers taking back more power I will be interested to see where they plan the money will go this time.
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Aw · 1 years ago
I would prefer they build more social housing with guaranteed lifetime tenancies and get rid of the bedroom tax. I live alone in my family home now my daughter is gone and I am worried the rules will change eventually to kick me out. I pay the bedroom tax but that makes me feel guilty for having a spare room when many families need housing. I will never be able to get a mortgage but I wish I could feel secure in my home, I've been here 15 years & I dread ever having to leave.
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Angel · 1 years ago
Money needs to be spent
on *building* Social Housing. Selling off council houses led to the current housing crisis and astronomical rents. This is a gimmick not a solution. Many HAs will not sign up. It is just a headline grabber really.
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