Wealthy council tenants could face rent hikes after it emerged thousands earning over £50,000-a-year are living in subsidised social housing.

Conservative-led Westminster Council has asked Government for new powers to introduce a sliding scale which would link social housing rents to incomes.

The move comes after the council found it had 2,200 social housing tenants earning more than £50,000-a-year, and more than 200 on over £100,000.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387036/Some-people-villa-Spain-Councils-set-hike-rents-wealthy-social-housing-tenants.html

i could answer that but im not going to, why was social housing built ?

answer that and you give an answer to your own questions ...

Yes but that should not exclude someone who does well for themselves. We are supposed to be a socially mobile society. If you have lived in an area then why should you move because you have done well.

If you don't need the help (earning that much suggests so) you shouldn't be in the supported housing as there are clearly people that need it more

Sounds like a good idea. There are many poor & homeless people who are in need of such housing, whereas someone on £50k could easily afford private accommodation.

Yes but many of these people circumstances have improved why should they suffer.

Exactly - over twice the average salary means you don't need help.

Earn more, pay more.

+1
THey might have needed soical housing when they started out, but if they are earning that sort of money, they could afford to pay rent on a normal property, or buy...

True, however in a lot of areas there are regulations that restrict the circumstances under which people can be evicted from social housing and 'now earning a decent wage' isn't one of them. Basically the default is to let people stay because it was thought to be... uncivilised to just turf people out of what had become their home if they happened to get a pay rise. I don't think anybody anticipated the likes of Bob Crow, who stays in social housing despite earning over 100K a year. Raising the rent is I assume what they can do i.e. if someone is earning enough to pay private sector rent, then charge them private sector rent. Chances are then most of them will leave the social housing property voluntarily as you can usually get a nicer place in the private sector once you start paying decent money.

Jon

Odds are that they will simply buy the place they are in with a huge discount because they have been long standing tenants. That definitely does not benefit other social tenants. Also this might affect new tenants the old tenants might still be able to stay on old rents. You cannot change the terms of a contract willy nilly.

The option to buy at large discounts has been removed so they will not be able to do that anymore