http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/j ... it-tenants

Hmm, it's a nice little narrative, isn't it? Though he's got that many properties he's operating on a different scale tbf.

I wonder how it works with whoever he hires for middle-management

if people don't pay, evict them. Got no problem with that. But allegedly he's evicting people who have always paid their bills promptly just because of where they get their money from. Technically, as some in the comments thread point out, it's discrimination. He's judging people based on what they are, not who they are - on collective not individual attributes. It's not an illegal form of discrimination of course but it's no more edifying than if he was evicting people because they were black or gay.

I can understand not wanting new people in on benifits, but to evect ones who are already there and are paying the bills is just cruel and unnecessary. He should only evict the ones who haven't paid.

He is probably doing it to avoid future problems. Though what will councils do when these 200 households turn up at the council looking to be rehoused? They will not have enough bed and breakfast accommodation available. It does high light the massive problems that governments have created by failing to address the housing crisis for decades.

This kind of stinks of gesture politics to me, but I can't read the intent. I don't understand why they are roping Eastern Europeans into this, explicitly comparing them to all the deadbeats they are turfing out into the cold winter.

On the other hand, their property empire is probably leveraged up the wazoo and I expect they would find it useful to put a few of those houses on the market before the next funding round because the cost of servicing debt is bound to be rising.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... ern-europe

He really is a monumental cock if that's anything to go by.

I never understand why these people revel in such crude cartoon villainy.

this stems from the single payment system set up by IDS

all benefits, including rent, are paid to the claimant
it was the case that rent was paid direct to the landlord and then benefits paid to the claimant

privatisation at its very best (sic) ...

not all landlords have had housing benefit paid directly to them.

Most do, though. Certainly, when I was doing this kind of lark, it was a case of the local authority processing the payments and just paying the landlords each week.

Actually, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought - it forms part of a longer tactic I have observed in the benefits system, and I have been wondering whether my thoughts should form a separate post, or whether it will belong here. Here will do, I think given the way this thread is going.

First off, I’ll remind you that I’ll be drawing from my experience whilst working for the DHSS in the 1980s to 1990s. I was one of those people who calculated and paid out means tested benefits. I started off in Supplementary Benefit, and continued through the move to Income Support and into 1990/91 just at the time when computers were being installed. Over that time, I encountered pretty much everyone you can imagine - unemployed, single parents, pensioners, etc. in every stripe you can imagine. Some were genuine, some were not (where there is free money, you’ll always get shysters).

So, point one - not everyone can budget successfully. It‘s not a case of “oh, you should learn”, it’s a case of if you give someone a tenner to spend on food for the week, they’ll spend a tenner (for sake of argument). If you give them a tenner and tell them to put a couple of quid aside for a rainy day, they’ll more often than not spend the tenner. Some may do this out of necessity (£10 may be the minimum), some may because they will spend what they have, and some will manage to put a couple of quid aside.

Now, if you took the two groups who failed to save, and only give them £8 and tell them that you’ll hold back the remainder until they ask for it, they’ll adjust their spending . You may get called names, but they’ll cope.

Supplementary Benefit had such a system - it was known as voluntary savings, and your claimant could request a small sum put aside each week. This seemed to be very popular with single parents who, for example, may need to buy clothes for their children. Getting us to hold back a small sum each week meant that the temptation to spend it because she* had it was not there. When the need for the clothes arose, then we’d pay back what was kept.

There was also similar setup for gas and electricity - we could deduct a certain amount each week and pay it direct to the energy supplier (the supplier had to agree to this, but generally that was a formality). This would happen automatically if someone fell into arrears.

When Income Support came in, the whole voluptuary savings system was abolished. We had to pay out any money held back, and call it a day. I do remember that caused some people to complain as it formed part of their budgeting tactics. The electricity and gas system was also tightened up. You could not ask to go on that system until you were in arrears, and the criteria for staying on it was quite narrow once the arrears had been paid off. Again, it required the supplier to agree, but by then they were fitting key meters to anyone not in a vulnerable person group. Result: more people fell into arrears.

So I am not really surprised that people will be held responsible for paying their rent - it’s the trend in how the benefits system is being adjusted to make people get used to being paid in the work place and looking after their own finances. FWIW, Supplementary Benefit was paid in advance, Income Support was paid in arrears - another adjustment that took some careful explaining at the time, as well as various adjustment payments to ensure people didn’t loose out.

I agree to the principle of getting people used to work place payment arrangements, but I’d also want to point out that there are people out there who will find it hard to cope. I’ve seen it with the utilities. Money meant for rent won’t end up with the landlord, with the inevitable consequences.



(*Most single parents I came across were women. Some were men, but they were few and far between.)

- and its not just the unemployed. When I used to work for one of the big banks one of my roles was lending manager(in the "good old days" when branches looked after thier own lending / customers)
I had a customer who was a well paid lawyer but she could not budget for toffee. In the end I took her cheque books / cards away from her and let her come into the branch and cash 1 cheque / week. By this methjod she knew exactly how much money she had and we stopped her going O/D

Surely it's more the point at the mo that it's 'here's a tenner, you need to pay for rent and food. Good luck.' If your incomings don't cover your minimum outgoings, no amount of budgeting skills are going to help.

I think that is the problem for many. Their incomes are too low to have the flexibility to cope.