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Brixton Clifton Mansions former squats - background, 2011 evictions and latest news

Crispy said:
Very easily indeed, ffs.
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For himself and his family?

I mean, I'm aware he could get a room in a house-share for about £500-600 a month, or get a 1-bed flat for anything between £800-1200, but a 3-bed house, rental or mortgage?
 
Rushy said:
Firstly, I disagree with your assertion that offering property below market rate is not a subsidy. If a private landlord offers discounted rent then he is subsidising the occupant. Same for a public landlord, even if the LL is choosing to subsidise the rent at the expense of another body, such as the exchequer. Subsidy does not mean different things in private and public matters. Where there is no direct cash transfer the subsidy is known as an "indirect subsidy". We all own the public property units collectively through the government - those who benefit from discounted occupation of them are being subsidised collectively by those who do not. That does not fit your definition of subsidy. We clearly disagree fundamentally on this matter. That's fine.
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Frankly, I don't give a toss whether you agree with my description or not. The fact is that you have to go into semantic contortions in order to call the fact that local authorities charge a below-market rent a "subsidy". That's what happens when you attempt to use a word whose meaning doesn't fit what you're trying to convey.
Tell me, what do you, as a taxpayer, or central government, as the disburser of monies to local authorities pay out in way of subsidy to local authorities with reference to their social housing? Nothing. Subsidy doesn't exist in the way you're representing it, "collective", or at all.
 
That idiotic "it's priced at less than the market rate so therefore it's a subsidy" argument is capably torn apart by a poster on the insidehousing site:

frances said:
Council Housing is subsidised. If a flat can be rented for £400 a month at market level, but is rented out at £90 at a social rent, then it is being subsidised. The cost to taxpayers is the loss at not charging a full market rent.
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chris said:
Interesting concept Frances - so subsidy is the loss of potential profit.
Does that mean that when Tesco sell you a Bogof that the tax payer is losing out from the missed VAT so is subsidising the private company?
The reality is that the total rent paid by tenants exceeds the housing cost and the treasury (tax payer) keeps the excess - there is no subsidy Frances.
The market cost of something is not its true cost, but is the cost plus whatever profit level can be made. Market cost has nothing to do with subsidy and it is false to represent it as such.
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Rushy said:
I accept to an extent the argument regarding concentration of people in one place. But requiring Bob, Lee and others lucky enough to be in their position to pay a normal market rent would not affect the mix of people in an area, would it?
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at what level of income would you evict people from their homes? And would they be able to move back if their income fell again?
 
Rushy said:
Are you arguing that because the council does not have a mortgage on a property and rental income exceeds maintenance costs it is therefore a net contributor?
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You appear to be operating from your own unique dictionary.
 
ViolentPanda said:
For himself and his family?

I mean, I'm aware he could get a room in a house-share for about £500-600 a month, or get a 1-bed flat for anything between £800-1200, but a 3-bed house, rental or mortgage?
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I used a tax calculator to get a net monthly wage of about £5300. A quick search of rightmove shows 3 bed houses in zone 3 starting at 1200pcm. He can easily afford it.
 
Rushy said:
What happens to the money that is brought in by the exchequer? It goes into the pot along with all our other sources of revenue incl. taxes and then gets redistributed. If someone is paying £75 less than market value then that person is being subsidised by the exchequer to the extent of £75/week, which needs to found from somewhere else (either in additional taxes or cut services).

The concept that the difference between market rent and rent paid represents a subsidy is not a foreign concept - just take a look at HMRC's income tax rules. If a company lets an employee live in a flat and only charges them 75% of its real market rental value then the 25% discount is defined as a subsidy to the employee. The value of that subsidy is then treated as notional pay and added to their income for the purposes of PAYE.

The Bob Crowe example is an extreme one used to illustrate the point. A man on a banker's salary being subsidised by the rest of use because he is not being required to pay the same level of rent as a neighbour renting on the open market. I have not argued that there should not be subsidies - I have questioned whether it is really so cut and dry a matter that it is impossible that anyone other than developers and landlords might not see the extension of tenant rights and subsidies as a matter of priority.
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What a load of old cock. Why do you think market rent value is any more real than council rent value?
 
Crispy said:
I used a tax calculator to get a net monthly wage of about £5300. A quick search of rightmove shows 3 bed houses in zone 3 starting at 1200pcm. He can easily afford it.
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Okay, so he can "afford it" in terms of rental cost (although "starting at £1200" appears to signify that the final cost will be somewhat higher than your starting price). Do we know what his living costs are? Because that's the point I've been making all along: That judging whether someone "deserves" social housing or not based on their income is pointless. You need to know what their total expenses are to know whether or not they "deserve" social housing.

BTW, doesn't Crowe fold a percentage of his salary back into his union's coffers, or am I thinking of someone else, Serwotka maybe?
 
Blagsta said:
Agreed. Not a good line of argument VP.
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I haven't claimed it's a good line of argument, but as I've stated several times, it's about total affordability, not just for Crowe, but for anyone who gets tarred with this "undeserving because of size of salary" brush. If you judge purely on income, you're going to end up excluding people who deserve social housing. You may not exclude a massive number of people, but you'll still exclude "deserving" as well as "underserving" people, as well as setting a precedent whereby the state can gradual ratchet in the income level until social housing is even more residualised than it is now, and even more people in housing need are funnelled into the private rental sector.
 
wemakeyousoundb said:
well, he obviously could afford it, but it still a case of "look at the minority cases of people taking the piss" to tar a large group with the brush though
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Just as the minority of cases (35 in the whole of Greater London, I believe) where there were Housing Benefit claims for rents that exceeded £50,000 a year have been used to tar all Housing Benefit claimants as massive drains on the state, and to formulate their "benefits cap" legislation.
 
Rushy said:
Secondly, none of what you say detracts from my original comment which is that it is unlikely that the matter is seen to be so cut and dry that it is impossible that anyone other than developers and landlords might not see the extension of tenant rights and subsidies as a matter of priority (as suggested by Gramsci). To suppose that is as incorrect as saying that the only people interested in increased rights and subsidies are the recipients. OK - so you are absolutely certain that you are right about the matter - but even if you 100% correct, VP is not "everyone other than developers and landlords". It is a strength to be able to recognise that your own view, even if you are convinced it is correct, is rarely the only or even the most widely held view.
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A big indirect subsidy for the private rental market is Housing Benefit. But I dont see developers/ private renters complain much about that.

One thing that could be done for private tenants is to make they can exercise the rights they have. If as a private tenant u have a problem there just is not the resources to do anything much about it. Private tenants / Landlord relationship is an unequal one. Whether u have relatively good landlord or slum landlord

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/05/slum-landlords-tenants-in-squalor

When it is estimated that billions go to bad landlords in housing benefit – the one we investigated received 80% of his rent in this way – you might have thought the government would want to make absolutely sure our money was well spent. And of course, the coming cuts to housing benefit will, most likely, push even more people to the bottom end of the market.

No one wants to punish good landlords, but what we have found must not be allowed to continue. Slum landlords are exploiting the most vulnerable and getting away with it in a largely unregulated market and, with a nationwide problem like this, a little "red tape" might go a long way.

Private tenants are mainly on 6 months ASTs now. This is great for landlords.These could be be replaced with Assured Tenancies for private tenants for example. To give them more security and rights.

A bit long piece here but people in UK dont necessarily realise how private tenants rights have been eroded unlike other parts of Europe:

from Camden Federation of private tenants newsletter here:

http://www.cfpt.org.uk/index.html


Conceivably these countries’ populations are happier not because they rent but because they have more equal distribution of wealth thanks to a prosperity based on manufacturing rather than measured by property values. Thus, they have fuller employment and less poverty and envy. Meanwhile, UK society is dividing between the prospering property “haves” and insecure “have-nots.” The fact that more people choose renting in Europe is no coincidence. It’s affordable and tenants enjoy more of the consumer rights you’d expect in a modern democracy. European landlords, often banks or insurance companies in the business for the long run, are content with a fair return and concerned with a good public image. Rents on comparable properties in, say, Munich are about half those in similar areas of London. Here, buy-to-let is seen as a means for small entrepreneurs to enjoy quick growth in both income and capital.

Aside from lack of rights, a key problem here is a lack of support in enforcing those we have. Camden Federation of Private Tenants and Brent Private Tenants Rights Group are the only publicly funded tenant organisations remaining in this country. Government proposals to reform Legal Aid could also mean less support being available for housing-related legal work and housing advice services have disappeared in some boroughs. In Sweden, whose population is similar to that of London, they have a national tenants union that employs 800 people and even helps run the International Union of Tenants (IUT). Our funding has steadily reduced – we once employed three full time staff, now half that. Shelter, the national housing and homelessness charity, has suffered regular staff cuts and it looks like it could lose even more its advice services currently funded by central government. Swedish and Dutch tenant organisations engage with municipal and (moresignificantly) private landlords to negotiate rent levels, within a framework controlled by statute. Dutch tenant groups carry out home repairs. In Germany, rents are state controlled and a property with serious defects must be remedied or the rent cut.Germans can demand an extension at the end of a lease (leases do include an obligation on the tenant to carry out minor repairs). UK tenants depend upon a diminishing number of council environmental health officers to enforce basic standards – and taking landlords to court is both costly and time consuming. Demanding repairs and improvements often leads to tenants losing their homes, in a process that is known as “retaliatory eviction”. The vast majority of UK tenants have leases between six to twelve months and, though most landlords prefer longer lets, tenants forever on the move are unlikely to become part of the local community. Some may lack access to doctor or dentist. Many do not register to vote. Children of renters can have their education disrupted by regular moves and become socially isolated. A small number of elderly people, mostly single women, still enjoy rent controlled and secure tenancies but these have been severely eroded. Triennial, phased, increases were replaced in the late 1980s with steep increases every two years – tempered only by government action in 1999 to restrain that to inflation (RPI) plus 5%. Increases may be cushioned by Housing Benefit or Local Housing Allowance as it’s now called, but it’s unsafe to rely on that, given the current government’s direction, in terms of welfare benefits cuts..

 
Anti squatting scaffolding has gone up.

What can I say?:facepalm:
 

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shakespearegirl said:
Being sold for £2.3 million

http://www.slp.co.uk/News.cfm?id=5437&headline=Lambeth council hope to get £2.3m for ex-squat
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Brilliant. It's been empty for over 6 months. They've made no effort to do it up. It will almost certainly be sold to a private developer with no social housing included. Then it will become luxury flats. And then there will almost certainly be complaints from the new residents about noise from the various pubs/clubs and restaurants on that stretch.

Well done Lambeth. :rolleyes::mad:
 
That is outrageous. It went to tender last summer and the highest two tenders were roughly 3.1 and 3.8 million.

Two weeks ago the agents went back to the original tenderers, blaming the council for having been indecisive about who to sell to, and asked them to re-bid but only gave them 5 days to prepare their bids (and, for any responsible bidder, their funding). This knocked almost all bidders out of the game leaving cash buyers to offer derisory sums - which 2.3million is.

What is the betting Golfrate bought it?
 
Rushy said:
That is outrageous. It went to tender last summer and the highest two tenders were roughly 3.1 and 3.8 million.

Two weeks ago the agents went back to the original tenderers, blaming the council for having been indecisive about who to sell to, and asked them to re-bid but only gave them 5 days to prepare their bids (and, for any responsible bidder, their funding). This knocked almost all bidders out of the game leaving cash buyers to offer derisory sums - which 2.3million is.

What is the betting Golfrate bought it?
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:facepalm: x100
 
Rushy said:
That is outrageous. It went to tender last summer and the highest two tenders were roughly 3.1 and 3.8 million.

Two weeks ago the agents went back to the original tenderers, blaming the council for having been indecisive about who to sell to, and asked them to re-bid but only gave them 5 days to prepare their bids (and, for any responsible bidder, their funding). This knocked almost all bidders out of the game leaving cash buyers to offer derisory sums - which 2.3million is.

What is the betting Golfrate bought it?
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It just gets worse :facepalm:
 
there was also this bit in the article:
"Selling council-owned land at St Agnes Place, next to Kennington Park, and on the Claremont Estate in Streatham Hill will boost Lambeth’s coffers by £4.5million. "
cnuts

e2a and the hospital in jeffreys road too
 
Oh great, so Lambeth fuck over the residents of the borough again because they're fucking useless. Wonder what the elected twats will have to say - more mithering bullshit about how they did their best for the borough, adverse economic conditions etc, and not a word about them being worthless corruptible wankpots! :mad:
 
Ok, I was wrong - it's not Golfrate. And I don't think that there has been any brown envelope on this occasion. But the handling of this sale has been a monumental cock up by the council and their agents LSH that has cost Lambeth residents around a million quid. Basically, they have excluded a number of buyers by re-tendering at short notice and insisting on one week to confirm tenders. So, the council limited themselves to buyers with pre-arranged funds only who, due to lack of competition, were able to bargain hard. From what I heard, they practically begged the buyer to take it so that it would fit into this years financial accounts.

When you take into account the value of the shops below (about £450,000 based on the current rental incomes) that leaves the 22 flats at 1.85million. Or 84,000 per 2 bed flat. And that is not even taking into account the potential development value from building a new level on the roof.

To hear Lib Peck patting herself on the back for bringing in 2.3mil for local services makes me furious. She's just made an instant million profit for the buyer before they have even started thinking about doing any work.
 
wemakeyousoundb said:
there was also this bit in the article:
"Selling council-owned land at St Agnes Place, next to Kennington Park, and on the Claremont Estate in Streatham Hill will boost Lambeth’s coffers by £4.5million. "
cnuts

e2a and the hospital in jeffreys road too
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Well, it's not really a surprise, but it's a shame they're no longer even bothering with the pretense of at least putting some social housing there.

This is the thread from a few years back when it was announced- http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...ic-meeting-mon-3rd-march.169207/#post-5705176
 
Onket said:
Well, it's not really a surprise, but it's a shame they're no longer even bothering with the pretense of at least putting some social housing there.

This is the thread from a few years back when it was announced- http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...ic-meeting-mon-3rd-march.169207/#post-5705176
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Not a surprise at all I'd always thought they'd wait and then discreetly sell it off to pricate developpers: minutes away from a tube station, slap bang in the iddle of a park >> loads of money.
thanks for the link to the other thread, I wasn't on the board yet when it came up.
 
This thread has had over 23,000 views. I do hope Steve Reed thinks that it's worth the effort of responding properly, rather than firing off one-way Tweets into the abyss.
 
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