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Council housing

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  • 18-02-2010 5:06pm
    #1
    *WKD*
    Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭


    Can someone tell me please how someone who has not one, but two good jobs can get a council house?


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    #2
    TwoShedsJackson
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,438 ✭✭✭TwoShedsJackson


    Don't flood us with details whatever you do.


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    #3
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,297 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    *WKD* wrote: »
    Can someone tell me please how someone who has not one, but two good jobs can get a council house?
    Housing is assigned based on need. just because someone has an income, doesn't mean they are rolling in it and it really does depend on what housing they are getting, for all you know its affordable housing and they are paying something close to the market rate.


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    #4
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    *WKD* wrote: »
    Can someone tell me please how someone who has not one, but two good jobs can get a council house?

    Its based on income and other considerations (such as children). If a couple had two well paying jobs and still qualified for a council house- it would be suggestive of false income statements being furnished in support of their application- however I'd not go accusing anyone of this unless I was certain of what I was talking about.


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    #5
    *WKD*
    Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭*WKD*


    No certainly not accusing anyone! Just a lil perturbed and yes I did not give too much details oops!!
    This woman is a nurse and a driving instructor and granted her dh is not working but has no kids and landed herself a council house when she was previously in a rented accomodation. Paying regular monthly payments like the rest of us and all of a sudden she is housed in what seems could be used for defo more needy persons.
    I do know its not affordable housing!
    Who am I to judge but system just seems to be unjust in this sense (well many actually but ykwim)!!


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    #6
    January
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,865 ✭✭✭✭January


    Your rent in a council house is directly related to what you earn, she could be earning 5k a month but paying €750 a month on rent plus what her partner is paying also.


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    #7
    meditraitor
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,207 ✭✭✭meditraitor


    *WKD* wrote: »
    Can someone tell me please how someone who has not one, but two good jobs can get a council house?

    Its possible when the couple applied and got the council house they were in need and now they are not. The council do not throw people out of their houses when circumstance improve....
    They do however increase the rent significantly.


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    #8
    *WKD*
    Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭*WKD*


    ok great question answered - Thanks:D


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    #9
    stovelid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,252 ✭✭✭✭stovelid


    adrieanne__x wrote: »
    Your rent in a council house is directly related to what you earn, she could be earning 5k a month but paying €750 a month on rent plus what her partner is paying also.

    Aye, I was told before that you pay a quarter of monthly income in rent and it's assessed.

    Also, a "good" job can be in the eye of the beholder.


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    #10
    January
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,865 ✭✭✭✭January


    Citizens Information told me that for DCC it's €15 for every €100 earned by the main tenant and then other adult tenants pay a little less than that...


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    #11
    fletch
    Registered Users Posts: 7,390 ✭✭✭fletch


    meditraitor wrote: »
    Its possible when the couple applied and got the council house they were in need and now they are not. The council do not throw people out of their houses when circumstance improve....
    So where is the incentive for them to save for a deposit on a mortgage?


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    #12
    Queen-Mise
    Registered Users Posts: 7,461 ✭✭✭Queen-Mise


    fletch wrote: »
    So where is the incentive for them to save for a deposit on a mortgage?

    They Dont need one unless they are planning to move from council house. I Dont think you need a mortgage to buy house from council. Im not sure on this though.


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    #13
    January
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,865 ✭✭✭✭January


    If they buy the house from the council they won't need a deposit and they'll get a discount on the market value on the house depending on how many years they lived there.


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    #14
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    adrieanne__x wrote: »
    If they buy the house from the council they won't need a deposit and they'll get a discount on the market value on the house depending on how many years they lived there.

    This scheme is under review, as a result of a number of court actions where councils and state bodies were forced to sell properties that they did not want to dispose of (including a number of 1-off properties at secure locations which people had lived in as tenants while they worked for state bodies etc).

    I wouldn't take the continued operation of that scheme in future as granted.


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    #15
    Treehouse72
    Registered Users Posts: 1,003 ✭✭✭Treehouse72


    In a round-about way, this thread is actually about how overpriced property still is on the open private market. We have people in "good jobs" and nurses looking for ways to get some form of state help to get housed. This is absolutely bloody absurd, whether those people are paying rent or not. These state-aid schemes should be for people without jobs, or on extremely low single incomes.

    As an example of the absurdity of all this, this is from the Affordable Housing Scheme website on who qualifies for AH:
    as a guide, earn between €25,000 and €58,000 if you are applying on your own and up to €75,000 between both of you if you are applying with someone else. These are the approximate limits only – lower and higher income limits may apply.

    http://www.affordablehome.ie/Getting-Started/Do-I-qualify-for-an-Affordable-Home.aspx

    I mean, wtf??? How can people on €58k possibly be eligible for affordable housing? For that matter, how can someone on less than €25k NOT qualify? It is comepletely backwards. In effect, this is not an affordable housng scheme - it is an affordable housng scheme for people on a median range of incomes*. This is just beyond words ludicrous.

    One could also mention the Home Choice Loan Scheme and Rent Supplement as examples of other illogicalities and absurdities on the scene that are warping the market (and our pay-packets).


    * I don't know if this is the right word: I mean 25-58k must be the salary range for a vast, vast majorty of people in the country. I'd say 80%+ as a guesstimate.


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    #16
    meditraitor
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,207 ✭✭✭meditraitor


    fletch wrote: »
    So where is the incentive for them to save for a deposit on a mortgage?


    This is one of the roots of the problem this country has, people are brought up to think that actually owning your house is the only way.

    The skandinavians must be awefull eejits.


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    #17
    seahorse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭seahorse


    fletch wrote: »
    So where is the incentive for them to save for a deposit on a mortgage?

    Why should there be any incentive for people to save for a deposit on a mortgage? Not everybody wants a bloody mortgage, and more power to anybody who had the savvy to avoid that particular millstone round their necks.


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    #18
    Joey the lips
    Registered Users Posts: 10,262 ✭✭✭✭Joey the lips


    You will NEVER buy or rent a council house if you have 2 good jobs.

    To rent a house you must meet the income need and if you are payed well you wont.

    To buy under shared ownership etc you must meet the income needs or have been refused loans enough to buy by lending institutions. You will not be refused loans if you both have good jobs.

    I was in this situation.... I was told to have 4 kids one of us give up our job. Live with my mother and then come back... It was ment as a laugh but you catch the jist...


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    #19
    stepbar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,123 ✭✭✭stepbar


    I'll tell you one thing... I don't want to get to the stage in life where I'm still renting and on retirement income. Everyone should aspire to buy a house. People's judgments are clouded by the fact that prob 30% of the country is in negative equity. Buying a house will always be a good personal investment.


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    #20
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    Joey the lips wrote: »
    You will NEVER buy or rent a council house if you have 2 good jobs.

    To rent a house you must meet the income need and if you are payed well you wont.

    To buy under shared ownership etc you must meet the income needs or have been refused loans enough to buy by lending institutions. You will not be refused loans if you both have good jobs.

    I was in this situation.... I was told to have 4 kids one of us give up our job. Live with my mother and then come back... It was ment as a laugh but you catch the jist...

    While I appreciate what you're saying Joey- the fact of the matter is that the bottom 3 grades in the civil service (CO, SO and EO) now qualify almost universally for FIS and other social welfare entitlements.

    What is a 'good' job anymore? There are 22 architects over 10 years qualified- working in McDonalds. As of Friday evening the government own 43% of Bank of Ireland- and by early May possibly as much as 47% of AIB- so I wouldn't call banking safe anymore either.

    The safest, best paid jobs in the country- seem to be for ESB employees.......

    What is a well paying job an average person- and how does it compare to social welfare entitlements? We really are at the point where with fast falling net pay in the public sector- and no real pay falls, but massive unemployment in the private sector- someone has to sit down and knock a few heads together........

    We need pay cuts in the private- incl. the possible abolition of the minimum wage. We also need to make it easier to employ people.
    We need job cuts in the public sector- simple as.
    We need to totally reform our social welfare system- as for a sizeable portion of the population- there simply is no incentive to work. Lots of people who work- don't have 196 a week after they have paid their mortgage, childcare costs and other costs associated with employment. At present- according to the CSO its thought there are over 480,000 full time workers in this boat...... Any of these would qualify for a council house.........


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    #21
    seahorse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭seahorse


    stepbar wrote: »
    I'll tell you one thing... I don't want to get to the stage in life where I'm still renting and on retirement income. Everyone should aspire to buy a house. People's judgments are clouded by the fact that prob 30% of the country is in negative equity. Buying a house will always be a good personal investment.

    I don't have an issue with anything else you've said but I find the comment I've underlined very irksome. It's a persons own business whether or not they want to spent 20 - 40 years paying off a mortage and running the risks that come with that, including the negative equity you've mentioned.

    Do you know that the yearly suicide rate in Ireland had jumped from 400 per year to 600 per year in the last eighteen months? A person doesn't need to be any kind of genius to know that negative equity has a very great deal to do with those 200 additional suicides, and how many of those people bought in the first place, I wonder, because society schooled them to believe everyone should aspire to buy a house?

    Our collectively having made the purchase of a house the most important priority in the fabric of Irish society and the benchmark against which a persons sucess ought to be judged has caused more misery than I can imagine, or want to.


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    #22
    Joey the lips
    Registered Users Posts: 10,262 ✭✭✭✭Joey the lips


    smccarrick wrote: »
    While I appreciate what you're saying Joey- the fact of the matter is that the bottom 3 grades in the civil service (CO, SO and EO) now qualify almost universally for FIS and other social welfare entitlements.

    .


    Yes I hear you. But you will not qualify for a council house under any of these conditions. In fact I know of people who have kids and have waited till the mother got the house to declare herself living with the father. In know some that still are not.

    You will not qualify for income under council guidelines if you are in a good job and council are reluctant to change the income levels because it has a net effect of actually raising house prices to that standard if you catch my drift...

    The only way to get a house in this country is to stay unemplyed and live with your parents.

    As for renting off the council with due respect to all concerned.... I would rather pay a bit extra rent for a house in a location and area that suits me better.


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    #23
    stepbar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,123 ✭✭✭stepbar


    Did I just read that? Did you just try to attribute the rise in suicides to negative equity? Are you for real?


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    #24
    seahorse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭seahorse


    stepbar wrote: »
    Did I just read that? Did you just try to attribute the rise in suicides to negative equity? Are you for real?

    Are you totally ignorant as to the severity of the personal problems negative equity gives rise to? Are you for real?

    There is a rising phenomonan in Ireland of people in collapsed marraiges and relationships being forced, against their will, to continue to co-habit because of negative equity. There are also a plethora of people out there stuck raising families in shoe-box two-bed apartments which were only ever meant to be temporary foot-on-the-ladder style accomodations. Have you any idea the type of mental stress and depression these type of situations cause? I personally know people in both these situations so please don't attempt to downplay the severity of what's going on here - and no doubt negative equity has caused a plethora of other personal problems I am not familiar with.

    The economic downturn is certainly the cause the sudden upswing in suicide, and negative equity is one factor in that, along with unemployment etc. If you think the people who are facing having their homes repossessed are not caught in a miasma of dispair you're a very lucky man, because you must be a million miles away from even being able to imagine yourself in that situation.


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    #25
    Joey the lips
    Registered Users Posts: 10,262 ✭✭✭✭Joey the lips


    seahorse wrote: »
    The economic downturn is certainly the cause the sudden upswing in suicide, and negative equity is one factor in that, along with unemployment etc. If you think the people who are facing having their homes repossessed are not caught in a miasma of dispair you're a very lucky man, because you must be a million miles away from even being able to imagine yourself in that situation.


    I agree but not so emotional. I do vol work for a couple of organisations and we visit people in difficulity. I dred whats to come


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    #26
    SLUSK
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,156 ✭✭✭SLUSK


    Why on earth would anyone want to live in a council estate?


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    #27
    seahorse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭seahorse


    SLUSK wrote: »
    Why on earth would anyone want to live in a council estate?

    You're assuming all council estates are kips. Some are. Some aren't.


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    #28
    SLUSK
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,156 ✭✭✭SLUSK


    seahorse wrote: »
    You're assuming all council estates are kips. Some are. Some aren't.
    I assume they are all filled with drug addicts, single mums, deadbeat dads and their useless offspring.


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    #29
    seahorse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭seahorse


    SLUSK wrote: »
    I assume they are all filled with drug addicts, single mums, deadbeat dads and their useless offspring.

    I've come across some council areas that fit that stereotyped discription very closely, and I've come across others that couldn't be further from it.


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    #30
    Joey the lips
    Registered Users Posts: 10,262 ✭✭✭✭Joey the lips


    SLUSK wrote: »
    I assume they are all filled with drug addicts, single mums, deadbeat dads and their useless offspring.

    I was going to give you the no.1 reason people want to actually live in council estates but with a closed mind like that there is no chance of rehabiliteing you.


    For everyone else the reson most people actually want to live in any area is roots. They have the support network of there family and usually have friends there from childhood.

    Ironically its also the no.1 reason for moving out of an area... To get away from your routes.

    When councils decide on housing allocation they usually look at roots of the person applying in addition to points.


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    #31
    Max Power1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,272 ✭✭✭✭Max Power1


    SLUSK wrote: »
    I assume they are all filled with drug addicts, single mums, deadbeat dads and their useless offspring.
    from recent experience I would agree with you 100%


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