Mother of all Council Houses

[nunheadbelle]

I was taken aback by this article, what do other people think?

A MUM of seven is being paid ?170,000 a year in benefits so she can live in a ?1.2million mansion.

There's posh ... tenant Toorpakai Saindi

Taxpayers hit by the credit crunch fund the swish seven-bedroom home enjoyed free by Afghan migrant Toorpakai Saindi and her family. And her landlord is raking in rent of more than ?12,000 a month from a local council ? funded by taxpayers.

That?s DOUBLE the normal market value of the seven-bedroom property, located in a swish West London street peppered with the Mercedes and BMW cars of private owners.

Raking it in ... Ajit Panesar is making a fortune from rent

Yesterday Saindi, who also gets an estimated ?400 a week in child and local tax benefits, said: ?It?s a lot of money, but the council pay it.

?This is their problem. I don?t know why they pay so much.?

Landlord Ajit Panesar, who is acting within his rights, also referred The Sun to Ealing Council.

They blamed the Government, saying it set the rate.

But Whitehall insisted the council could have put Ms Saindi in a cheaper home.

The root of the potty payouts lies with the Local Housing Allowance ? rolled out nationally on April 7.

Anger ... Mark Wallace

It enables tenants and landlords to find out the maximum amount of LHA available before an agreement is reached.

In July Ms Saindi, who has four sons and three daughters aged eight to 22, approached the council after being made homeless. They had a legal obligation to find her a seven-bedroom home. But they did not have one big enough on their books and so turned to a private landlord, Mr Panesar. He fixed a price for his Acton property which the council checked with the Rent Service ? an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions. They then advised the council what they should pay. It turned out to be a staggering ?12,458 a month ? partly because under boundary changes implemented in April, Acton is crazily lumped in with mega-rich Westminster.

Yesterday estate agents Foxtons said similar properties in Acton command rents of around ?6,000 a month, top whack.

Ms Saindi, who came to the UK from Afghanistan seven years ago, said: ?I always thought the housing benefit was a lot, but I?m told that is what it is for homes like this here.?

Mr Panesar said: ?I can?t help it if the law says I should get paid that amount of money.?

One local said: ?It is unbelievable. Her house is on one of the nicest streets in Acton.

"People pay hundreds of thousands for the privilege of living there.?

Mark Wallace, campaign director of the TaxPayers? Alliance, said: ?The system has gone seriously wrong when one family is costing taxpayers so much.

?The people running the welfare system seem to have forgotten money doesn?t grow on trees. This family could be helped without the need for such a huge bill.?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I think it's a Sun headline

I think if you google the mothers name on the Interweb it throws up the usual suspects - BNP/Sun/Mail

On the face of it it does seem very odd admittedly - but I suspect there is more to the story than is being reported - but fuck it eh? let's get all indignant... we're British after all.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I don't understand why the children can't share rooms?

[SeanMacGabhann]

So to clarify:

As banks fuck up globally and require taxpayers across the world to bail everyone out (possibly) to the tune of hundreds of billions, the Daily Mail and the Sun WITH NO AGENDA WHATSOEVER scrape up a story they could probably publish on any day of any year, probably exaggerate the figures (anyone want to outline just how anyone can get that 170k in benefits hmmmm?)

Just what is it that makes story like this wind some people up so badly. I know there are plenty of people who deserve to be bumped up waiting lists and they have lived here for blah blah blah - but what has THIS story got to do with any of that? It's a distraction is all..

Even if it were 100% true (and do watch the development of this - it just won't be) it's a tiny firework to distract everyone. But are people upset because

The council isn't very good at allocating money?

The council isn't very good at sourcing a bargain?

the woman is foreign?

She is harbouring a paedophile? (ok that bit isn't true - but you get the impression some people WANT it to be true)

Is it news REALLY that distribution of money is not what it could be?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Steady on - I asked a simple question.

I know quite a few large families and it is the norm to share rooms. While it would be desirable for each child to have their own room, it is not necessary. So a four bedroom house should do. Shouldn't it?

I take it as a given that councils piss our money up the wall (or just paint the wall) - it's not that that shocks me.

[SeanMacGabhann]

sorry PGC - I think it was a cross-post with yours - not a response

The only story is the council's ineptitude - everything else is just legal isn't it?

I believe as of April this year there is some legal requirement about rooms/child - but I could be wrong

In any case I don't see what she has done wrong - but I can see that this is the usual suspects stirring up the usual fearmongering. If it was someone on here's mother most people would say "good luck to em"

I mean, I agree with you to a large extent PGC - but the story isn't asking that question is it?

[SeanMacGabhann]

Actually - now that I have read some more of this country's good folk post on various forums on this topic I have lost the will to live. Mission accomplished - pages and pages and pages and pages of hate-filled venom over trifling amounts in the bigger scheme of things

ah well - time for

The 2 minute hate

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

I don't think it can be true because there is a cap on housing benefit, unless it's classed as a hostel, then the landlords can charge ?350+ per person per week.

What pisses me off is that no-one is joining the dots as to why she is here in the first place - didn't we bomb the shit out of her home in the first place?

[MelbourneGr]

Who is the guy authorising this at the council? Can he/she not make a common sense decision? Its all tick boxes with those guys.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

This story has nothing to do with the current economic problems so lets look at it in isolation (then I will digress).

The assumption has to be the giste of this is true,possibly some details have been embellished and exaggerrated,possibly they have not.

Lets all remember that the Government and Local Councils have no money of their own,its all been paid for by The British Tax and Council Tax Payer.

For decades now the average "indigenous" British working family have not been able to gain accommodation in this Country in most Local Government Areas,apart from extreme cases of poverty or violence in the Family or,literally,becoming homeless.

With the sale of Council properties the housing stock was drastically reduced still further after THe Thatcher Years.

I know as a Single British Male that I (and many others of my acquaintance)_wwere told quite categorically in the 1970's/Early 1980's in Inner London that we were being pushed further and further down the Council waiting list and one of the reasons was our obligation to house people coming to live here from abroad,who would (and DID) get precedence over us. They came in their thousands,some were genuine refugees. Clearly most were ordinary people simply seeking a better life and future for their children.

Virtually every Single Male I knew gave up from being able to gain Council accommodation in the Country of their Birth.

I know,at least,either directly or thru' friends 30/35 Ladies who have deliberately and quite happily got pregnant and thus jumped the Housing queue as Single Parents. Four of them even got bogus "violence" cases created to gain more Council "points".

That tactic succeeded admirably so congratulations to them all round. The ones I'm still in contact with, live in ordinary Blocks throghout mostly South London. A friend I visited last week lives in a compact small block where the private flats in the block over the road are being sold for ?300,000 for a (one assumes) faurly similar flat.

She has done well. She pays around ?30 per week for her property and pays no Council Tax.

Good Luck to her.

In my case I felt these circumstances forced me, to financially "sail close to the wind" and in 1983 I took out a Mortgage for a 25 year term finishing in May,2008.

If I had obtained a Council Property I would not have gone down this route. So,in conclusion, my eternal thanks to all who jumped the queue (whoever they were and whereever they were from) without whom buying my own house would not have happened.>:D<

p.s. I laugh at the audacity nae temerity of some British Tax-Payers who have the downright cheek to complain that THEY are funding Families such as these when most of them could not get a Property themselves for the reasons given, even though Generations of their Families may have lived here and they were born here. Their forefathers (like mine) wuuld have fought, and sometimes, died for this Country (I lost 3 Uncles myself) and now their descendents mostly can't get a Government assuisted place of their own and yet some others with no previous allegiance to this Country or its peoples and having paid nothing into our system by way of Taxes can and do!

Don't know what the fuss is about myself!

Some people will moan at anything these days (!)

"Little Englanders" I call them--let them put their hands further in their pockets and SHUT THE F*** UP !

Quick-Time!

p.s The unlucky "natives" can easily get those nice mortgage peeps to give them a spanking new mortgage anyway these days so wots the damn problem with them?:X:X

It IS easy to gain one nowadays,innit ! innit ?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

ChavWivaLawDegree Wrote:

What pisses me off is that no-one is joining the dots as to why she is here in the first place - didn't we bomb the shit out of her home in the first place?

If this is the case,in any instance, then we ARE duty bound to provide.

I'm also generally pissed off as I have detailed below though,in general vis-a-vis Local Government accomodation.

[MelbourneGr]

p.s. Their forefathers (like mine) wuuld have fought, and sometimes, died for this Country (I lost 3 Uncles myself) and now their descendents mostly can't get a Government assuisted place of their own and yet some others with no previous allegiance to this Country or its peoples and having paid nothing into our system by way of Taxes can and do!

Don't know what the fuss is about myself!

Not strictly true, depends how far you wanna go back and the state that some of the countries were in when given their independence. You'll be surprised at how much involvement some other countries had in building the British Empire.

[Asset]

I'm not entirely sure what your point is TLS.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Anopther piece of fiction is that she was entitled to a 7 bed house with 7 kids. That is crap. I know someone with 5 kids who was only entiltled to a 3 bed because the girls were all in one room and the boys in another.

Also the place isn't a council house - they even name the private landlord.

It's a piece of rascist propaganda - usual fare for Sun readers.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

[Just an aside - well done TLS. Beautiful paragraphs, easy to read.]

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Surely this is accomodation provided and paid for by the Local Council, albeit to a Private Landlord?

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Yeh but it's the Landlord milking the system not the mother

[Keef]

The one bit of the story which actually bugs me, whether the details of this case be accurate or not, is that many landlords will charge massive rents if they know housing benefit is involved.

[AllforNun]

Well apparently i got taxed 2 grand yesterday thanks to Mr Peston's old lady whispering routine

[Brendan]

Yeah because allowing vast amounts housing stock to be in the hands of profiteering private landlords was a god idea.

I would say that anyone who felt vindicated in profiting from the property fuckup (sorry ?boom?) can?t really be all indignant about this sort of situation.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

ChavWivaLawDegree Wrote:

Yeh but it's the Landlord milking the system not the mother

Absolutely. The Family are not doing anything wrong themselves.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

But it's the mother not the landlord being villified.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

.....

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Tony.London Suburbs Wrote:

As an aside, how ridiculous that The Gurkhas are having to beg to come here!

This to a Country that,apparently, they have fought for,for 200 years !!!

Thats gratitude for you.(6)

[*Bob*]

Will the Gurkhas be allowed a council house?