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Peter McGurk

Housing Mistakes

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[QUOTE=Peter McGurk;400656]They shouldn't. But neither should property ownership include the responsibility to nanny society.

It's a function of (parents and education and) the law and the courts to control anti-social behaviour. And incidentally, not for the community to effectively condone it by its acquiescence - by not speaking up.

Make no mistake, I do understand that some of these guys can cut up pretty bloody rough but it is everybody’s responsibility to uphold decent standards of behaviour.

We all have to face up to the responsibility of grassing someone up even if it means doing it anonymously. So yeah, Big Brother [I]is[/I] here but the alternative is what we’ve got - mayhem and intimidation, every day, almost 24/7. Just maybe Orwell (and the chattering classes) got that wrong.

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Property owners do not let properties fall into disrepair willingly, whether it’s their first, second or fourteenth property.

It’s an entire myth that they can reap the benefits of house prices in their sleep. There are none (“house prices fall another 10%...”) and there is none (sleep). An empty property is a financial and psychological burden to any owner.

And the changes to the law you suggest would make the penalties for 'irresponsible ownership' so punitive as to put ownership very firmly in the hands of only those who can stomach the loss ie., the very, very rich - or the state.

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There are advantages to 100% state ownership of housing but let me (as one who has stayed in Russia for a while) say that security, space provision and quality of life are not three of them. And the biggest problem of all is the bill, for the state and for the people. It simply doesn’t work.

Now I know you didn’t bring that up but that would be the ultimate consequence of your suggestion.

Back on earth and in Liverpool’s case, the local ‘state’ (ie., council) would end up owning vast tracts of low-grade housing and empty land that it couldn’t develop. Oh...

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It comes to something when a hollywood actor complains on national TV that she can’t move to London because of house prices and a well-known comedian can joke that the proposed ‘mansion tax’ limit is set too low at a million pounds. It's just a bit harsh when anyone loses their job, the bank repossesses and they can't sell because no-one can afford to live in it.

It would serve both owner and tenant better if the market were set, through responsible credit control (and a bit of collective social conscience perforce) such that properties were let at rents that were affordable to ‘decent’ folk and we saw more yobs in court, rather than having to put up with them till 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning - every bloody morning (the question is of course, what then with them...)

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The nation has been screwed-over by bank-sponsored ‘getting on’ for the benefit of only the very few and the very rich indeed.

Fair dos or thieving b*stards to them but house prices are way out of whack of wages as a consequence. And before it re-balances, we are all going to be paying for it for a very long time to come. And there will be a lot more empty properties to come.

But it won’t help to kick honest, decent and hard-working folks (just like us) in the slats because they’ve been first mugged by the banks and second, caught out by a failing system.

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A mate of mine owns three terraced houses in St Helens he got with his pension, his redundancy and a last year on contract overseas (he was a phone engineer). He struggles to keep them let to decent lads and kept in proper order. What a git.

Or take that house in Everton. We don't know the circumstances but what if the nursery was run with the help of someone's husband (or wife) and they got divorced and he pulled the plug on the finances. Who are you to say she should lose the house as well!?[/QUOTE]

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