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We have just moved house with a new mortgage via Santander who were happy to include my income from ESA and PIP within the financial section of the application. Using this new scheme may prove to be very costly with regards to being able to afford a mortgage, given that the cost of living rises always exceeds any minor increase to benefits. So although you may be okay on your application, you find yourself struggling to cope financially and end up homeless. 
Yet another half baked scheme from a half baked Government.

Is this a joke? Am I living in some kind of parallel universe???? Seriously? Erm…no, why would anyone on benefits want to get themselves into debt ( a mortgage) ?
is it that owning your own home is seen as “ bettering yourself” which quite frankly , is codswollop!

Linda W. Totally agree with Marie. Moving the onus from councils having to pay housing benefit and chasing arrears to letting mortgage lenders do the work. The new lenders will have no problem evicting people when they fall behind on their payments. Councils and housing associations are screaming at the moment how low they are on stock and then we have this vote grabbing scheme to add to their woes. Who was the hair brained plonker that thought this one up? They should be fired.

It would be nice if I could get a social housing house! I've been on the list of my local council for over 3 years (I know there are people who have been waiting much longer) I am disabled and have big problems with stairs so I only come down stairs for hospital appointments! Every property that I have bid on I've been refused for varying reasons yet some of the properties I've bid on have been empty for months!

Drop the words affordable housing for starters   - affordable is ‘You buy outright’ not borrow 6 x  your income - building social housing ,I won’t say more because I don’t think Councils have built housing since 2000, and  with low paid social housing rents if you earn more than £50k than you pay market rents. But let’s be honest here this is about getting housing benefit bill down soon to be £50B by 2030 , most of that money goes to private landlords on their buy to let properties ,towns across UK are struggling to house born bred residents ,are being squeezed out by people buying second homes, ban 2nd home ownership until you’ve a surplus in housing  or pay £5000 in council tax annually, ban Airbnb which are sucking the oxygen out of spare homes because the yields are higher and risks for none payment lower - this is a conservative govt “way’ of abolishing housing benefit because the retirement pot have not purchased their homes so will need top up with housing benefit top up state pension taking that HB bill even higher ,and more demand on much less money coming into government coffers and ,those who do get to buy ,it be used for there social care now that the rise in NIC is being adjusted. The money just won’t be there for it’s purpose. 

Benefits are not keeping pace with inflation and I would think a huge amount of claimants are struggling to survive. The thought that you could put a huge chunk of benefit money towards a mortgage is another ridiculous idea from an ever desperate Tory government, trying to deflect from their own self made problems. 

I am not in work because I am a full-time unpaid carer so it doesn't apply to me. I do not have a right to buy my assured tenancy flat and I have big misgivings about further depletion of social housing stock without like for like replacement. I think that it will only serve to worsen the housing crisis and is a bad idea.

This policy is doomed from the start. Despite being a sound bite, the process will suck in plenty of applicants on benefits,..Why? because it will get sold to them and they will sign up. When the reality of a regular mortgage payment, insurance cover and the upkeep costs of owning a home start mounting up in league with the regular monthly commitments there will come a moment where things will stall. They start to pile up and then brand new decisions are made.

Stupid idea. Political gimmick to stay in power, forget their despicable  behaviour and gain voters. How ridiculous an idea just like many they've made before. Tories in power at the time I need even more care means I will be forced to sell, as now 85 & half thousand is the maximum allowed for care, so no thanks. (FUMING emoji !!)

Mortgages for long-term unemployed claimants is a complete non-starter. Such claimants are typically burdened with barriers to work; gaps in cv, unusual mix of jobs, precarious work, living in low employment areas, poor public transport, unsociable hours requirements, low pay jobs, caring burdens, discriminations against ethnicity, gender, age and so on, blacklisting, criminal record, learning difficulty, the list goes on. In an era of continual attacks against employment rights, poverty wages, precarious jobs and a hostile dwp it is fool's paradise to think that consistently maintaining mortgage payments is possible. Most likely this scheme is a cynical trap to put people into a debt trap where their home is reposessed and the banks gain the whole asset over possibly tiny amounts of arrears. Its also a way to further divide working class people and further destroy social housing. Another distraction from Partygate and a Prime Minister with no remaining political or moral standing

It’s a cost cutting exercise; however… the gov need a robust and solid framework for the mortgage industry to operate within. Eg people on low incomes/benefits could lose their home if interest rates go up and end up worse off. Without that it won’t work. It doesn’t go far enough. How about ‘you save £x for a deposit and we’ll add £y to top it up/cover moving  and legal fees. UC is designed to make it very hard for people to strengthen their financial situation before the benefit gets pulled from you (eg starting a self employed business). So for this plan to work without being risky for people the boundaries around UC need to be changed to allow people to make changes to their lives without having the rug pulled from under them. So a good idea but not good enough. Although if they want to fund housing benefit they could introduce an improved version of this, and increase tax on second homes. This would encourage some people to sell, increasing housing availability and possibly lower our ridiculously high house prices.

I am deeply suspicious of the whole ethnic of selling council and social housing, as that policy over the years has led to poor social housing stock, insufficient accommodation for the most needy and homelessness where homes are NOT replaced by local and national government as promised. The system is also open to abuse where landlords rent out former council housing which, by fair means or, often, foul, they have managed to acquire.  These are usually at many times council rent. These people line their pockets at the expense of the taxpayers who originally paid for these houses to be built, for the good of society and not business. There is so much else wrong with this proposed policy which I won’t detail. Basically, I think it’s a ploy by the government to divert attention from the real problems of housing in this country and the hopeless track record of ALL administrations, no matter what their party affiliation, to even begin to deal with it. 

I’d rather we had much more social housing to be honest.
We are in social housing, and it’s literally saved us. 

Utter rubbish proposal it will reduce the already critically low social housing stock!!! Just another ploy to take the pressure off D(b)oris. 

As someone who used to be in receipt of Housing Benefit, I would not have wanted to buy a property as it's all very well getting a mortgage, but you've then got to afford the ongoing mortgage payments and afford to maintain the property, which I would not have been able to afford. Also, we have a housing crisis, which will only get worse if more social housing bought for private ownership. 

Don’t be fooled if your on UC how do you think you will afford the up keep of any property or if it’s an apartment within a complex be able to pay a ever increasing service charge and some (grenfell expensces )  ,I remember people bought in 80’s and since 2000 had special council loans against the final cost of there property because there unable to raise the cash for major repairs ,it’s about a conservative government having your home to pay for your social care ,,also it’s not there property to sell its a charity or housing association and councils and we already know that there not building social housing so you pay a social rent not a private spiralling rents which (spiralling housing benefit)  to fill the gap of the sales never mind the ever large housing list with councils  ,this is about politics of getting the £50B housing benefit cost come 2030 down - and I will end Boris Johnson supporters will love this policy and they would polish his shit if he gave it to them, he just “can’t do no wrong” a Pathological liar ,this policy would takes several years if it ever happens. 

We wanted to buy our own home back in 2009 but were blocked at every turn due to husband being on DLA due to sight loss, angina and liver and kidney disease. We wanted to gain home security at a time when many private rental tenants were ending tenancies with little warning. I was working fulltime as a nurse at the time and we calculated for the property we were considering we would almost halve our rent in favour of the mortgage. We also estimated with house insurance and improvements loans we would still be paying less than our current rent. 
My wage alone would have paid our living expense so my husbands DLA would have gone fully to his needs. In 2016 he got cancer and under the insurance the mortgage would have been paid off. I hadto give up working to care for him. Now we still live in private rented property, are paying out for additional heating etc due to health needs but only have benefits to live on. As our landlord does little to maintain our home we struggle to maintain a warm environment in winter, before fuel price raised. I am dreading next winter but the option of moving home into a council property terrify's me. He needs room to move around safely inside but on fact finding it seems we would only be offered a small 1 double bedroomed bungalow, and possibly a second single bedroom, where we currently each have our own doubled bedrooms plus a third single room for storage of pads, aids etc. 
The house we wanted to buy was a three bedroomed bungalow with both a double and a single bedroom downstairs plus family bathroom and separate toilet,  and a second double bedroom upstairs with its own shower and toilet onsuite. It would have been ideal long term. Now we are faced with damp , raising costs and further disrepair plus a potential need to move fairly soon. 
We think people should be able to purchase property when it so clearly meets the physical and financial needs of those on benefits as it would reduce the needs on local authority accommodation and remove the second class status felt by many who live on benefits.

In the current economic climate this is an awful idea. While ownership can seem appealing, there are significant risks - shifting responsibility for maintenance and repairs from landlords to owners, and changing tenancy rights to mortgage debt. Inevitably some end up living in substandard housing as they just can't afford a new roof or boiler and some end up losing their homes due to a change of income or rise in interest. Sadly what has previously happened with right to buy is that those facing repossession can end up selling to "we buy any house" profiteers, take on a deficit debt and are classed as intentionally homeless. We need more social rents and secure long term tenancies, not to lose housing to private landlords this way. I speak as someone who bought and came close to homelessness.

This is only in England and Wales I presume.   The Scottish Parliament stopped the sale of Council and Housing Association homes a good few years ago now.  This is to try and help ease the burden on social housing while it takes them a good few years to replenish the housing stock that was sold off previously 

Give people a goal instead of just drifting aimlessly with no hope.
This also could be a bedrock for families and help them greatly for the future.
Im concerned now that the governmemt could cancel all this and talk the dream away all that jhope anf excitment could come crashing down :(