Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Politics

Lifetime Social Housing Tenancies

713 replies

RowsOfFlowers · 26/06/2025 07:46

Am I wrong or being unreasonable to think that this new policy that Labour are bringing in is very unfair?

I come from a poor-ish background (as in no one in my wider family has any money). However, my mum and Dad did fairly okay and managed to move up the property ladder (through sheer hard work and sacrifice). My dad died a few years ago and so now it’s just my mom. We never received any benefits - and now my DH and I live in a house and pay a high interest rate (thanks Truss) and I don’t know if we will ever pay off our house (if I am to have children and go part time), so we will need to downsize. We don’t qualify for any benefits either but we are in the squashed middle, so we really feel it when anything rises in cost and don’t get any help.

I feel really cross that someone can benefit from social housing for a lifetime, no matter how much they go on to earn, and then if they pass away, they can pass it down as an asset.

I have a friend who’s parents came to this country, got given social housing, their children paid it off (40% discount) and now they all get to keep a £650k house in London. It doesn’t seem fair to me at all. I feel really disillusioned living in the UK.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
15
Frequency · 26/06/2025 08:12

Means testing is a stupid idea, as is evicting people who go on to earn a good wage.

If i had to pick between safe and secure housing but a lifetime on nmw and top up benefits or a lifetime of private renting and the risk of being evicted at the landlords whim or coming across one of the many slumlords but a decent wage i know which one I would choose.

I private rented for 10 years. Not once did I ever have a decent landlord. If my housing association decide to means test their housing I'll give up my job and take nmw before I go back to private renting.

OneSpoonyGreyWasp · 26/06/2025 08:10

Build more council houses that are not able to be bought. Succession is only for the other people that live there once the main tenant dies and it can only be handed down once.

MiloMinderbinder925 · 26/06/2025 08:10

Thank God for this. The housing situation is so unstable and society's poorest need protection. Social housing is so scarce that's its unlikely people on 100k will be living in it OP. It's given to the most vulnerable.

How about instead of tearing this down, we encourage more of it.

ScaryM0nster · 26/06/2025 08:10

Making them inheritable is just bonkers.

The tenants own lifetime thing gets trickier to have anything that gives a smooth transition - but running longer than that is an irresponsible use of public funds.

Purchasing needs to be market rate based.

RowsOfFlowers · 26/06/2025 08:07

mylovedoesitgood · 26/06/2025 08:03

This has always been the case, hasn’t it?

Bit yes, the policy is unfair. In a way I’m surprised this government aren’t bringing in periodic means-testing for social housing, but I suppose it would be a logical nightmare to administer and manage.

Agree, but how is this helping the housing crisis as such as well? Social housing should be for those who need it. If you’re then in a position to buy or rent, then that you should do.

OP posts:
Coffeeishot · 26/06/2025 08:07

This isnt new and your parents were well within their rights being "poorish" to apply for social housing, where I live its rolling tenancy so it is reviewed the lifetime tenancy stopped in the 00s but my parents still have theirs. What do you think should happen people should be made to rent privately unsecurely, because you struggle with a mortgage ?

Bromptotoo · 26/06/2025 08:05

mylovedoesitgood · 26/06/2025 08:03

This has always been the case, hasn’t it?

Bit yes, the policy is unfair. In a way I’m surprised this government aren’t bringing in periodic means-testing for social housing, but I suppose it would be a logical nightmare to administer and manage.

That.

Exactly.

Hard cases with lots of headlines both ways, none of them looking helpful to government.

The plan to limit them was another Tory plan that they must have known wouldn't survive contact with reality.

mylovedoesitgood · 26/06/2025 08:03

This has always been the case, hasn’t it?

Bit yes, the policy is unfair. In a way I’m surprised this government aren’t bringing in periodic means-testing for social housing, but I suppose it would be a logical nightmare to administer and manage.

Frateletheboss · 26/06/2025 07:55

Frequency · 26/06/2025 07:50

You have the fortune of secure housing but want to deny others the same just because they're unable to save a deposit or secure a mortgage?

Nice.

She said she doesn't even know if she'll be able to afford her mortgage if she has kids. Hardly good fortune. And yeah it's unfair everyone else has to pay rent that's 2x or even 3x as much potentially getting evicted whenever landlord wants to sell. Just for someone else to be given somewhere and not have that problem and they still find something to moan about

Summerhillsquare · 26/06/2025 07:54

Housing in the UK is wrong and unjust but you're attacking the wrong people. Try and think critically about what you read, and consider who has the real power and wealth.

Frequency · 26/06/2025 07:50

You have the fortune of secure housing but want to deny others the same just because they're unable to save a deposit or secure a mortgage?

Nice.

Frateletheboss · 26/06/2025 07:49

This is already a thing though? My mother has lived in her apartment for decades now.
Yes it is a little annoying when she moans about the rent going up (her rent is still less than half of a similar apartment on Rightmove)

RowsOfFlowers · 26/06/2025 07:46

Here is the article

Lifetime Social Housing Tenancies
OP posts: