Where to put all these kids?! Wwyd?

[MissMooley]

Wasn't sure where to post this to get the most advice.
Basically I'm in a 3 bed house. Me, dds 14 & 19, and ds 11&8.
Currently, dd 14 & 19 have their own rooms, and the boys share. I have a bed in the living room.
It's worked for us nicely, but now I'm due twins in 10 weeks 😂🙈
I have no idea where they're going lol
My options so far are:

1- Scrap having a living room and just make it a full bedroom for me and the twins.

2- make the living room a full bedroom, and move the sofa etc into the outshed, but not sure how that will go in winter, it gets pretty cold and I don't have the money to fully convert it (also a council house, so would need permission I assume?)

That's it. I don't like the idea of having no living room but there's literally no space to have the cots and all the baby stuff in there with my bed and the sofa etc too.

I've considered the girls sharing, but eldest has asd and several mh disorders so can't see that working for her.

Just feel a bit stuck and hoping someone has a magic solution I haven't thought of!

That would be someone claiming benefits and having to top up service charges themselves, not someone paying rent from working and not claiming anything. 2 very different situations. No one paying rent without government support is paying £16 a week in rent. Not even close.

No, I wasn't talking about working people in council housing, but does this then mean that somebody heavily dependent on benefits would then get benefits for paying their general living costs but also a significant reduction in their rent? Would it not make more sense to charge a more realistic rent and then increase the benefits to take account of this - even if just on paper?

I know it would mean no real change to the tenant in financial terms, but it seems unnecessarily infantilising to give long-term benefit-claiming tenants a very false idea of the cost of things - and it would help those who struggle with budgeting awareness. Plus, this lady was unwittingly deeply embarrassing herself (and laying herself open to social stigma) by complaining about how much they had to pay the council in rent, and how difficult it was to find that money - to people paying 10+ times that amount in private rents or mortgage payments.

Someone claiming benefits now would get the whole rent amount minus service charges as part of their universal credit award. They then pay that to the local authority. Their tenancy is exactly the same as someone not claiming benefits.

The money for their rent comes from the state benefits pocket.

It goes into the smaller pocket of that specific local authority to manage their housing stock.

So you can't then artificially inflate the rent of those on benefits as everyone has the same agreement regardless of where their income is from.

So you could argue people claiming full benefits get their rent subsidised as it's one government department paying into a smaller local authority department.

But people who do not claim and pay their rent themselves aren't getting it subsidised.

Agree with you 100% never ever give up a council house. Op would eventually end up homless if she did that.

Also, am I correct (I may well not be) in thinking that HMRC penalise people who charge significantly below-market rents - maybe letting to friends or family members, or just very well-off landlords doing a kindness to good but poor tenants - and will treat it as a potential/assumed tax-dodge if they are thus paying considerably less tax accordingly?

I know they show an 'interest' if you sell a house for a lot below its market value - maybe meaning that much less stamp duty is due.

If this is correct, surely they can't then turn around and claim that the standard rents for social housing are the 'correct' market price - and that private landlords are just profiteering - if that meant that a private landlord charging the same amount in rent as for SH (for whatever reason) could be investigated or penalised for 'under-selling' their property?

Thanks for clarifying that, milafawny.

Really, where did you see that?

She really believes it too.

She really thinks we’re jealous of her. That we are all just too jealous and bitter not to raise 3 children in a studio.

The idea that millions of women actually choose to have fewer children so they can offer them something other than scraps is beyond her.

People are so proud of giving their children absolutely nothing.

Many year's ago I rented off a family member for a short period and they let the house to me for way below even the rates of social housing so I could save the (insane) amount needed to private rent. We had a short term 3 month tenancy drawn up and it was all above board. I literally covered their mortgage costs. Then they took it back to private renting market via an agency for more than 3 times what I paid.

I also know landlords who have HMO houses and let rooms to family members for virtually nothing, pretty much just the bills included in the rent to the standard tenant.

Private landlords can let for as much or as little as they want. They can also increase rent whenever they want for however much they want. There are very few restrictions.

Imagine getting secure subsidised housing and taking all that extra money and using it to have even more kids instead of financially investing in the ones you actually have.

That way you can always live on the edge of poverty and your kids can be poor too! They can miss out on opportunity after opportunity.

It’s great!

Everyone can feel sorry for you and pretend you are some sort of super mum as if digging a hole, climbing into it, then climbing out of it is smarter than just walking past a hole. The real supermums are the ones who have 2 kids and actually parent those kids.

@MarieRoseMarie

Wow your still going on about something I posted hours ago... get a life!

Interest rates and inflation have to be factored into value calculations: maintaining capital value and what the risk of the investment is compared to the return on capital. The same economics apply to capital invested in assets by a Council or a private investor (aside from economies of scale, which could favour one or the other). It's really a non-argument. Letting agents' managing costs would be roughly equivalent to Council management costs, and tiny compared to the overall capital tied up in the asset anyway. Any capital invested in an asset being leased/ utilised at below market rates of return is an opportunity cost and therefore a cost to the taxpayer. That's just economic fact however you want to dress it up. If they were rented out at market rate, for example, the amount currently being given as a discount could be invested in building more social housing instead, which would reduce the need to pay even higher subsidies for private rents for people who could live in those newly built social houses. Whether you think market rates are "inflated" or social rents are a "fair" amount, it is still a net cost to the taxpayer to use capital to generate a sub-market return and the difference between that market rate and what is being charged is a discount/ subsidy. I find the posts about this really strange, these are very basic financial principles.

Like I said though massively off topic from the thread and I've found the whole thread quite upsetting and draining tbh so I'm off to bed now.

Hope OP finds a solution to it all that makes things better for her family.

Ah, OK, then - thanks again, milafawny!

Top of my head, this is what I would do.

Go to the council and ask them to help you with a conversion. You seem to appreciate that they can’t necessarily just magic up a spare house overnight, so if you approach them with a solution that’s within their capabilities you will possibly get further.

Divide the biggest room into two for the girls, so that the older one still has her own space.

Smallest room, bunks for the boys, middle bedroom for you and the twins. Get the living room back so you all have a communal space. Or, ask them about insulating the outshed as a living room so the living room can be your own room.

Depending on what gender the twins are, will you have three of each, or four of one, two of the other? Obviously as they grow you might have to move but this might be a reasonably short term solution while you work your way up the housing list?

Good luck - hope you find a solution!

The Op has years before she needs to worry about the sex of the twins and them sharing a room.
The chances are by the time that becomes an issue her older girls will have moved out, or certainly be at a stage where them moving into a flat together wouldn't be impossible.

I know Ops oldest won't be top of the housing list but it might be worthwhile her putting her name on the council waiting list as you can often wait years anyway.

Far past the reproductive stage, but it would have been easy to have that many and more if I was lax on birth control and didn't insist on the man wearing a condom every time. Conception by carless drunken shag quite common and not anything to be jealous of.

That said, I suspect many of these women grew up in poverty, neglect, and abuse themselves.

I decided 2 was enough and all I could afford and had sterilization after DC2. So no oopsie pregnancies.

At 60, my ovaries are probably sultanas so all the drunken shags I fancy! 😂

Not read the whole thread, but have read the OPs comments.
OP, you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone, end of story.
Options I can think of, would be to move your DD downstairs and have the bedroom for you and the twins. Tbh, I’d be tempted to move the 14 yr old, she would probably love it. Screen a bed off for her, and keep the rest of the living room, it’s big enough to do so.
Secondly, speak to the council housing department. I know that large houses are like gold dust, but I also know people who have had their houses extended for them.
Thirdly, I don’t think you mentioned whether there is any attic space, that could be converted into a room, for either the 14yr old, or the two boys.
Fourthly, is there any chance of putting a “proper” outside garden room? They cost a few thousand, but in the greater scheme of things, it might be “doable”, if you can get a loan of some description.

That said, I suspect many of these women grew up in poverty, neglect, and abuse themselves.

So sad but true. It boils down to education and lack of role models. Sometimes you need to be informed to make sensible choices.