To think lottery winners should not be able to stay in a council house?

[Hammy02]

It was in the news today that a couple that won £4 million in the lottery a year ago won't move out of their council house! Surely council houses are to be used in times of need? With thousands of people on the waiting list, it incenses me that they are allowed to stay there. I know there will be thousands of other cases where people are in council accomodation that shouldn't be but this is the most extreme example I've heard of.

Exactly, edam. I'm foreign and still could smell their wad of BS all the way up here.

All the accusations that Labour and their spending caused the recession make me laugh, too, especially coming from the US where there was a Conservative government for 8 years that was positively niggardly in public spending and they wound up, well, in a big fat recession.

krldt0710 - It's not just about memories, it's about the work and money put into a home. What happens to people turfed out of their home and given some shithole in an area that's not so nice (because there would no longer be an incentive to do any work to a house if there is no security of tenure). Does the govt refund them all the money they spent? Why should they live somewhere which is less nice in their old age just so you can have their house and benefit from all the improvements they have made. They would argue that their rights are equal to yours, and that your lack of housing is not their fault. The problem is that council housing has been sold off and not replaced. This is what should be addressed. People who live in council housing are/have been tax payers too (and pay rent).I think some people forget that and think they are getting something for free, so want to take it from them

yeah, Bush that well-known leftie liberal... always covered in ANC and CND badges. Sheesh.

Kaloki, suspect that would end up like tax credits - people's circumstances change and suddenly they have a mahoosive bill they weren't expecting and get dropped in the shit.

swallowedafly That's a very good point. I've been lucky so far to find properties to take HB, but am now at a point where I'm probably looking at social housing and I'm dreading it. I've seen the places people have been given :(

edam It needs work, obviously. It shouldn't be dropped on them, there should be plenty of notice of change and it should be explained clearly (though having received 10 pages of absolute gibberish from the local council about HB I don't hold out too much hope)

Hope it works out for you, kaloki.

Obviously there needs to be a lot more council/housing association housing. Some of that could be achieved by buying up existing privately owned housing.

I do not think that when people are no longer very poor they should be moved out of their council owned properties. That would simply create estates where lots of people live temporarily alongside many poor people who are vulnerable and disadvantaged. We all know what a disaster such estates turn out to be.

The best council estates are those that have a mix of people, and include some people who have managed to bring up families and stay in jobs long term while living in their council housing for 40 years. A sense of community makes a big difference in all types of housing, and council housing is no exception.

"The problem is that council housing has been sold off and not replaced. This is what should be addressed."

Absolutely.

The problem is that there is so little state housing stock in this country. I just cannot fathom how anyone can think it is morally right that an elderly person can live in a 3 bedroom house just because they've always lived there, while a woman fleeing domestic violence with 3 children gets housed in some horrendous fleapit "hotel", full of drug addicts and newly released prisoners, in one squalid room with a bathroom filled with needles and vomit down the corridor (yes, this really does happen, I have seen it with my own eyes on more than one occassion).

I don't know how the situation could/should be dealt with.

'to deal with the mess you just move in to an uncarpeted, undecorated house with young children.'

Not to mention the charming, lovely neighbours that often go along with this.

Fibilou, well why should my parents, who own their (never council owned) house, have more right to a family size house than the women fleeing domestic violence? Why shouldn't she get their house and they move in to the hotel with the fleas and syringes? Or are owner-occupiers exempt from your ethical redistribution of housing scheme?

You seem to be claiming that poor people have no right to long term, secure housing. I really don't see that as being any solution to the housing issues in this country. What happens to your DV woman when she gets a job? Are you going to kick her out and make her children move communities and schools to make way for a new DV woman who has greater need?

Councils and housing organisations are trying to stop this situation of 'revolving doors' where they get people back over and over again as they fall back on hard times at different points in their lives. Long term housing is the solution that almost everyone in housing is trying to work towards, including women's organisations.

I actually would recommend that we target owner occupiers and people renting by basing council tax rates on how fully occupied a house is. So if you own a 4 bedroom house and only have one child, you should pay a higher band of council tax for under-occupying during a housing crisis.

Part of me feels rather sorry for this couple. They are being used to try and push through Tory ideas about council houses.

We rent our home (privately) and have spent money doing it up and tbh I feel that is money spent to add to our enjoyment of the property while we live here. I have no problem with the idea that this is not our property and it is not ours for life.

I am in two minds about council houses for life. I grew up on an estate and once we all left home my Mum bought somewhere small so the house could be freed up. My grandparents moved to a smaller council flat when they no longer needed bedrooms for children, which was the right thing to do IMO. They all refused to buy their council houses as well.

I found myself in need of a council house about eight years ago and was told I would have to wait ten years! A housing association house would be 2 years! I had to sleep on various sofas with a baby while we saved up a deposit for a private rental. I know the property shortage is not the fault of council tenants and therefore they should not be forced to move on because of it. But morally I would feel suspect living in a house that I did not need knowing that there were other familes who had no home.

where youleftit

The problem is that council housing has been sold off and not replaced. This is what should be addressed."

is correct

becuase at least some point the houses will come back into the system and those that think oh im going to buy my house might either not buy and stay council renting
or might want to buy a house so much that they move out and just do that.

were waiting on council house and once get one have no intention of ever moving again , but then any house ill get will be adapted for ds3 so think size wise it might end up to big eventually , but becuase of costs to readpt smaller it wont be viable n our case.

mind i win the lottery the council can go fiddle themselves country mansion beckons

'you could point out that forcing people out of their homes disincentives people to invest in their homes, ruins community cohension ' all of that was pointed out here

Plus on the other parallel thread research about moving older people being linked to death, and how moving people from council accom late in life could actually push up the incredible cost of state provided care.

Didn't want to see that though did you? Just throw a little abuse.

I'm a leftie and proud of it: that doesn't mean i voted Labour (but I will next time dependeant on the new elader) and I am not idiotic and I do not reosrt to abuse.

there are many tories on here I like and can engage with, and who are MN mates off the politcis thread (SWC jumps to mind). adnd tehre are those who discount everyone witha different take on it as idiotic. The latter are a disgrace to debate.

Oh and wrt to the if I can't pay my mortgaeg I have to move- it's not the same

I can pay my rent but I will have to go if the landlady feels like it. And i can't set up self employed at home or anything as leases prevent it (would quite fancy SN childare).

Yes thats right I know, but stillfar more insecure in terms of residency (and becuase Dh has been self employed less than three eyars no agency would touch us with a proverbial either).

And becuase this area has good schools thata re really ahrd to get into then the boys would lose theit friends as there is no way we'd get a let accepting us now within this catchment (2 years and counting......)

And there's not a soul we know where we would be housed so they'd take away the very small social networks we do have.

And that's the way it is, you see. I know and accept it. But having owned, it's not the same.

ANd now I must go tidy the garden in the hope that LL does want to extend the elase. Adieu.

Ilove - you are quite right that the goverment is exploiting the lottery winners, who are clearly a vanishingly rare case, to get away with worsening conditions for council tenants.

As has been said again and again - but some people don't seem to have noticed - the problem is that council houses have been flogged off and not replaced. It's not the fault of people whose only crime has been to grow older.

I think that decent, affordable HA/council housing should be available to everyone who wants it. I don't buy this idea that there is no money for it, as the govt always finds money for the things it considers imp. I also think that shared ownership is a good way forward.
The problem is that successive govts have allowed/actively participated in the erosion of all our industries, so our economy only functions on an artificially high housing market and financial services industry. Therefore it is not in the govts interests to provide housing for all who need it. The govt would prefer instead to continually shaft the ordinary people of this country. If the country is as broke as the govt claims it is, then that is not the fault of people like my parents. We should be demanding our politicians look closer to home

There is a new HA building scheme going on (yay) although only announced this week, althougyh councils 9and it may just be my area) are annoyed as they will be paid on completion of new build meaning the money for enough just won't be there

But you know, that's great it really is. But someone locally mentioning they might be willing to sell land to teh council for redevelopment speaked a cmapidn that saw The Usual Suspects (well off locals, not the poster LOL ) campiagning on the streets of the village and that hadn'te ven reached planning consent stage!

Seems even with biulding communities are still likely to be pulled apart- ds4 was born here, in this house, yet it seems us having a bad luck period means people who moved ehre at retirementwould rather see us sumped as far away as possible. to teh extent the charmer next door calls DH 'Oik' and damaged our car in an attempt to force us out (she's mad though, and we're not even a non working family!)

Hurrah for the new building scheme and many sympathies re. the selfish git newcomers. Sound about as charming as the people who move to the countryside and then complain about church bells and cocks crowing.

AH yes LOL- Dh used to ring bells in a Church that ahd to be muffled becuase of complaints, and my Aunt's local Church (glastonbury, we're talking very old and you know- you'd expect that sort of thing, right?) has an action against it ATM.

Bizarre.

I'm a newcomer here anyway, but ds4 isn't and I think that means something. Not an entitlement perhaps, but maybe a sense of belonging?

Yup, and I think it's a bit much for someone to move into an area and then start bossing the locals around.

What happens here is that its nice
So retiring people move in pushing prices sky high

But tehy dont use the schools etc and the infrastructure gets threatened

But they then complain when affordable palces are planned for lcoals and long term residents with famillies

Doesn;t make sense