To think if all your children have grown up and left you should give up your 5 bed council house?

[dilemma456]

The housing list are so long and especially for bigger properties.

I met someone who lives by herself in a 5 bed council house last night. Her children have all moved out. There are people who really need that house crammed into much smaller properties.

AIBU to think that if you're massively under occupying social housing you should be under an obligation to move out into something smaller and that the council should offer you support and encouragement to do so?

Agree with you totally.

YANBU but isn't there some weird thing where council tenants can buy the property at a vastly reduced rate after X amount of years? Are you sure that she's not doing that?

Yanbu, children up and down the country are growing up in cramped, unbearable conditions. Its wrong, and tbh I don't care if great Aunt Dot has lived their 50 yrs, houses which are under occupied should be given to people who need them most.

yadnbu

YANBU.

yes of course they should move out. it's not their house.

Given the shortage of family homes generally, I think there should be incentives (say increased council tax or a low occupancy tax) to encourage people to move into homes more suitable for their needs be that council or private housing.
There are loads of older people living great large family homes with just one or two people living in them.

I think we should encourage everyone to consider downsizing when their children have left home.
Noone needs to live in a big house on their own!
Maybe then we wouldnt be fighting to save a woodland over a thousand years old from being demolished by Tesco and a housing association!

I heard a scheme is coming in where there will be no life tenancies; there will be a 5 or 10 yearly review of need, and appropriate re-housing.
It won't solve the problem for a long time yet I suppose.

YANBU.

ronshar where is that?

YANBU

I remember being moaned at by some woman outside council offices (she'd tried visiting on a Saturday - unsurprisingly, they were closed) and she was complaining that:

1. They had asked if she would move from her three bed council house (which she lived in on her own) and
2. That she had to pay £100 a month towards the rent.

As at that time I was paying over £500 for a room in a flat, I was low on sympathy (I also don't like being moaned at by complete strangers. Unless it's on MN)

Of course they should have to move out. Council tennants are on far too good a ride really, why do they seem to have more rights than anyone who rents privately?

How would the council be able to effectively implement something that would enable this to happen though?

YADNBU. Is there still the right to buy? I can remember when that first came out. A woman I worked with got a ridiculously big (6 bedroom IIRC) house in Islington for about 30p. It was later independantly valued at 300k.

YANBU - i totally agree! where i live there are quite a few older people, all in very large 3 bed semis, (i own mine my the way ) And as these people are getting older their children - in their 50's or their grandchildren in their 20-30 are moving in with them. This is so that they can keep the house on the ridiculously low rent when the old dears die off - they are all very open about this. they plan to buy it then and sell them on - its tragic when there are so many families squeezed into flats when i can count 10 from my window of large houses that only the ground floor is used and the garden left to rot!

Like apocalypse said:
My parents live in a massive detached house which would make a great family home.
My DP's parents live a massive detached house that would make a great family home.
My brother lives in a large family house on his own.
DP live in a 2 bed terrace with 2 children.
It's a problem all over the country. People should be given incentives to downsize.

YADNBU

The tenancy aggreements for social housing tenants should indeed be changed so that when your youngest child is 18 (or has left home - whichever comes first) you should be allocated a property that suits your needs, i am a bit as to why cash incentives are being used to downsize. there are too many families that are over crowded i know of one family that are married with 4 children in a very small two bedroom flat! and yet you have little old ladies etc that are rattling around in 4 bed parlor houses

It is a huge problem, but I don't see why they should be given incentives. If you privately rent a property, you have to move out if the owner chooses to do something else with that property, other than rent it to you. I really don't get why this is different for council tennants. It's probably the councils fault though, because if these things were written into the contracts and the tennancy agreements were reviewd regularly, there wouldn't be a problem.

YANBU, but can you imagine the press coverage? TV would have a field day - 90 year old ladies been forced out of their homes and communities to allow a family of layabout to live somewhere rent free.

I can see it from both sides really. Of course a lot of problems by people down sizing. especially council tenants. But people attach a lot of memories to their home.

MIL has a huge 3 bed house with just her pottering about in there. She admits it's too big and too expensive and has toyed with the idea of moving, but it is the home she shared with her late husband. They bought and decorated it together and brought their children up there. She has memories of her late grandson, playing in her garden/sleeping over etc.

Wild horses couldn't tear her away from that house. And I personally would make life very miserable for any-one who tried to coerce her to move against her wishes.

Maybe if rents were fairer and landlords were limited in the number of properties they could own, then there wouldn't be so much of a problem. There is a street near me full of rental properties that are left empty because no-one wants to move into them. Lazy, opportunist landlords bought them during the property boom and have left them to rot, so no-one will rent them unless they are desperate.

And yet the council is having to buy land to build on as council stock is so low

YANBU - we are on the council list as we cant really afford the private rental we are in atm.

The waiting list for a 3 bed is at least 10 years!

At one point we were being evicted (not through any fault of our own - the LL was moving back into the house) and there were NO 3 beds on the market so we were faced with being homeless and the council still couldnt help us other than to say "wait for the bailiffs then we'll put you in a hostel".

The house we are in is ex-council as are most of the houses in the street. Most are 3 beds now occupied by older folk whose children have now moved out.

And dont get me started on how the "right to buy" was the most ridiculous thing ever - how could the government not have predicted that it would have left a huge shortage of social housing for future generations!

YANBU. Lower council tax and heating bills would be incentive enough for me to downsize I think. A lot of older people struggle to keep up with these things.

My parents certainly do but they can't sell their house (equity release con scheme - don't ask )

I once met someone who was on his own in a 4-bed town-house who only used the ground floor because of mobility issues. This was years ago though.