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?

Dobby, I work, have spent time bringing up my family on my own, but I don't want to live in my 3 bed semi (which I own) anymore. I don't think it's very good for my wellbeing. Do you think the council should move me into a five bed so that we can have two spare bedrooms as well?

shadeofviolet - she isn't entitled to keep it for ever, she doesn't own it.

why shouldn't she be made to downsize?

Its not about the house. Its about the environment, neighbourhood, area and accessibility of amenities.

I agree rules need to be looked at and changed but I bloody well detest the attitudes towards the elderly in this country.

Like they are disposable and need to be shoved out of a perfectly adequate home and area into care because some family requires a home?

I think she probably will be moved out soon under the new proposed rules.
A young man who my brother is friends with lived in his family home, 3 bed place until both his parents were killed, when he was aged 18.
The first thing the council did before they were in the ground was send him a letter stating they'd found him a 1 bedroom flat that would be cheaper and more affordable for him to keep
No memories and comforting surrounding allowed if you are a young person it would seem.
The truth is the older baby boomer generation vote and until younger people start doing the same and getting involved in politics they will be continually shafted.

But downsize to what? She lives in a small village where she also works - there are no council flats or HA properties that are any smaller.

Then it would mean that she would have to move and claim HB as she wouldnt be able to rent anywhere else in the area that she lives in, which would cost her more surely.

them more

On my street we have the following scenario.

Man with his grown up daugther in a 3 bed council house.
Woman (his wife actually) with their teenage son in another 3 bed council house.

They grew up on the same road, got married, got divorced, moved in with their parents, parents now dead, and they have a council house each they are keeping for their kids, so each child shall have one each. They do this to secure a house for each child, rather than live together as a family, giving up one house. One family occupying TWO council homes rather than one.

There is no easy answers are there shadeofviolet, but basically your mum is dependent on the goodwill of the state, the council in her case and if they think a bedsit is adequate for her needs then that's where she'll be put. They happily put whole families in temporary accommodation.

Ahhhh, the politics of envy.

Social housing tenants should be (and are - although I don't know how widepread this is) offered incentives to downsize.

There are some great benefits to being a tenant in social housing, primarily sensible rents (I paid £400 pm for a two bed flat from 2000-2005, as oppose to the £800+ I would have paid privately) and security of tenure - something anyone who has been fucked over by private landlords can appreciate.

OTOH you generally have little or no (no in my case) choice as to where you live.

WRT the right-to-buy scheme - I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea of allowing someone who has lived in their house for years to buy it. But the rates they were sold for were too low and the money should have been used to replace the housing stock that was lost. Of course monies raised were ringfenced as the whole right-to-buy scheme was an highly ideology-driven excercise in social engineering.

I'm not sure that social housing is subsidised, curlymama. I imagine there are a fair few buy-to-let landlords who are having their mortgages paid for by housing benefit, though. If there was sufficient affordable housing available, housing benefit would cost the country far, far less than it does now.

"They do this to secure a house for each child, rather than live together as a family, giving up one house. One family occupying TWO council homes rather than one."

They are in for a shock then because you cannot inherit a council tenancy anymore.

500 for a 2 bed house? thats fucking cheap. you can pay 650-700 for a room or one bed flat where i live and the common wage is about 1200 a month.

the news rules will not affect existing tenants, meaning they will do fuck all to help as all the housing stock is alreay taken and existing tenants just wont move out to keep their homes

They are doing this in some areas. But then you get the bleeding hearts of "Oh I've always lived here, won't see my friends blah..blah..blah"

If the house is not yours and you don't need so much space they HAVE to move for the new famillies coming up.

That is the whole point about social housing!

Lots of granny flats around and much easier to keep clean and tidy. I've known people in great big council properties who have just retreated into one room as they can't cope with the whole house.

I agree that that parents should downsize once the children have left home. It is strange that no one has tackled this issue, especially with the shortage of housing.
But some of the comments on here annoy me, and it's always the same tignorant and snobby remarks when we discuss social housing. I would like to point out that;

Not all council/HA tenants receive housing benefit

The rent is not subsidised, but is lower than privately renting as it is a council property that will benefit various families for generations to come, therefore they make more money from it over a longer period of time

It may not be someone's house (as in belonging to them) but it is their home.

There is no financial incentive to downsize, but you are offered more choice, which I think is fair enough after being a tenant for over,say, 30 years

There is a financial incentive scheme to move if you are buying your own property within the UK, therefore frreing up your home for another family

mamatomany, will the children be evicted then, when their parents pass away?

"It is strange that no one has tackled this issue, especially with the shortage of housing."

Do you think maybe they government is planning to scrap social housing all together?

While we're at it, shall we force homeowners to sell their houses if they under-occupy them? BTLs and holiday home owners who have priced locals out of the market?

What if they come back? And what about Christmas? Where are they supposed to stay?

Yes they will QS. You can't inherit. The tenancy is in the parents' name, not the children's. If you die, the house goes back to the council.

To what END, jenai?

Well, the fuckers had a bloody good try (and did a pretty good job) last time they were in power, QS.

Are these new rules? Because both the parents "inherited" when their parents died? This was just 4 and 2 years ago.

QS, that kind of thing needs to stop as in some estates WHOLE streets are 'owned' by one familly and they make hell for any newcomers.

Council houses = owned by state

And yes old people should move out of big houses as they can't afford to keep them warm, they are rattling around all by themselves.

And yes my grandparents have moved from their council house to a much smaller affordable home and they are glad they did and wonder why they did not do it earlier.

what qfd said

To free up the houses of course, QS. I was being flippant. But most of the posts so far have been pretty vile to social housing tenants.

I think if we care about affordable housing, there are other ways to increase the housing stock. I'm all for incentives to downsize - but forcing people to move sucks.