to think that elderly people living alone in 3/4 bed council houses should not have a choice about whether they want to stay there?

[BlessYouToo]

In fact, they should be moved into one bedroom accommodation as soon as the kids leave home (this should have happened years ago of course). Having a 'spare' bedroom in case the grandchildren come to stay should not be an option when they are in state owned properties.

I have today been to view a council property with a friend of mine who has been homeless for 3 years (in temp accommodation) after finally getting to the top of the bidding queue! She was called to see a 4 bedroom house and it was absolutely rank, the smell made me want to heave. Plaster was hanging off the wall and the whole place was damp as the previous tenant either, did not or could not, heat and ventilate it properly Apparently the house was in a much worse than the state we saw it in today but the council had done some remedial work on it to make it safe so it was a bit better. The garden was also just a sea of brambles.

We were told that an elderly person had been living there and had just been moved into a nursing home. T

I was shocked that the council could rent out a property in this state. I would have expected that they would have made sure the property was up to a decent, clean standard before renting it out as any other landlord would have to do (all my friend will get is a paint allowance if she is eligible) but I am even more shocked that this elderly tenant was allowed to let the property get into this condition. Why do councils not carry out inspections to ensure their properties don't get into this state? Obviously the house was too much for the previous tenant to cope with and surely they would have been better off with a smaller property that they could keep clean?

We were told that many of the properties coming available after elderly tenants have either died, or gone into alternative accommodation, are left in a similar state. How many families with young children are left crammed into tiny flats while elderly people are living in houses much too large for their needs, letting them decay around them? I find it unbelievable that this has been happening.

I feel gutted for my friend as she has been desperate to get a stable home for her DCs and will now be going into a total shithole without even carpets on the floor, just cement. It's a bloody disgrace! AIBU?

How has a thread about the principles of fair allocation of social housing morphed into a property tax thread????

no idea sir
i was ambushed all of a sudden!

I think you will find that an unrealistic sense of entitlement underlies both issue.

• it is unrealistic to expect a council home to be yours for life.
• it is unrealistic to expect that other people should pay more tax based on house price inflation.

All part of the same problem - people in too large houses for their needs.

Why should one very small amount of people benefit from stupid house price inflation while we screw over the young?

Young families in smaller and smaller houses, renting forever, no security - on the news today average house buyer is aged 42.

I really see no alternative but the local income tax proposed by the SNP. Perhaps they should top up council tax with a local income tax so that it catches people with an expensive house AND a high income but not those with only the house.

I think that ideally people should try and downsize when their children have moved out, but i don't think they should be forced.

It's not always that easy to move either. I am in a 4 bed semi in a nice area. I have 3 dc so technically I could make do with a 3 bed. I have advertised for a swap god knows how many times now and all I get is timewasters.

Local income tax is unfair and unworkable.

As a tax payer
I pay tax when I earn
I pay tax when I spend - even on sanity products which we all know are a luxury!
I pay a tax when I buy property - the highter the value of property the higher the stamp duty.
I pay tax on any savings
I pay a highter rate of tax (community charge) based on the banding of my property
I pay tax when I die

Tell we where I am shirking my responsibilities?

Those people banging the local income tax drum should get their heads out of the sand and look at the big picture. The majority of tax avoidance done legitimately through legal loopholes. Local income tax is just a way of punishing easy targets that majority of whom are working very hard for their money.

Most of the council houses here have been bought (then sold at huge profit). Those still owned by a housing association are all occupied by 1 or 2 very old people. One has been empty for over a year. Families desperate for housing have no chance of ever getting one.
Social housing should not be a right for life and old folks would be better off in a bungalow or sheltered flat.

Here in Belgium local income tax is done on your earnings - so you pay (a huge amount of) tax and they take the local percentage at source. If you OWN a house (as opposed to rent) they take its rateable value into account when you do your tax return - that depends how big it is. I am no expert, but that says to me that people who earn more money and own bigger houses, pay more tax. Which is right? Rubbish collection where I live is paid for via a label on your bin, for non compostable waste, or by bin bags that cost 40 euros for 20.

I agree with the OP sorry. My grandparents were all homeowners but downsized to smaller houses when they aged it makes sense from everyones point of view. Dont get this "its our home we brought our family up here" view if you have a largeish family house its not appropriate to stay in that house when you are single and aged when you may struggle to maintain it, especially if the house essentially belongs to the state and others have greater need of it.

kerala it's not about whether it's generally a good idea to downsize as you get older, rather than knocking around a massive house on your own.

It's about whether people shoudl be forcibly removed from the homes they have lived in for a long time - perhaps even all their lives.

FWIW I think it is often a good idea in general to downsize. as you get older - looking after a big house can become a burden. And there may be a need for the houses by others when it comes to social housing.

However the human way to do this is with incentives. It is unspeakably cruel to talk about a blanket rule which amnounts to old people being chucked out of their homes when they reach certain conditions.

Your parents are moving on their own terms, can you see the difference?

Also if there is a need for large family houses to meet social need, then there will be other, less cruel ways to meet this need which should be investigated.

One possible solution might be by - as others have inferred - closing legal loopholes which allow companies to avoid paying tax, and using that money to house people in need. Rather than chucking decent, hardworking and elderly people out of their homes!

Portofino, would you also like to elaborate that taxable base is reduced by the amount of mortgage on the property and how inventive Belgian people with tax avoidance schemes (perfectly legal I may add).

oldenglishspangles - sanity products. . I think you MAY need some. Sanity, that is. OF COURSE someone who owns a house is asset-rich. All you have to do in order to realise that asset is SELL IT. Buy or rent a much smaller house, and then you have oodles of cash in the bank. Otherwise why would you have bothered to do what you did - which incidentally isn't possible for those of us who live in the SE and do NMW jobs, as the price of a basic 2-bed terraced house is 17-20 times our annual income. .

The low-paid in Social housing pay tax too, you know, oldenglishspangles. So they are :

Paying tax when they earn
Paying tax when they spend - even on sanitary products which we all know are a luxury!
Paying tax on any savings
Paying a highter rate of tax (Council Tax) based on the banding of their property

The only ones that don't apply to those in Social Housing are: Paying a tax when they buy property - the highter the value of property the higher the stamp duty. But only because buying a property would involve a basic property not being a ridiculous amount of multiples of their income. I worked out when I was with my Ex-P that in order to save a deposit for a 2-bed house, we would have to save 50% of our income BEFORE any living expenses for 32 years. . Paying tax when they die - Well of course they don't pay inheritance tax - they don't HAVE an inheritance to leave their dc.

Are you against a local income tax because it would disproportionally affect homeowners - thus affecting you? Why is it unreasonable to expect people to pay a tax based on property size - if you have bought a larger house, and you cannot afford the tax, you have to sell your house and move to a smaller one. You still have a house - plus money in the bank.

Definately a case of I'm alright Jack from the homeowners, and also from a lot of the Social housing tenants. Both ends of the spectrum feel it should stay as it is, without wanting to see that the truth is that both the current housing market for bought housing AND the Social housing systems are unworkable long term because THE UK HAS A FINITE AMOUNT OF LAND TO BUILD ON. Things HAVE to change. For both the poor in Social housing, and the better off. (preferably those in bloody mansions whose CT is such a tiny proportion of the worth of their houses, not those in an average 2/3 bed house - and done by average LOCAL house price too - a mansion in Newcastle won't sell for the same amount as a mansion in Surrey, but both are still 20-odd bedrooms and a tennis court...)

bemybebe - I would love to elaborate - but I can't as we rent and I don't understand the system very well. I do know that we pay HUGE amounts of tax and social security though I think you can pass on your mortgage to your children. I know a few families who have taken over the original family home when their parents have moved to a flat, or care etc. Here though if you need to move to say a care home, any debt run up on this doesn't die with you - it passes to the next generation. So maybe that works as incentive to keep Granny out of care? I am learning still.....I am not saying this is all good......

Portofino - in this case you should really seek tax advice.
I have relatives in Belgium and it is unbelievable what they do to avoid taxes, all perfectly legal... so the headline numbers on how much tax is collected from the majority of natives is very misleading.

I personally think that income and wealth taxes should be low, but inheritance tax should be much higher than now and tax free amount should be seriously lowered or abolished altogether.

Bamybebe, I know someone living in Belgium who renounced their Belgian citizenship and makes sure they are not registered with a doctor, with the town hall, with the tax office etc, they basically do not exist, even though they do, in order to avoid paying tax, pay it at 2nd home in UK instead.

nothing will surprise me natation

As unreasonable as people who keep having more children when they can't even support them without benefits yet expect to be put in the biggest house possible and have free rent on it? Pah!

Why should an elderly person, who has made somewhere their home for a very long time be shoved out into somewhere else to make way for these types of people? Because you know that's what would happen right?

natation - what happens if they get sick, or unemployed?

We won't be buying here, that is for sure.

That's right bemybebe - it would never do to encourage thrift and providence, would it?

They are a retired couple, a retired accountant and wife. They use their EHIC cards when they are ill and travel insurance! I find it bizarre to go as far as renouncing citizenship myself, but they have bags and bags of money and that's the way they want it to remain. I don't know how they pay their electricity bills, I'm sure they have a way around their names not appearing on the bills, my bet is they use their son's identity to avoid detection there.