To take a bigger council house than we need?

[isthisunreasonable]

Have namechanged for this as it's pretty obvious who I am if you know me...

We currently have a two bedroom house (3 children) and we can fir just about but it's a squeeze. We are "entitled" (cringe) to a 3 bed house but it's likely to be 4-5 yrs by the time we would be offered one so placed our details on the Housing Association's "mutual exchange" site. We have also said we are happy to take a 2 bedroom house with separate dining room to use as the 3rd bedroom.

Have been contact by someone via our housing association's "mutual exchange" list. They have a large 4 bed house with a dining room and massive garden and they want to downsize (older couple all kids left home) and would like our house.

Given that is is bigger than we actually need . Part of me thinks it should go to a family with 5/6 kids but part of me thinks this couple are looking for a mutual exchange to downsize to a 2 bed house, what's the chance of them fining such a large family in a 2 bed house that they want.

It would be fabulous for us of course, lots of space for everyone, kids could have their own bedrooms and a nice big garden to play and we wouldn't have to move again when we have more children (planning another 1 or 2 in next 5 years perhaps).

Would we be unreasonable to accept it?

what ??? aufaniae are you talking about ? that's a ridiculous argument. So Councils should only house people who pay the rent ?

People who have taken out buy-to-let mortgages on second and subsequent houses to supplement their future pensions are looking after their own interests rather than taking into account that the widespread nature of this practice diminishes the housing supply. I can't for the life of me see how looking out for yourself in this way is morally superior to a mutual house exchange where no property is being withdrawn from the supply chain. Sure, I get pissed off that we have to pay £xxxx a month to live in this house when others in the same kind of property pay much much less to the council, but that's not actually the fault of the council tenants.

and so what if they have to decorate and bring it up to 'standard' to live in it. It's no difference to a homeowner would

Mentioning that you had to decorate a council house was in response to the assumption that the council paid it for you.

JumperHerWho, As I keep saying, they are introducing massive benefit caps which will help so that Private Landlords cannot currently charge huge rents to people purely because they are on Housing Benefit.
There are also scheme's where Housing Associations are now letting on what they call 'Affordable rents' which is aimed at people on low working incomes who can't afford private rents yet don't qualify for social housing.
Unfortunately we are about to take a HUGE plunge into a far bigger two-tier system then ever before with the 'bedroom tax', welfare reforms and universal credit.

Shesariver - to be fair there was a Poster upthread who said she had been in a 3-bed council house for 20yrs or something and spent loads of time money and pride doing it up, and therefore felt entitled to keep it despite no longer being in need. That grates - everyone does this, council house or not. Well if they can afford to after rent

shesariver, I know plenty of London Boroughs and HA's that do give out decorating vouchers at the start of a tenancy. Of course some may not, but all I'm refering to is that there is less of a cost implication in upkeep of a property if it belongs to a Social Landlord then if you own the property. I previously refered to someone struggling to find costs for a new boiler, which obviously someone in a HA property doesn't have to.

Are you against the bedroom tax Happy? Surely it's a good thing to discourage people from living in bigger council properties than they need?

I shall return to thread later, DS is screaming awake and happily gurgling for attention.

Haha, yes JumpHerWho, I'd love to be able to do up our house but at the moment after mortgage etc there's little left.. nice for people on low rents to be able to do so.

brecon it is morally different in that social housing stock should be used for the benefit of the community. a private house does not have to be used in that way. the op took advantage of the opportunity to put herself in a property with no time limit on it i.e. tenancy end date and a low rent and now wants a bigger property that would serve another family currently in housing need. she is pondering whether to have another couple of children (maybe) in the future as a pretence to justifying taking the bigger house. she is pretending that she is helping the other family by 'taking the house off their hands' what a great favour.

the housing stock should be managed properly so that as many people benefit as possible.

the private house might otherwise lie empty to no one's benefit.

HappyJoyful yes some LAs to give out a decorating grant.

I would think this is saving them money! Any decent LL decorates between tenants. If the council is passing that work onto the tenant, it's saving them money in not paying professional decorators I would imagine!

The grant is small in any case. My friend got one, it was under £200, possibly nearer £100 I forget now.

"I'd love to be able to do up our house but at the moment after mortgage etc there's little left.. nice for people on low rents to be able to do so."

That's ridiculous! Just a really nasty attitude. You really wouldn't want to be in the situation my friend was in to be awarded a council house!

But anyway, you choose to be a home owner. If you were in a rented place (private or social) the LL would be in charge of decorating. You might not have much choice over how they decorated though. You choose to be a home owner, and if you haven't budgeted for a standard of renovation up to your standards, that's your problem, no one else's!

I have just bought a house, ex council, in an area where many are still council-owned.

We stretched ourselves to buy it, and we're in the same position of not having enough money to do it up to the standard we'd like for now. Do I begrudge my council-tenant neighbours if their house is in better nick than mine? Of course not!

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. (Not that I'm religious, but it's not a pleasant trait!)

Each individual purchase takes a house out of the pool available to the rest of the community, limiting availability and pushing up prices. Not always ultimately to the prospective landlord's benefit, but the aim and consequence is the same.
Do you think it would be better to force the couple currently in the larger home to move somewhere not suitable for their needs?

"what ??? aufaniae are you talking about ? that's a ridiculous argument. So Councils should only house people who pay the rent ?"

No.

What I am saying is that it's of greater benefit to everyone (council tenant or not) if people get to hold onto their council homes when they're better off, alongside a programme of reinvestment / rebuilding so the housing stock doesn't dwindle - or grows even - over time.

Do you get it yet?

(*That's not to say that many council tenants don't pay to decorate their own homes, of course many do!)

Jumper, I've been doing some work recently involving the impact on residents of the 'bedroom tax' and agree totally, it has some huge advantages and some pluses of course and it's intention is of course honourable to not allow over occupation of properties, I think where I struggle is the issue that where I work we've recently been trying to help people who were hugely overcrowded into new homes (via a regeneration project) and it means that now because of the very ungenerous policy of allocating we're going to end up penalising people that shouldn't be. Basically it's a very sweeping policy. But, no I don't disagree with it.

Aufaniae, apologies, it was a sweeping statement and perhaps more out of frustation at some of the other posters on here and not at you. I didn't mean to be 'nasty' You are right - the cost that many Councils pay for homes to be 'toshed' out between tenants is high and I think it is cost effective to give vouchers out. Of course, we choose an option to be a home owner - however, we weren't and wouldn't have been able to afford private rent and would not have got Council accommodation so realistically when I purchased it was the only viable option. I agree Envy is of course a deadly sin - however, so is Greed and that's what people have actually been accusing the OP of on here.

How do I get into this scheme because my rent is 1200 for a small 2 bedroom flat with a shit balcony.

No I don't have money for a deposit and we both work full time, even on weekends and we have only 1 child because of lack of space and the fact we don't own a property. You are lucky!

I'm a Landlord (and creighton is right, I'm perfectly nice and not a greasy spiv) and I have to be honest and say I'm benefitting twice. My property is my asset (pension) and I charge a higher rent than the local HA would say is 'market value' rent. Of course it is my right to charge what the market will bear. But that doesn't mean it isn't a benefit. And the answer isn't for the HA to push up their rents, because all that will do is push everyone else's rent up.

The answer is to regulate rent levels, imo. My rent should go down, and if I chose not to do that (and the market will still pay what I ask) that additional money should be taxed off me. Because at the end of the day, I will still have my asset.

Aufaniae - the problem for me with increasing social housing and keeping it available for people who are not 'in need' ie could afford market rents or mortgage, is that it maintains a two-tier system. Apart from the obvious injustice and resentment it fosters, surely it's not an actual fix to the problems of expensive rent?

I'm inclined to agree with Wilson, that rent control is the way forward, along with high taxation for second home owners and other measures. It will take a government with true conviction to do this I think.

sweetest go to the council but not all are accepting people onto the housing list. .

I was accepted when my marriage broke down and needed to go back home. I waited 18 monyhs to be housed and during that time was in a box room (8 by 8) at my parents. ...and because of that I was considered "priority".

I will warn you that I was housed on the local sink estate with the neighbours from hell though. I was rehoused after another 18 months as DS is autistic and I needed safe access to an enclosed garden. I am VERY fortunate to have the house I am in.

I privately rented for a while but was able to work full time at that point. As DS has got older so his care needs have increased hence I am unable to afford private rent or mortgage.

I recently discovered that our local housing list will not accept anyone who has not lived in the area for at least 5 years. Under that criteria I would no lobger get on the list as I left the area for 10 years.

So, you have one difficult period in your life, and the cheap-rent house is then yours for life.

Am I understanding this correctly?

I understand how you get on the Housing List (have the live in your borough for 5 years now I believe) but how do you get on the Housing Association list or is it the same list? It's something I will do when I've lived in the borough for 5 years as at some stage my DD needs her own bedroom rather than being in with me but I can't afford to rent a two bedroom privately where I live - even with the help of Housing Benefit - even though I work.

There's a lot of economic illiteracy on this thread.

The "correct" rent for a property is what would be obtainable in the open market. So all the people who say the "correct" rent is the social rate (and private rates are wrong/inflated/mad) are by definition wrong.

If you are paying a rent that is less than the council of HA could get if they were to offer a secure tenancy in that property to whoever is willing to pay the most, then you are being subsidised by the difference between what you pay and what your landlord could get.

When there is a free market, there is no permanent queue for goods, the price simply goes up until the queue-length falls to zero. The fact that there is a permanent queue for social housing is proof that it is subsidised. The queue exists because the price is not being allowed to rise to a level that would eliminate any subsidy. The price is being set by bureaucrats according to social/political criteria.

If social housing weren't subsidised, there would be no point in it existing. Personally, I would prefer social housing not to exist, and for people who need help to be explicitly given cash via the benefits system to obtain the housing they need. That would make housing subsidies more transparent. Also, I may be wrong about this, but if things had always been done this way, councils would never have had a conflict of interest between their role as housing provider and their role in planning. I assume that it's not a co-incidence that all hideous tower blocks in London were built by the public sector. I'm guessing councils granted themselves permission for buildings that a private developer would never have been allowed to put up.

Yes Cote you are understanding it correctly.

I want social housing to be there for those who need it. My son is always likely to need security of a permanent tenancy due to his disabilities. This is why I am grateful to have the tenancy of tbis house.

However my understanding is that things are changing for new tenants and their circumstances will be reviewed every few years.

"So, you have one difficult period in your life, and the cheap-rent house is then yours for life.

Am I understanding this correctly?"

Yes Cote. That is the gist of it.

Any troubled teen can go absolutely bananas, get pregnant, drive her parents to distraction, be kicked out of home deliberately or not, put their name down on a list, and be set up with cheap housing for Life - To take it to the far extreme.

On the other end, there is people like LisaD, who is a homeowner, face enormous hardship with her sick husband and children with special needs, neither of them can work, have to sell their home, and cant get on this list, because they have deliberately made themselves homeless.

Or women who flee domestic violence. Regardless of what happens after she and her children got a roof above their heads, they get social housing for life.

People "play" the system all the time. Whereas other vulnerable people in trouble cannot get a foot in.