£55000 to give up my council house?!?

[Edenviolet]

AIBU to be in complete shock that the council offered me the above amount today to buy a home in the private sector if I relinquish my secure tenancy three bed council house?

It seems like an awful lot of money? Just for one house. Why don't they just build more social housing instead of paying out grants like this?

My dh works full time...

Lots of people are desperate to move out of London council housing. Kent and Essex are full of time its not exactly living the dream, it's often pretty grim. And you can commute in for any job from those suburbs. You don't have to move up north

Where can you pay a whole house for £55k that's not a shithole? You can't even do that here and it's cheap as there are FA jobs or amenities.

Sorry, that was for the pp saying about wondering why they 'bother working'

It could work if our situation was different, I am just unsure as dh is not in great health and I would never want to be in a situation where we couldn't pay a mortgage

That's fair enough, you also need to consider maintenance and insurances you don't pay now. But for many people this would be an amazing opportunity. Doesn't suit everyone though.

Tell them you'll consider £150k assuming you would

The council will get this house back one day anyway. Once dcs have all grown up we will take advantage of their offer (if they still do it!) to downsize.

Did you really not know you could stay in them for life? They're mainly populated by pensioners who have been there all their adult lives

Basically, you've been sent a "fishing" letter. All the housing department will have done is run a report of three-bedroomed properties where the rent account is not in arrears, and sent all the tenants of those properties a similar, if not identical, offer. They have paid absolutely no attention to your family's circumstances, and it's definitely not tailored to you.

For other tenants of three-bedroomed properties, this could be a godsend. They might be desperate to get out of London for whatever reason, but be unable to afford a deposit on a property elsewhere, plus moving costs.

In your shoes, given the security and very favourable conditions of your DH's job, plus your family's health issues, I'd be going absolutely nowhere unless they offered ten times that amount. You'd be daft to even consider it.

In an ideal world, yes, the council would be using this money to build more social housing. However, given the length of time that would take (planning and other bureaucracy before they can even start building), and the immense pressure on them to find suitable housing for people as fast as possible, this is a much quicker fix for them. It's definitely not a fix for you.

You cannot stay in them for life nowadays unless you pay or are about 70 and on a pension. Once you have more rooms than you need and a young family with children need it then you are obliged to move or pay the difference, a change much supported by most voters.

Used to be the same with secure private tenancies (actually, I think it still is, just that gettin ga secure private tenancy is like finding hen's teeth, though there are probably still some old dears sitting on them for dear life). If you had a rent book, you had rights to the rent staying at a certain level, and if the landlord wanted you out or to sell up (without finding a buyer who would take on the tenancy) he had to pay up- basically what it got to take the tenant to shift.

A friend of mine, his mum lived in Highgate in private rented accommodation for about 30 odd years. In the early noughties, when she retired from work, her landlord gave her enough money to buy a house outright in Essex close to her daughter so he could realise the gains made on the value of the flat.

It was basically meant to give people security and also recognise that the money they paid in rent had been a vital part of the upkeep of the place, that they should share in any increase in value etc.

Much fairer way to look at it than today's totally insecure housing jungle free for all.

I think people would be mad to move from council into the private rented sector. But as far as home ownership goes I actually think this is a good thing.

If there is somebody who is more than capable of buying their own home sitting in a council house while families are in B&Bs and hostels who could never, ever afford ownership as an alternative then I actually think it's quite a good idea.

I know this won't go down well with Mumsnet's Champagne Socialists but I'm more concerned with people who are actually genuinely poor having access to secure, affordable housing rather than people who are actually quite comfortably off being able to save money and have more disposable income by blocking social housing which other people have more need of.

This doesn't sit well with me although I am finding it difficult to sort out the arguments in my head.

People who never got Council Houses and who have been stuck in the private rented sector for many years, never, ever "scoring" enough points seem doubly screwed. Their taxes to pay someone get their own house and to vacate that house for someone who, more than likely has more points but been on the list less time.

It is not a fair solution - but then nothing is when there are simply not enough houses to go round.

No personal comments to the OP though. In her shoes I'd keep the tenancy unless she was definitely considering moving.

I don't think it works at all in your case, but having been involved in a small way with social housing in one of the London Boroughs, it's not a bad scheme.

Where it works particularly well is when you have an elderly tenant whose family have all grown-up and they are rattling around in a 3/4 bedroom house - the offer of £50k to move to a 1 bed flat (in the same area - and often with a redecoration grant) is a great deal for both sides, even if it seems grossly unfair to many local taxpayers and people in private rental.

I admit to getting very irritated when people in that situation didn't want to move as they liked the extra bedrooms for their grandchild to visit once a year. When you have seen families with 3 children stuck in a 2 bed flat for years due to severe shortage of larger houses, it seems ludicrous that someone can refuse to move from a house that they don't need and don't own.

Especially when you have 15k people on the housing waiting list and no land or money to build more then it can help. Councils would never be able to compete with private developers for available building land in central London.

The deal is that developers have to set aside 20% of units for "affordable housing" if their development goes over a certain number. In practice, these are generally 'shared ownership' not council properties. They also pay Section 106 money towards local amenities, doctors surgeries, schools etc

A PP noted that some social tenants can no longer use communal areas they could previously. What actually happens is that when a site is redeveloped, social housing is normally in a separate block from the private housing. The reason for this is that council tenants can't afford the often £2k+ annual service charge that is slapped on the private tenants.

It's illegal to make some people pay more than others for service charges ie subsidising the social tenants. So, the private tenants will get the landscaped gardens and carpeted hallways as they are paying through the nose for them.

For the OP, stay put for definite, a 3-bed in N London is pretty much a lottery jackpot, especially if there are health concerns.

Silverblur - you would think so wouldn't you! Bob Crow felt no shame in taking up a council property despite his £6 figure salary. There is at least 1 Labour MP who does the same.

A number of people who worked alongside me thought that a better system would be to means-test every 5 years. If you earn x amount over the income that would allow you to qualify for social housing, then you have the option to move, or to pay market rental.

People complain that is means children would have to move schools, they couldn't stay near their parents and so on, but actually they would still be in a better situation than anyone in private rental who is at the mercy of the landlord when it comes to schools, neighbours and so on.

It does seems rather unfair that people on housing waiting-lists and those on low incomes who have only the option of private rental should be paying taxes to allow others who earn the same or even considerably more to have protected and vastly cheaper housing for life.

One of my friends who is a higher rate tax-payer was shocked when he discovered what he would have to pay for the same flat he has through the council if it was a private rental - sat there with his jaw on the table!

Why should the low income family with 3 children crammed into an extortionately expensive 2 bed private rental while Bob Crow and the like take up a big council house to make a political point?

I would love people of all salary levels to be able to stay on social housing. Sadly there are no longer enough properties to do this. I agree 5 years to get on your feet, skill up/ work your way up/ get your children on school is realistic

Nw London. So 55000 would be nowhere near a big enough deposit to buy the same size house. Average prices for a three bed are upwards of 500000

bullshit. I dont agree, if you look at a borough out, and exlocal authoirty you can get for cheaper

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-44180452.html

here is a very pleasant house for 375K

I dont to get all UKIP on ya arse OP, but you realise many people move to less desirable suburbs cos they cant afford where they are?

I think it's quite clear a lot of posters on here don't know NW London very well

it makes sense.

Give OP 55K
sell house for 500K
use money to buy "brownfield land" and build flats for more people

and.....we are talking about people , children and families not commodities I know

Councils aren't allowed to sell off housing and use the money to build more properties. I'm sure there must be a reason for this policy, but no idea what it is.

Even if they could, not all councils have access to brownfield land especially in central London and money raised in one Borough has to be spent in that Borough - it's not a big central pot.

Gosh that is alot tax payers money to give out. The whole council house system is seriously broken and needs changing asap so that the issue maybe resolved in 20 years time.

The solution is to fund more social housing, not devise ways to kick out the few people who have secure housing.

The right is so quick to deride "the politics of envy" but the bitter envy directed at those in social housing in affluent areas shows their utter hypocrisy.

I'm no expert but I'd imagine with a £55k deposit on the £375k house mentioned above we would pay more in mortgage than we do now in rent. On one wage it wouldn't be manageable

For someone else it may be ideal