to think it cant carry on young families living in cramped flats while protected pensioners rattle around in 5 bed houses

[generationrentsucks]

I just think with the Tories in now, nothing will change with housing, they will keep prices high by carrying on with these help to buy that just allow sub prime loans.

Also I think hardly anyone actually ever downsizes, everyone says they do but not many can actually bring themselves to do it.

www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/

March against Austerity on June 20th.

ArcheryAnnie, working closely with adult social care at the moment, agree that social networks are really important for older people, because we can't afford to continue the current level of care packages.
However I also don't think older people would be forced to move far away for this reason.

What about people who have never had children but live in a 'family' house, do they get shuttled off too?

I live in London and just at our end of the road at least 3 of the 4 bedroom houses are owned by couples in their 30s, 40s & 50s who have never had children. All have pretty active lives, they do not live in one room. They have loads of friends and family coming to stay. Should they have never been allowed to live in these houses, or is there a certain age you should be deemed unworthy of a full life in your home ?

People of all ages move all the time as their circumstances change ArcheryAnnie. Some are happy. Some less so. Some are tenants. Some are homeowners. Some are old. Some are young.

It's not a good enough reason to call off the bedroom tax IMO.

I'm talking about the pensioners you'd like to turf out, SaucyJack. If they don't want to go somewhere they don't know anybody, should we make them?

We're late 50s and have no problem with the idea of downsizing to help our son get into the housing market. He's still only 16 so it's a while off but I'd much rather that than have him drumming his fingers, waiting for us to die. However we've been warned to be very careful and that we risk making ourselves vulnerable although I'm not sure yet what the reasons are.

I know you're talking about pensioners Annie. But what I don't get is why pensioners in social housing are the only people in the country who apparently shouldn't be expected to move if their circumstances change. That's just life, Shirley?

My granddad had to give up his home and move into sheltered housing a few years ago as his house became too much for him. No one gave a shite about the social impact on him of having to leave the place he'd lived in for 54 years cos he was a homeowner- and people aren't interested unless they can blame Shiny Dave .

Presumably the idea of the loss of the spare room subsidy not yet applying to pensioners is to get people downsizing long before they get to the point where it's genuinely traumatic for them to move.

Yanbu. Obviously if someone owns their home they have every right to live there but that doesn't make it right that families are paying a fortune to be crammed into tiny flats. Wrt the bedroom tax, pensioners are exempt and there are not enough 1 bed flats for them to downsize to anyway. There are nowhere near enough council places which means that people who can't afford to buy have to privately rent, sometimes with help from housing benefit which means that public money goes to landlords. If you're like us paying almost 2/3 of your income on rent it is impossible to save for a deposit to buy your own home and the waiting list for a council place is so long we were told there was no point applying! The whole system is crazy and only benefits the rich at the expense of everyone else.

I give a shit about anyone - homeowner or not - being forced away from their social networks. As I've said, it not only comes with a social cost to the people, but also with an economic cost to the state, as people then have to reply on care which friends and family might otherwise provide.

Where I live there are huge numbers of luxury flats being built on every available space. The impact on the infrastructure is going to be terrible - if they are all purchased and lived in. However, local people will not be able to afford them, so they will all be bought up by rich/overseas landlords and the rents will be massive.

I would like to see a sensible programme of building mixed housing to be owned and managed by HAs with reasonable affordable rents and no right to buy.

I am infuriated by Cameron's plans to make HA property available to buy at reduced prices. That will only make everything much worse.

When I lived in USA renting was the norm for most people. Apartment complexes were affordable, well managed and well designed. There is a lot to be said for living in a decent home with someone else responsible for maintenance and repairs - when the property owners are required to manage effectively and the law is enforced.

The way the system operates in this country just encourages greedy people to exploit the poor.

I am approaching retirement, but will still be a full time carer and we will still have 3 generations living in our family home for the foreseeable future.

A relative and his Russian wife are buying a 3 bed ex-council flat in Battersea, acting as agents for her parents, currently living in Bulgaria. It's an investment property. They will never live there.

The projected rental is £1,900 a month.

And extending the Right to Buy is a good idea?

In some countries you have to be resident to buy a property and it must be for your own personal use. I think we should have a similar rule here.
Most of London's rental property appears to be owned by foreign nationals/companies charging enormous rents - this is commercial property as well as residential. I find that very worrying.

I'm not sure it will be possible to extend right to buy to HA properties.

Aren't HAs independent charities? So they are not 'owned' by the state which therefore has no legal right (currently) to force sales on HAs?

Because the HAs certainly don't want to do this.

Yet it was held out as an election promise, one of the last-minute bribes.

I'm certainly hoping that some of these chickens come home to roost.

And the Right to Buy LA properties still exists. Reading the thread, pp are saying councils should build this, build that - but what is the point if whatever they build can be sold off in a few years at a hugely increased price? And where can they find the land?

One of my cousins bought her uncle's flat for him. It had been specially adapted for disabled living, the reason he got a council flat in the first place. He paid her rent till he died. She now owns a two bed ground floor flat 5 mins from Blackheath Station. The rent is her pension.

It benefits one individual family, but to the detriment of many, many more.

Right to buy is essentially a lottery ticket. What a fantastically bad idea.

I don't think it's a case of demonizing or blaming old people, they presumably weigh up their options and act in what they perceive to be their best interests.
Just like we all do

The role of govt surely is to legislate/regulate to provide incentives for people to act in ways which further the long term best interests of society as a whole.
if we have unregulated markets then, as people pursue their short term best interests we have a winner takes all situation where a few lucky people have huge prizes and most of us have not much in comparison.

The few winners may have worked harder and been more able but they are not 100's of times more hardworking than even the laziest of the many.

Those who have properties which have massively increased in value did work hard to pay for them in the first instance but they did nothing to earn the huge windfall gained via the disproportionate rise in property prices

3littlefrogs One of the rights of any property owner is to sell it for what it will fetch on the open market. That sort of restriction could only be imposed on new build - and if we stay in the EU all EU citizens will have to be allowed to buy too.

And what about those who don't have kids, or whose kids have got big houses themselves? Are they allowed to continue having a large house that is bigger than they need?

Exactly. What about those of us who chose to buy houses with more bedrooms than we 'need'? Was I as a single person wrong to buy a 4 bedroom house? Should I have limited myself to a one bedroom house so that a family could have bought the 4 bed?

If we start getting into who can and cannot buy and keep certain property, we're going to end up with housing completely controlled by the government. Given the mess government housing already is can you imagine what a disaster it would be to have regs on who can buy and keep what?

This is an issue about private property and personal liberty if we are talking about privately owned homes and indeed other possessions like cars and savings in the bank. Plenty of left wing states over the years have confiscated property. In the UK we had such huge inheritance tax that more landed estates were sold than retained around the 1930s - 50s I think it was.

The people have just voted in a Tory Government in part because Labour proposed confiscation of wealth for owners of certain property and the people did not like that idea. Labour was not a party for those with aspirations. If it does not change it will not be elected in 5 years' time.

Exactly. What about those of us who chose to buy houses with more bedrooms than we 'need'?

I don't think anyone is talking about people who own their house. it's those people who are being supported by the state that are being asked to downsize.

It seems wrong to kick people out of their council houses just because they're not homeowners. I kind of support right to buy for that reason. People should be able to protect their homes and live in them indefinitely. Downsizing should be a choice, for everyone.

Where does reasonable taxation end and confiscation of wealth begin, Lotus?

well there is income tax and then there is wealth tax

I think the banks, who massively fund HAs, will not be terribly in favour of the right to buy. How will the loan debt to the banks be managed?

This one will quietly go when the banks lean on Cameron. I hope.

its normally the cost of private sector housing that would be the problem - plenty of larger properties come onto the market in most areas. the older people would need to sell at a discount/reduced rate or the younger people couldn't afford the larger houses.

would i be happy trading down if the price difference was neglible? clearly no. what would be the incentive...