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.

My parents pay rent on their council house my sister lives there depending on her shifts when my parents retire they will continue to pay rent where have they to go so a family can move in there is nowhere for them to go

If anyone wants a five bedroom house, I am selling one. Let me know.

of course the one big incentive to downsize for the really financial savy is so that they can give the money to their kids so they can buy bigger houses, rather than it being spent on care home fees as my mothers was. so if you actually consider it, there are incentives in place already to downsize

I agree that older people should not be in large rented homes subsidised by housing benefit-but is that really happening?

Yes, most definitely. IIRC they're the largest group of under-occupiers of council property.

YABVU if they own their own home or pay their own rent.

Adults need to realise that the things in life they want are to be funded by themselves. If they want a large house or numerous children then they need to work hard to cover it. If they can't afford a large home then they need to limit their family size to what fits.

Don't blame the people who have worked hard to buy or build a five bedroom house. They've worked and paid shedloads of tax their whole working lives. That tax contribution is their bit of society.

Blame this and the past few governments who have turned the UK into a low skill, low wage economy where employers are subsidised with tax credits so they can continue to pay sub-living wages to working people. Blame them for not building enough social housing.

The young vs old thing is a ruse - it's not the older generation's fault - they built this country up after the war and worked for a fairer society. The real divide is those who are asset stripping the country and the vast majority who are getting totally screwed over by it. Blame every government post 1979. And especially those post 1997.

My Grandad lives in a 3 bed HA property. He pays full rent and has done since 1953. He doesn't want to move, it is his choice. I don't think he should be made to downsize.

Yes really unfair that my Nan lived in her 4 bedroom house. My Nan who lived through the war, did war work. Worked whilst bringing up a family of 4 kids with no mod cons, who slaved in the kitchen after a day at work to put food on the table. My Nan, who died 2 weeks after her house was sold because she could no longer look after herself. I am still convinced that losing her house broke her heart. I would give anything to see her in that house now.

Bedroom tax. What exactly does it mean please?

If I were renting a council house and paying the full rent myself out of my pension for that size of property would I be charged more or is it considered that I would be paying the market rent?

Or, is it a charge imposed if my rent were being paid with benefits and the benefit calculation said that I wasn't entitled to receive that much because I didn't need that much space?

The latter seems right but only if there is a suitable council property for the person to move to. I don't think they should be forced into a nasty tower block or sink estate.

My dad wouldnt buy his council house he doesnt believe in it he was a miner and was convinced the money went straight to Magaret Thatchers bank account so when they chose to move or go into a care home or the end comes then their hpuse will go back into housing stock for a family he says thats himdoing his bit which is fair enough

My parents have worked their arses off to buy and out rightly own their big house. I've worked my ass off to buy my house with my DH. I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell me that we can't live in the houses that we've worked hard bettering ourselves to buy just because we have a spare bedroom or two (or four).

Call me selfish, I don't care, we'll continue to work our asses off to buy a bigger house that maybe one day will become an 'empty nest'.

Its the latter so housing benefit wont pay for a 3 bed house if its under occupied

If these pensioners own their own houses than it is no-one else's business if they continue to live there in old age, no matter how many bedrooms it has.

If your looking for someone to blame then Maggie Thatcher is the one. If the country's social housing stock had not been flogged off in exchange for working class votes in the 80s then there would likely be enough to go round now. Isn't it great that the Tories now plan to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants. There'll be even less social housing stock to go round.

In the 60s the town a grew up in built hundreds of one bedroom properties for OAPs.
Then Mrs Thatcher brought in Right to Buy and so many of those properties have no been sold off. The canny children of the OAPs raised the money of the parents behalf. When the old person died the property was sold at the market value.

The privately owned large properties will be freed up when the old people die or go into care.

I have two spare bedrooms as I often have DGC to stay whilst the parents work.

I don't want to be looked after them in a one bed flat.

Cross post with Exhausted about the wonderful Tory Mrs T.

haven't read whole thread but DH's nan lives in a four bed house private rented (that she gets help to pay for) and she has a pension.
She goes to Australia twice a year to stay with DH's Aunt for 6- 8 weeks over Christmas and in october!

MIL lives in a 3 bedroom house with FIL she's been told she'd be top priority for a bungalow due to her disabilities which include spondalosis so severe she can't walk more than 5 foot unaided but she refuses to move because her friend needs her to check on her in case something happens. Friend has COPD and lots of very lovely doting family. Truth is MIL is afraid she will be made to share a bedroom with FIL and FIL is afraid of giving up his computer room. Our council subsidies their bedroom tax. She will be the first to tell you how unfair it is that DH, DD12, DS2 and I are stuck in a 2 bed place.

Some people don't want to move for whatever reason and we can't force them no matter how unfair it seems after all no matter how its spun they're still humans with feelings and good memories of their homes.

'Bedroom tax doesn't apply to anyone claiming pension credit. So lots of older people rattling around in multi roomed homes.'

NO ONE over the age of 62 is, pension credit or no. Largest percentage of underoccupiers of social housing is in this category.

In this area all the family sized houses are council and the smaller ones are housing association.

To move from a 4 bed council house to a 1 bed HA one your rent would jump up by about £70-£100 a month, although still cheaper than private rent, I can see why people don't want to pay more rent for less space.

The elderly owners will eventually die. Morbid, but true.

'The elderly owners will eventually die. Morbid, but true.'

And can, in many cases, hand the tenancy to their children or use money their children give them to buy the place.

62 is not 'elderly'. Many that age can and will live 20-30+ more years.

The OP doesn't specify privately owned or council/HA homes.

In the case of the former, I agree it's madness for grandparents to rattle around in family homes while their DC and DGC pay mortgages to live in inadequate ones. Their choice, of course, and they're perfectly entitled to make it.

However, if I'm ever in that position, I'll be downsizing and divvying things up for my DC.

I sympathise with your generation and I have a son who will be in the same boat. But many pensioners hang on to their homes because they know the only chance their kids will have to get on the housing ladder will be if they inherit.

As I understand it, if you gift it now there'll be no IHT if you live another seven years. Ker-ching!

As I understand it, you can't give something away that you are still using. So, if you give your house to your children and still live there, you have to pay them rent at the market rate out of income not capital, and they will have to pay tax on that rent.

But I'd be really glad to hear that I'm wrong.

Quite possibly.

But if the idea is to free up living space for young families and not just to give IHT the swerve, then it's a non-issue.

A relative did this for her DC. She downsized to a lovely little cottage; her elder son with three small DC kept on the large family home (with a small mortgage) and the younger son got a lump sum.

So say we forced all over 65s to sell their large homes, that they own. Their own property. Which councils are going to buy them? Who will they sell them to, to enable a large family to live in?

You can't compare OAPs owning their own home to there not being enough HA homes.

Also when these OAPs bought their first homes and worked to pay the mortgage, they didn't know there would be a boom or the houses would be worth so much. Do we punish them anyway and take away the home they have always lived in and paid off?