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.

...and ultimately of course to their own detriment
unless you like the idea of living in a gated community, in fear of the impoverished masses?

My parents want to downsize. Their house (owned outright), while having the same number of rooms, is much larger than mine, and they have a great sized garden. Bungalows here are expensive and few and far between. My mum is always complaining about the lack of bungalows. My auntie and uncle are in the same positiin. Big family house t he y want to downsize out of. Cant find an affordable bungalow.

I do live in a gated community. I wasn't aware they were considered negative (and I'm by no means very wealthy). I do know some very wealthy people. They contribute a lot to society through work and donations and are some of the least selfish people I know.

I'm sure they are
but that is beside my points, which remain standing

but what does it matter now
the turkeys have voted for christmas so we'll all just have to take our chances won't we

I won't be rattling around in my house when I am old. I have no doubt I will still be sharing it with my grown up children who haven't a cat's chance in hell of buying or renting anywhere of their own.

Charging a hefty bedroom tax on private properties - now that would bring in some money!

It is called council tax.

Council tax is not nearly as punitive.

It is called council tax

but the council tax charges don't increase with the value of the property past a certain point

If I was an oap tattling around in a 5 bed house I owned outright, I would make a nice bit of money to go on holidays by renting those rooms out to couples/single parents
My gran and grandad are in a three bed council house with lifetime tenancy, they have lived there years and brought their children up there. They are ill and would be really vulnerable if they were told to move to a smaller council house. But I know they would downsize if they had somewhere to go.

I'm all for paying tax, but fairly. Not arbitrary 'tax the rich!' as a default.

Too funny!

So who should be taxed then? The poor presumably, what with all that money they've got left for skiing holidays and shit, after the kids have been housed, fed, and clothed.

Oh wait, the poor paying disproportionately more tax than the rich... that's kind of what happens now, isn't it?

My 84 year old widowed Dad lives in a three bed HA house, up to last year even if pensioners were liable for the bedroom tax, he wouldn't have been affected as he paid full rent without HB.

Now he has finally had to give up work after 70 bloody years he is on HB so would be liable for the BT if pensioners were included with benefit claimants (his contribution based pension is NOT a benefit no matter what people like to say)

Thing is he had to give up work because he needs hip replacement which he cant have as he has an irregular heartbeat so he is old, disabled and doesn't want to leave his home and why should he.

If it came to pass that HB claiming pensioners were liable for BT then he would stop claiming HB as me and my 3 sisters would be paying his rent for him and with his pension being non means tested, apart from possible tax issues (which we would investigate) I doubt if anything could be done to stop us doing that

I do

Oops sorry

It is almost impossible to get planning permission for new-build bungalows and the supply is drying up. If you want ageing homeowners to downsize that must be reversed.

(My council tax is over £3k. I think that's pretty steep and reflects the fact we have 5 bedrooms (5 children)).

I think the idea of having to leave the home you brought up your family in is potentially very upsetting.

Personally, however, I know at least two pairs of 'empty nest' couples in their 50s/early 60s who have watched their children leave home, sold the family homes and then gone and bought enormous 5 bed houses which they rattle around in with 4 empty bedrooms and space that their children - who are starting their own families now - could only dream of. Neither of these two particular couples has lots of far flung family who need putting up for visits btw. So that particular situation does feel slightly galling I think.

That space could be so much more used by a family with resident children rather than literally left to gather dust, and there's no sentimental angle to it at all.

Why do people act as thought people who have bought their own home are evil. Wanting a house for life is such a bad thing?

Not everyone who has managed to get mortgage is an evil bastard.

Suppose we could just make a law that you can only buy as many bedrooms as you need if you're past an age where you can procreate

Wouldn't make anyone move if they already own somewhere though

But my lovely nan when she couldn't manage to keep her 6 bedroom farm could have been forced into a 1 bedroom flat instead of a 4 bedroom house?

You can't tell anyone who owns their own property how many bedrooms they can have or where they choose to live. It's no one's business.

Sounds like a lot of jealousy to me.

I don't understand the sense of entitlement of some of the posters here. Surely, if you have a family and are able to work you can choose the size of your family and at what stage in your working life to have dc so save up for a deposit before having kids, choose in what region you live; either move where houses are cheaper or where there is more work. In many countries normal ( neither poor nor rich) family's live in apartments with several generations, helping each other out and rubbing along just fine. They certainly don't moan that the state doesn't give them lush housing.

It's clear that more houses need to be built in some regions in the UK but booting out pensioners who have contributed to society for decades, who oftenprovide free child are, who maybe become vulnerable due to ageing, yes, let take their family homes away . I'm afraid if you rely on the state on social housing the you will have to take what is given, or find your own better solutions. If you are talking about privately owned homes then it's also plain ridiculous. People own their houses, have worked hard to pay for them to enjoy their lives.

No one helps us financially or anything. That's why had to have dc later and stopped at two. We have a mortgage, our dc share a room and we have no car. I don't mind.

How impossible is it to get planning permission though? There are a few new housing developments being built near me and a condition of the sale of the land was that so many of the properties were given over to social housing. They're run by a housing association and on the development that is almost completed there is an entire street of social housing bungalows.

Wtf? My parents live in a 4 bed house that they both worked 2 jobs for decades to afford. We never had a new car or a foreign holiday. Now it's bought and paid for. What would you like them to do? Donate it to the homeless? Get a couple of free lodgers? Just because they were born when they were and worked their bloody socks off?

Oh, and with any luck in a few years DH and I will be rattling around in a 4 bed house ourselves. We also don't have new cars or foreign holidays. DH does however work a shedload of overtime to pay this damn mortgage. I suppose we're the evil rich

I certainly don't think pensioners should leave their family homes and don't begrudge them their success at all but something has to change about house prices.
My landlord is a pensioner with three homes, we can't afford to buy one.
We are the youngest and largest family on the street, the only renters and rent the smallest house.
The other houses are all 4-5 bed detached and bought 40 years ago buy people who are now pensioners who would have had similar equivalent incomes to what we have today yet we can't even afford a deposit and even if we could scrape that together we'd be looking at a two bed.
My PIL bought a house 30 years ago when FIL was working at a very junior level in a similar job to DH. MIL was a sahm. They bought a 4 bedroomed house in a decent area for three times FIL's salary. They could then have four kids and mil could be sahm all living off one salary. They had family holidays every year and nice life.
Their house is now worth more than ten times what they paid for it and wages have not increased at the same rate.
This is why it annoys me a bit when pensioners say "I worked hard for this, I deserve it" etc. Yes they worked hard but for the majority of young people owning a home is very difficult these days and it's not a case of working a bit harder.
Most of the time people are wealthy because of luck, privilege, being born with a high IQ etc not because they worked so much harder than the person doing night shifts in a care home for shit pay.