To think 4 people can't fit in 2 bed house

[BananaCakePie]

The title explains it all really.

Teenage son in one room,mother,grandmother and teenage daughter sharing a room.

So you don't have life insurance yourself yet your judging someone else for not having it when you know nothing of their circumstances?

Sirzy my condition means that I contribute little financially to the family pot anyway. I'm not judging anyone. Just saying that life insurance is a really good idea. Not that controversial is it?

More important than life insurance for anyone planning to avoid this situation is being married to DP. Then the surviving spouse would be able to claim widowed parent's allowance until the DC leave school.

What a difficult situation. I shared a room with my mum (and a bed) toll I was about 16. She snored, I was always tired. I needed privacy, but never had it. That is life.

Is the loft usable, have they checked it out? Useful for storage if boarded. Even a shed can be used by teens to chill out if needed, though maybe not in winter.

Teens share, and adults share, no other alternative. Have sofa bed in lounge as well for those night when somebody just needs a night to themselves - knowing there is an option for some alone time can make things bearable. Freecycle might provide a free one.

Agree with ideas to have granny with other siblings.

It could work but definitely not in the combination you suggest.

The council would need to help them wouldn't they?
If they cannot afford to pay for appropriate accommodation for themselves...they must be able to step in and offer something affordable?
If they are having to move, have they been evicted? I'm not sure how it works, but I'm somewhat they would give them the right sized place which would be affordable?

To be in this kind of situation I wonder a few things, is SIL receiving benefits like child and working tax credit? These could well make paying rent on a bigger place more affordable..just thinking even if SIL only made NMW and CT was £140? A week for the kids, plus the £150 from granny, this money could be used to pay for rent, at £290 a week, then SIL wages to live off.

I do know some areas, even that amount wouldn't touch rent, but it's possible I should hope.

SIL also needs to get stern with the family, how ducking dare they...oh she's widowed, she can have mum. SIL is probably the worst off in a financial sense. I'd be telling them, sorry but no...how is it that SIL takes on the whole burden of her mother? If she's physically taking care of her, the others should at least make a contribution to her living costs, to enable gran to stay, if you will.

I haven't read the whole thread yet but there is a family in my road who moved into their three bedroom house with 2 adults and 4 kids.

Now they have a 5th child and she is pregnant again and they have acquired 2 big dogs.

And the bedrooms in the house are tiny.

SIL needs to book an appointment with Citizens Advice Bureau to find out what she and her mother are both entitled to. CAB will give contact details for various groups/charities that can help too. They really are a great resource and should be first place to go to for advice.

Also, mother needs to be assessed by Occupational Therapist because if she is unable to live at home then she is being cared for. GP should refer her. OT can then explain what care she is entitled to and how SIL can put it in place, including what benefits she's entitled to to get said care. This also includes equipment that she may need.

I've got a friend who used to live with 6 in a 3 bed house. Gran, Mum (my friend) and her 4dc (1 dd 3 ds). Gran had a room. Ds1 and 2 had a room. Mum shared a room with dd (split by a curtain for privacy) then when ds3 came along he shared her bed. There was literally nowhere else for him.
Not ideal but it was OK

"The council would need to help them wouldn't they? "

Councils are already overwhelmed, skint and understaffed. Right to buy massively reduced the number of council house properties available, central govt have reduced the amount available for housing benefit a lot in recent years, as a result of global and national economic collapse many more families are being made homeless and being forced into overcrowding situations.

Shelter estimates 8 million households are only one pay cheque away from eviction.

No landlord would let their property to this set up anyway

It's probably not legal/safe as will be overcrowded
It's untenable
Might lead to adaptations being made a landlord might not want

Haha yea cos there's no dodgy landlords! Rent and deposit scams, gas leaks, mould, damp, revenge evictions, harassment (including sexual and stalking), even outright theft and assault!

SIL needs to book an appointment with Citizens Advice Bureau to find out what she and her mother are both entitled to
Absolutely I cannot understand how GM can put £600 per month into the household and they still cannot afford more than a 2 bedroom and not be entitled to any benefits or tax credits.

The landlord knows how many of them will be in the house. She said it's up to them what they want to do with sleeping arrangements as long as they're not doing stuff like putting up a plaster wall or whatever

Persian presumably because grandma also needs food, clothing, shoes, toiletries, bus fares and other transport costs, non prescription medications or supplements, buys herself the odd bottle of sherry and other luxury/ treat, buys people presents and posts them, causes SIL to lose the single adult discount on council tax, increases all household bills because she is in all day and if she mostly sits is probably cold and has the heating on etc etc.

She's not contributing £600 net - she probably costs/ spends about what she contributes.

Plus law woolly on overcrowding:

Legal definition of overcrowding
There are two ways to calculate if you are overcrowded under housing law. One is by the number of rooms for people to sleep in. This is called the room standard. The other is by the amount of space in the home and the number of people living in it. This is called the space standard.

Statutory overcrowding is when there are too many people living in your home using either of the calculations.

How to calculate statutory overcrowding: number of rooms
The room standard says your home is legally overcrowded if two people of the opposite sex have to share a room to sleep in. This does not apply when couples share a room.

Children under 10 years old are not counted under the room standard.

Your bedrooms and any living rooms are counted as rooms you can sleep in. It doesn't matter which rooms you actually sleep in.

Under the room standard, a couple with a boy and a girl aged under the age of 10 in a one-bedroom flat with a living room are not overcrowded.

How to calculate statutory overcrowding: amount of space
Under the space standard, the number of people in your home is compared with both the number of rooms and the floor area.

There are two separate calculations for working out if you're overcrowded. The first looks at the number of rooms you have. The second looks at the floor area in your home. The answer to each calculation gives the number of rooms that's enough for you and your family.

If the numbers are different, the lower number is used. Your home is legally overcrowded if the number of people living there is more than this.

To count the number of people:

don't include children under 1 year old
children aged 1 to 9 years count as a half
anyone aged 10 or over counts as one person
To count the number of rooms, include bedrooms and living rooms but don't include any rooms under 50 square feet.

Number of rooms
The number of rooms considered enough for your family is:

1 room for 2 people
2 rooms for 3 people
3 rooms for 5 people
4 rooms for 7.5 people
5 or more rooms for 2 people per room
Floor area
The minimum floor area considered enough for your family is:

50 - 69 square feet (4.6 - 6.5 square metres) for 0.5 people
70 - 89 square feet (6.5 - 8.4 square metres) for 1 person
90 - 109 square feet (8.4 -10 square metres) for 1.5 people
110 square feet (10.2 square metres) for 2 people

From shelter website

That also means legally ops sil not overcrowded and therefore not entitled to council house.

I know of two people currently who are having to be a bit creative with their space - one is mum, dd aged 9, lodger (which mum needs to help pay mortgage) and grandmother all in a 2 bed terraced house: she is having her old outhouse at the back insulated so that she and dd can sleep there. Another, in one bed council bungalow, mum and dd aged 20, are going to get a summerhouse in the garden so that people can stay, such as grandmother, or brother, wife and kids.

So I suppose if you want to put it this way, people are starting to sleep in sheds and outhouses!

she probably costs/ spends about what she contributes
Maybe, maybe not that is why a CAB benefits review would be a good idea.

are going to get a summerhouse in the garden so that people can stay
They need to be very careful there if the neighbours see people coming and going from the summer house and complain to the council they could find themselves with more hassle than it is worth.

lodger (which mum needs to help pay mortgage)
I wonder why the lodger has chosen to lodge in that situation because there are a lot of better situations out there.

If it is cheap, the Lodger may have taken it if they are skint.

I wonder why the lodger has chosen to lodge in that situation because there are a lot of better situations out there.

Cheap? They get their own room I assume, no huge difference for bathroom to sharing a 'normal' house share.

Cheap? They get their own room I assume, no huge difference for bathroom to sharing a 'normal' house share
Maybe but it would feel pretty crowded with three other people living there.

They need to be very careful there if the neighbours see people coming and going from the summer house and complain to the council they could find themselves with more hassle than it is worth.

Not if it's ancillary.