Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 12 13

Original poster

I bought my council house...I feel horribly guilty and anxious

307 replies

RodMunch · 09/12/2016 10:49

I got it for less than half market value, we had a small deposit too so as a result our mortgage is miniscule. DH earns well and because of this, I don't really need to work. I have 3 dc, 2 at school and the littlest is 3. I do some voluntary work but mostly just stay at home with him.

We have had the house a year in January. I feel incredibly guilty seeing my friends suffer juggling jobs and childcare and stuff and paying loads out in rent / mortgage. The only reason we could TTC for dc3 was due to being in a council property so the rent was ok. It sucks and its unfair ...I don't deserve what I have...I got the house originally by the skin of my teeth 8 years ago as a single mum, no one gets houses now and I have taken another one away. and I am part of the unfairness and I don't like myself much for it :(

It sounds mad...I can't believe my luck but feel I don't deserve it. DH and I are happy and the DC want for nothing but I honestly feel like something is going to go horribly wrong for us as a sort of karma.

I identify as left wing yet I feel like I have completely gone against my principles and profited massively from a Tory policy that has ruined council housing in this country.

OP posts:

Original poster

RodMunch · 09/12/2016 12:04

Indigo

I was a single, not working parent when I moved into my house, I would not have got it had I have been with a partner esp if he was working

OP posts:

Suppermummy02 · 09/12/2016 12:04

I have taken another one away
You lived in the house before, you live in it now, how has another one gone away?

The council are quids in, they get the lump sum from the sale and no longer have to pay to maintain the house. Whether or not the council use that money to build more houses or not is not within your power. If they do you will have actually helped to house more people.

A lot of people have left wing fantasies of a socialist utopia but when the rubber hits the road the reality is that its just not viable and people dont want to live in penury just so we are all equal. Hence we never vote for left wing extremists like Corbyn.

twilightcafe · 09/12/2016 12:05

So guilty about inequality that you went ahead and bought the council house.

Pull the other one!

QueenLizIII · 09/12/2016 12:05

So you moved a well earning man who could afford to pay private rents into a council house, married him and had more DC and used his money to buy said council house to live cheaply for the rest of your lives when people are living in temporary accommodation all over the place and made homeless.

Well, you go girl.

What do you want people to say?

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 09/12/2016 12:06

I own my own home thanks partly to help from parents and partly to my own efforts. I was born bright and took advantage of a good education, and had the health to work hard in stressful careers. So I'm lucky. However the love of my life died young ot cancer and both our DC have had major health problems. Life is unfair.

When my kids whined about things being unfair I used to tell them to be grateful. They could have been born in the Sudan.

HeyRoly · 09/12/2016 12:08

You haven't cheated the system. It is what it is. Clearly it's deeply flawed, and I don't remotely understand why council properties are sold at such massive discounts...

Temporaryname137 · 09/12/2016 12:08

If you feel that badly about it, put the house on the market for what you paid for it, and use your husband's income to buy somewhere else.

If you don't want to do that, don't talk about feeling guilty without doing something about it. Either put your money where your mouth is, or just accept that you had a lucky break - let's face it, some people inherit money, some people win money, some people are born with a rare gift that lets them make money - and in the nicest way, STFU about it!

QueenLizIII · 09/12/2016 12:09

I was born bright

So you knew your alphabet, multiplication tables, etc fresh from the womb?

How is one born bright?

EmeliaHerveyHenryFitzroy · 09/12/2016 12:10

Are you actually against the private system though? That's where I have issues and believe it becomes gross hypocrisy.

Well I guess what I think is that I am a socialist, my DC aren't and I won't divest them of opportunities that I can afford to give them because of my own beliefs or dissonance. (i.e. Social guilt)

As a socialist I can, however, teach them that with privilege comes responsibility. and particularly social responsibility. I can only hope they might live their lives with more conviction than I have done as I do so like an easy life and am only willing to socially sacrifice so much...

QueenLizIII · 09/12/2016 12:10

You haven't cheated the system. It is what it is. Clearly it's deeply flawed, and I don't remotely understand why council properties are sold at such massive discounts..

Neither do I.

I keep seeing ex council properties all over rightmove being sold at market value. So the next thing is, people profiteer from them despite having paid half market value for them.

It just doesnt make sense.

Foxysoxy01 · 09/12/2016 12:10

It really boils my piss the way you acting like a victim!
Nobody forced you to buy a highly reduced council house that others in need could've benefited from. Presumably you weighted up all the pros and cons and your 'morals' and decided to go ahead.

Your morals couldn't have been very strong to begin with.

You are not a left wing, power to the people type, own what you are and stop playing a victim.

As for having the thread moved to mental health, don't you think that might be a little insulting?

Temporaryname137 · 09/12/2016 12:10

"people dont want to live in penury just so we are all equal"

I wonder about this. If you took away everyone's assets and liquidated them, and gave everyone in the country the same amount of money - what are the odds that in a few years some/most of the same people would be richer and some/most of the same people poorer? I guess you can't ever make everyone truly equal, because some people will already have had the benefit of education/contacts etc, but it would be fascinating as a social experiment.

caroldecker · 09/12/2016 12:13

Rodmunch there is nothing wrong with what you have done, but it flies in the face of what you believe. Morally you are a right-wing taker who puts self first and fuck the rest.

EmeliaHerveyHenryFitzroy · 09/12/2016 12:14

Jesus people really do get worked up when you have socialist leanings but also want to better your own life. It's such a simplistic and easily accessible argument.

We live in the society that we live in and we function within the system that we live, that doesn't mean that we can't work towards bettering ourselves as well as having a social conscience- it's not a zero sum game!

QueenLizIII · 09/12/2016 12:15

Surely at the time she moved her then partner in, his income had to be declared and most of her means tested benefits reduced or stopped.

But I guess as someone said, as long as the rent is paid, they dont reassess eligibility.

formerbabe · 09/12/2016 12:17

My late parents were true blue Tory types but unusually perhaps, had lots of typical Islington socialist type friends. My parents had more compassion and kindness in their little fingers than these types had put together. People on the left generally seem to be the most unpleasant people on a personal level that you will ever meet. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk.

AgentProvocateur · 09/12/2016 12:18

"I identify as left wing"

Unfortunately what we self identify as is often very far from the truth.

indigox · 09/12/2016 12:20

I was a single, not working parent when I moved into my house, I would not have got it had I have been with a partner esp if he was working

Sure, I get that but you weren't single for the entire 8 years, there was a point where you were renting and no longer needed the cheap rent but took advantage of it anyway.

ShotsFired · 09/12/2016 12:22

Several pp (me included) have mentioned how the Op coul dhave stuck to her beliefs and not kept the council house (either when she was a tenant who could afford privately with her OH, or by buying it now)

What was that famous psychology experiment where people were offered the chance to keep 100% of what they were offered, or split it with another person? If the other other person then also said split, they both benefited, but if the other person also looked out for himself, the both got nothing.

It's the same principle here - unless all the council tenants offered RTB collectively said "no, we will share the limited resource for the greater good", then there will be losers (i.e. the people unable to be homed now due to lack of stock). Humans are selfish. It was proven in the laboratory with the experiment, and its been proven in real life with this.

RachelRagged · 09/12/2016 12:22

Pink Crystal if there was an applause option I would be applauding you and your post .

To the ones who are giving poor OP a pasting Not EVERYONE has the means or the background or the job etc to get on the property ladder so many in this damn country are OBSESSED with .
So she bought her council house ? Good on her , so what . .Can only echo what Pink said ,, is it the fact its COUNCIL and usually poorer people can now buy that eats you up ??!

MontePulciana · 09/12/2016 12:25

Everyone has done same as OP here in Salford. Friends mum bought for £40k in 2002 it's probably worth £120k now. They were broke though. Do you think you'll ever sell the house OP? Is it the huge profit you will make that's making you feel guilty?

Manumission · 09/12/2016 12:26

Do you really find yourself confused by the concept of "born bright" Liz?

Foureyesarebetterthantwo · 09/12/2016 12:29

I think most people take advantage of the opportunities to better themselves. Richer/wealthier people do this all the time, from going to public school, or getting lent or given a deposit, to staying in their parent's house for free doing a nice internship that gives them the edge in job applications. They do not feel remotely guilty about this.

Selling council houses was envisaged as a similar leg up to the ordinary person who doesn't have those advantages, a chance to get on the property ladder they wouldn't have otherwise, a chance to spend their money on bettering their property rather than just sitting in a rental not improving it because the money was wasted. I actually don't have a problem with the principle of this, and had they spent the money (sold at a fair price) on rebuilding other houses, I'd like to see more widespread (across income brackets) house ownership.

I live in a former council house and pay an extortionate rent for it. Do I blame that person for seizing their chance to lift themselves and their family out of poverty and into the home-owning classes that others more naturally find themselves in (through luck)? Nope. Do I wish more people had the same opportunity and there was a huge house-building programme in England, yes, definitely.

user789653241 · 09/12/2016 12:29

Nah, I don't believe you feel guilty, OP.
You just couldn't resist to boast your luck but couldn't do it in RL, so come on to MN and do it to bunch of strangers.

Bobochic · 09/12/2016 12:29

OP - guilt won't get you anywhere. Worry about the future, not the past, and use your good fortune to bring your DC up to the very best of your abilities.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 12 13

Swipe left for the next trending thread