To ask if you are under-occupying social housing that you consider downsizing?

[IckyBex]

If you are in a property with space you no longer need for whatever reason please consider asking to transfer to a smaller property. There are so many families waiting for three or four bedroom housing and hardly any available.
Staying in your four bedroom house after all of your children have left home is depriving another family of the opportunity that you were given.

Everyone around me who could move from a 2 to a 1 bed flat, has done. They couldn’t afford the extra rent when bedroom tax came in. I’m in a 1 bed. Round our way they have stopped building bigger flats and houses and are prioritising suitable accommodation for the ageing population who need sheltered housing. For families our HA has bugger all to offer these days.

What I'd like to know is why altruism is only expected from sh residents. You don't hear many people voicing the opinion that home owners should do similar, and sell at a price that reflects their cost. Even though rising prices are the main problem.

Nobody thinks Mr & Mrs smith should be morally or legally obliged to sell the home they bought decades ago for eg the 3x average nurses salary they paid, rather than the 20x nurses salary the current market value is for the benefit of those who need a big family home and can't afford it.

You misunderstood what I am saying smashedmug . I am not talking about people with low income going into private rents. I completely understand how that works thanks. Don t patronise me. I agree that would be stupid.

I am talking about people in SH who over time their circumstances have changed and their income has increased and is stable. Perhaps kids moved out, got promotion, met new partner with good income. They should move to allow people in need to have a SH house. They shouldn't be able to pass their house onto their kids/grandkids who may also have a good income and no need of SH.

What if? What if? What if? People can't expect to stay in houses too big for them indefinitely because of a maybe which might not happen. Not including those who are vulnerable and most likely to fall into this cycle of insecurity.

When I brought our house with dh I got a mortgage and took it out based on our income at that time. No one would buy a house if they thought about what ifs all the time. My dh is self employed maybe his business will go bust next month. You can't hang around forever waiting for a what if.

Sleep- exactly what I mean just put much better than me. Should be using NZ/Aus system.

Thehogfather - because social housing was designed for people who need it. Rightly or wrongly private housing was not

Social housing was designed for working people to give them a secure home at an affordable rent, not just as people assume, the needy.

Not everywhere is London, not everywhere has no Housing to let via a HA, not everywhere waits 10yrs+ to be housed.

exactly @SluttyButty i have just bidded for a brand new house we have to be a working family which we are dh works full time and im a carer for ds2 who has complex learning disabilities we are alrready in social housing but we need another bedroom , there are other houses available to all but these.are specifically for working families.

I am talking about people in SH who over time their circumstances have changed and their income has increased and is stable.

Income is never stable. You say yourself that your husbands business could go bust next month. Someone who has a stable income could become permanently ill, the business could close, they could lose their job, etc.

No one would buy a house if they thought about what ifs all the time.

I agree with that. But saying that, there's plenty of people who make the choice not to buy for that exact reason. If you had the chance to have stability no matter what happens (i.e. Social housing), you'd be a fool to give it up. So people don't want to.

I do think it's funny that the people supporting the idea of people being schlepped out of their homes are the people who own their own home. It's very easy to decide what other people should be doing when it doesn't affect you personally, isn't it.

social housing is not for the needy

Really? In my city income is one of the criteria. You will see a lot more people on benefits in SH than doctors or corporate lawyers. In my city it is unlikely if you have a 2 parent family working that you will ever get social housing. I appreciate this might vary across the UK though.

Smashed I am not a home owner nor will I ever be. Private rental can be very precarious and I would love a life time tenancy anywhere somewhere. I still think SH should be reassessed after a time period. The vast majority of people I know in SH got it through dishonest measures and don't ever intend to better themselves or work. It is a race to the bottom sadly.

well as you say lastnight and in my above post you will see that the house i bidded today in fact is specifically for working families.

These people waiting for 3 and 4 bed social housing should have thought about how they were going to house their families before they had them. It won't do children any harm to share rooms.

Private rental can be very precarious and I would love a life time tenancy anywhere somewhere. I still think SH should be reassessed after a time period.

Like I said way way way up thread, it's crabs in a bucket. The only people who want this to happen are the people who don't or can't have social housing themselves (i.e. people privately renting or homeowners). You think it should be reassessed because you want one. If you can't have one, you don't think others should. And as if you'd give it up for someone else if you finally got one 😂

Crabs in a bucket.

In my town income isn't a consideration at all except for rent arrears. you can't apply for social housing if you have more than three months rent arrears. They don't ask about your income, a billionaire could apply and s/he'd be given the same priority as a Tesco's cashier if their circumstances were otherwise the same (same no. of children, current housing situation etc)

I was offered my house within a month of applying, which was before I'd even finished the application process as I was waiting for proof of id for my children.

If changes are made to force people out of their homes if their circumstances change, they will be nation wide at a government level like bedroom tax, why is it fair that people from the NE, who don't have a shortage of SH suffer because of London/the SE? And why is it fair that HAs within the NE will also be forced to suffer as the vast majority of their houses would then be empty. Anyone who needs one already has one, so evicting people from them isn't going to change anything other than adding to the number of long term empty properties, something we already have an issue with thanks to an excess of buy to let LL from the SE buying up all housing stock despite supply of rented properties outstripping demand.

Smashed I can assure you that I wouldn't take a SH property in my city if it was handed to me. We don't have 'mixed' housing, only estates which are notorious for crime and anti social behaviour. I really wouldn't to bring my children up there. So it's really not a case of jealousy, just a principle. If my situation betters I should be willing to give the next person along a helping hand too.

x2boys I hope you get a place soon. I am in favour of more SH going to working families. As I said in my city unless you are on benefits you won't get SH, so there is no incentive to better yourself/work. I'm a long term benefits claimant myself so that is not a bash.

Private rental can be very precarious and I would love a life time tenancy anywhere somewhere

I can assure you that I wouldn't take a SH property in my city if it was handed to me

Hmm, okay then! 😂

only estates which are notorious for crime and anti social behaviour. I really wouldn't to bring my children up there. So it's really not a case of jealousy, just a principle

So your principle is to turn all estates everywhere into places you wouldn't want to bring your kids up by giving them only to the needy?

Makes perfect sense

They give them to working families and single men here.

Some people may be familiar with what I've been through, but I'm in a council property at the moment. It was offered to me quite quickly in an area with high availability (for the type of property I'm in at least). I'm pretty unemployable at the moment - never worked (due to DV then being kept pregnant and trapped) and no qualifications. But I'm looking at ways to get back into education including OU while I do some kind of part time work eg cleaning and bar work. Fingers crossed. I'm pretty horrified that some people would want me to lose my home as soon as I earn any kind of decent salary, especially as my house was viewed by 11 people and turned down before I accepted it (the house is absolutely fine, but it is in an area with a bad reputation. I haven't had any issues though, yet).
If it was so in demand I wouldn't have been offered it weeks after going on the list (I was homeless, but as stated several others who were a higher priority/had been waiting longer turned it down).

Chicken i hope things continue to get better for you

Yanbu. It honestly makes me sick how many people where I live are living in overcrowded conditions because selfish people just don't feel like downsizing. There are so many in 1 bed flats desperate to swap to a 2 bed or 2 to a 3. The single people who's kids have moved out are ridiculously fussy and want a south facing garden, 2 parking spaces etc. Or they make people go through the whole swap process to decide at the end they don't want to move after all. If you are in social housing it is not your home. The bedroom tax need to be massively raised and the council need la to keep more of an eye on people fraudulently claiming their children still live at home. Maybe then it would force these selfish people to move, honestly it makes me sick.

The bedroom tax need to be massively raised

That would make a difference how exactly, out of interest?

If you are in social housing it is not your home

Really??? So people who can't afford to buy for whatever reason don't deserve a home?? It makes me sick that you would say that! I suspect you have your own reasons for saying all that though.

My house is my home. It will remain my home and "if" I decide to downsize at a later date then yes of course I would be "fussy". If I'm going to move then it has to be right. Why would I give up a nice home in a nice area, to move to a high rise or something?

As controversial as it may be to say it, I would also say that most people are overcrowded because they've had more children. They wouldn't have been given their initial SH home if it wasn't suitable when they got it. So they chose to have more children, knowing what their housing situation was. If one group of people are saying we should leave our homes, then we can turn around and say "well don't have more children then". It works both ways.

Why don’t councils ever buy back houses that were sold years ago under RTB? I understand there is a dilemma because they would have to pay market value to convince the owner to sel to them even though they purchased it at a discount but it would save the hassle of councils building new homes and really isn’t any different to a btl buying the house at market value and renting it out (except they won’t give a secured tenancy and will charge more for the rent).
My mum might be convinced to sell her 5 bed council house back to the council at market rates but she can’t be arsed to go through the hassle of selling it privately so instead she is happily living alone in her 5 bed house and enjoying more space than she realistically needs now her children have all left home. There must be thousands of people in similar situations.

whenwillitstop out of interest did you read the government's own impact assessment of the bedroom tax before it was introduced? I did and it was obvious that the regional dimension of overcrowding/under occupation (and lets be honest it only became under occupation by retropsectively changing lettings regulations- so people weren't "under occupying" prior to its implementation) meant that the policy would not achieve government's stated objectives. Every housing professional in the land predicted this.