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.

Rtb wasn't replaced. Right to acquire is an extension that now includes HA. You can still RTB council properties.

'The council rip them out and charge you for the privilege because how dare you leave them.'

Yep. If you don't pull them out yourself they rip them out and charge you. Ditto fixtures they haven't put in themselves, like electric showers, mixer taps, internal doors, etc.

but its not the fault of the people that buy their council houses with a discount, if somebody said to most people in that position are not going to say thanks for offering me the house at 60% if its worth but actually i would rather buy at full price.

Exactly.

I bought my council house and got a 35% discount.

But it's lots easier to blame the individual than the system.

In my first council house I'd put in a new door (as the shitty eggbox council one broke), fully carpeted the house except for the living room which I put a hard floor down in, I also painted it, neutral throughout and kids choices in the bedrooms.
They charged me £300 for a replacement door despite the fact the one I'd put in was superior and the broken council one wasn't a "priority for them" repairs wise and I'd have been waiting weeks and weeks for a new door.
They also charged me £750 for ripping the flooring up despite the fact it was in perfect condition... oh and no, despite the fact I was downsizing from a 5 to a 3 (I still live in that same 3 bed) they didn't give me any money or anything toward the move either.
So all in all including moving costs I was £2800 out of pocket.

I'm over occupying at the moment but I will not move unless they drag me into the street by my hair... oh and I don't get HB so bedroom tax is an irrelevance to me. I pay the same regardless...
wonder why people aren't in a rush to move???

I don't thing the argument 'well, life is unfair' cuts it. We should rely on government to try and be as fair as possible in its dealings, even if other aspects of life are beyond our control.

WTAF?? That's insane.

I still have no stair carpet 3 years after moving in as i just can't afford it.

I was "lucky" enough to qualify for furniture from the welfare fund otherwise I'd have had nothing when I moved as my ex husband made me homeless.

There's no way I'd have been able to afford anything as when I moved in it was 2 weeks from payday and I had exactly nothing. My parents had to buy me food.

I think once the youngest child turns 18 (or out of full time education) then they should pay the same rents as those renting privately or pay a premium for occupying a property which is too big for their needs. People with disabilities obviously exempt.

I'm sick of hearing people say they need to build more housing when there are people rattling around in 3/4 bed council housing when their kids have long flown the next. Council houses for life also needs to be scrapped and people's needs need to be assessed every 10 years because the system we have at the moment is bloody ridiculous where there are families crammed in 2 bed houses while John and Margaret have their 3/4 bed house for life and their kids left home years ago.

I work for a HA. No way could we risk leaving carpets, fixtures and fittings in for the next tenant. We’d be so exposed for tenants to sue us, as we’re not insured for these things that we hadn’t installed ourselves. Eg Carpet rucks up, tenant trips, falls, injury - no win no fee claims companies would have a field day!

Also, most HA’s are not funded by the government. It’s all private finance with the social housing stock mortgaged to the private sector.

There’s a lot of competitive bidding by HA’s to developers (who are not going to build bungalows as it erodes their profit margins). The private sector has much more involvement in “social housing” than you realise.

sluttybutty - the bedroom tax/under occupancy charge is set by central government into HB regulations so LA's cannot flex it if someone is applying to downsize. The LA will operate a discretionary housing payment scheme and they may give priority to those actively seeking to downsize but they will have other competing pressures and as a pp said DHP is time limited.

Addy - its not within the LA's grasp to "stop selling houses off" if a tenant has the RTB they can exercise it.

metoo there is a huge difference in stock profiles and tenant profiles across the country. In some areas there are not enough smaller homes for people to move into. One of the issues with the implementation of the bedroom tax/under occupancy charge was that in some localities there just weren't the homes to move into. We sent all sorts of evidence of tenant demographics and stock profiles into government to show the impact. They chose to ignore it.

"The private sector has much more involvement in “social housing” than you realise"

People who know my posting history on here will know ive been saying this for years.

This government ignores all commonsense.

They need to build 2 bedroom bungalows with a little garden. Ideal for disabled people
I am sick of people assuming disabled people need small properties , my house has six bedrooms , I need every one of them and I am a wheelchair user.

My friend wants to move into a smaller property but they cant offer her one with the same disabled access and she can’t swap with someone unless they’re a match (so a mother of three children with complex physical needs

They need to build 2 bedroom bungalows with a little garden. Ideal for disabled people

I am sick of people assuming disabled people need small properties, my house has six bedrooms, I need every one of them and I am a wheelchair user

If you're paying for it you can have as many bedrooms as you want. I'm curious as to why anyone needs 6 bedrooms though tbh.

I don't think you get many 6 bed HA properties.

2 bed is a norrmal, common amount of bedrooms needed, disabled or not. Building more 2 bed bungalows or ground floor flats is sensible as they can also accomodate the disabled.

@KlutzyDraconequus have you considered asking for Discretionary Housing Payments from the Local Authority due to your situation and also registered for a mutual exchange? Sorry... dont know if this has already been mentioned - going back to read the rest of the thread now

@myrtleWilson thanks, I did actually know that but it seeped out of my memory somehow. I'm claiming pain memory loss a lot at the moment trying to avoid going to the next stage above codeine and failing miserably

oh no slutty hope pain eases soon!

Thanks myrtle seeing rheumy next week so hoping for a lovely steroid jab 😂

Easier said than done. There is a chronic shortage of one bedroom places available from social housing in the area I live. I've been waiting over a year now.

Slutty Hope it eases very soon.

No i wouldnt move, i live in a 3 bedroom semi housing associaton house, which i have lived in for 34 years, and i have no intention of moving, unless i could get a 2 bed bungalow in as nice an area in its own grounds and as secure as this
There are no spare smaller properties here ,and 1 bedroom isnt an option anyway
The housing association have told me i can stay here as long as i want to,they cant make me move
One of my sons lives abroad and visits so i need at least one spare bedroom
I have sometimes had one or another coming home for various reasons, and they cant even get a one bedroom flat

Maybe some of the gentry or royals could open their rooms up to young families?

But how would this work? (I'm excluding the royals from this). There are big houses with bedrooms which aren't used much, but these big houses generally only have one kitchen. So if bedrooms were given to young people would the house owner have to guarantee not to use their kitchen at certain times so the young bedroom renters could use it? If there were several young people in the big house would they have a rota for using the kitchen?
What happens at Christmas, say, when the owners have relations from near and far to stay for the festivities? Would the young people have to move out of their bedrooms or would the owners not be allowed to have their relations to stay?

Start with holiday homers