AIBU to leave council flat for private renting? 5 in a 1 bed flat.

[Hereforhelp]

Hi. So I was housed a 1 bedroom flat with council when I was 7 months pregnant with my first child. Now theres 5 of us in the same flat me, dh, dd 5 yrs, DS1 3 yrs and DS2 4 months old.

Dh and I are both employed, him full time me part time (currently on maternity leave) & don’t receive any sort of benefit.

The plan for our family increase was to return flat and private rent somewhere bigger but now private rent have massively increased £300 more than it was 2 years ago 😅 so that plan failed, leaving us cramped, in a 1 bed 🙃

We’ve tried to talk to council but according to law we’re not overcrowded as living room could be used as bedroom too and according to my room measurements each room can fit up to 2 adults (that’ll be 4 kids in each bedroom as they count a kid as half an adult).

Shall I hang in here and hopefully be rehoused after couple of years or stretch our finances and rent privately? People are calling me mad to be thinking of giving up a council home & I’d hate to give up the security of our home tbh but we are so desperate!!

Has anyone here left a council home for private renting? Or has anyone got a success story of getting rehoused due to overcrowding?

@avocadoincident yeah there HAVE been some grim and vile posts on here, from some bloody awful people.

Fortunately, they have been outnumbered (a bit) by the nicer, kinder, more empathic posters...

@bluegirlgreen their usernames are dead giveaways too!

Indeed @avocadoincident

@donotcovertheradiator Use your bloody brains As people get older they are MORE likely to get mobility problems. We already have disabled/elderly/infirm in tower blocks which presents the very real problem of how to get out if there is a fire. Yes OP should and her children should be properly housed. EVERYONE should be. e,g Somerford Grove was built with this in mind. As well as family homes it had two and three bed flats single bed and bedsitter flats, and a terrace of bungalows for the elderly. Mixed developments like this were/was intended to cater for people in different life stages. There is nowhere for elderly people to move to. At least in their homes a stairlift could be fitted if needed. You cannot do this in communal stairs in flats And lifts are always breaking down and taking ages to be fixed.

It is even worse than it is for families. We had a housing manager sit in our flat and tell us there were NO accessible homes. And this is one of the biggest housing associations in the country.

You WERE pitting tenant against tenant And you did not think the mobility issues through either.

@donotcovertheradiator

These elderly people live in flats. As its your bright idea for more of them to do so i assume you have an answer to this.

www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/15690074.audrey-lever-warned-bolton-at-home-could-confiscate-her-fire-hazard-mobility-scooter-from-communal-hallway/

@donotcovertheradiator

These elderly people live in flats. As its your bright idea for more of them to do so i assume you have an answer to this.

www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/15690074.audrey-lever-warned-bolton-at-home-could-confiscate-her-fire-hazard-mobility-scooter-from-communal-hallway/

sorry its posted twice it showed as not posting.

Do a houseswap with another Council tenant. Some are looking for downsizing.

@HelenaDove

I have absolutely no intention of reading the dreary links that you litter every thread with that as much as mentions social housing.
Cease and desist.

The Op is overcrowded. There are many like her

There are older people in larger homes that are now underoccupied,
It is not rocket science to suggest there could be some sort of swap involved to tackle the problem.

However, you prefer to whine, whine, whine.

You knock back every solution, tell us anecdotes about your life-in which you are always bravely battling- and invariably conclude that the government (I imagine you saying this in some sort of Peggy from EastEnders voice) should do something about it.

No other solution is acceptable to you.

Maybe take your own advice, my dear, calm down a little and use your brains. The first intelligent thing you could do is take that chip from your shoulder and, please, do stop posting those interminable links.

Maybe moving before having the kids would have been an idea, if that was the plan. You do sound entitled. Housing is expensive, tough shit.

YOU are the one suggestiing that elderly ppl move to one bedrrom flats. So you come up with the solution to where mobility aids wheelchairs etc can be stored.

You only seem bothered about those who have living proof that they have had sex without contraception.

Good job Nye Bevan didnt think like you.

And they arent interminable links I do what i can to back up what i say with evidence. You are only getting stroppy because you cant/wont do the same.

There are a hell of a lot of posters who care about tenants ONLY when they can pit them against each other.

Its like a twisted game of Saints and Sinners. You are a saint while you are waiting for social housing but then become a sinner once you have been in one for a couple of years.

I think the OP and family should be properly housed yes

Having children is a choice Disability and old age isnt.

People in their late fifties and sixties don't generally need mobility aids so they?

As to links proving anything, one would need to know who had written the report and who had funded the writing of it before allowing that it proves anything.

Not that you'll take a blind bit of notice but if you were more selective in your links instead of throwing them in everywhere on every housing thread you join, they would carry more weight.

Try to be a little more subtle in your link throwing and always, always say who has written the stuff in your link, who funded them, what axe they may have to grind and how it was received.

I do so hope that helps but I'll stand the drop of York Minster if you take even the slightest bit of notice.

Well usually if you click on the link it has the name of the writer. This has mostly been the case that writers have their names on pieces they write ever since the invention of the printing press.

CecilyP - Does that mean that everyone on the list will be highest priority? If they use that method, how can they have anybody in a lower priority band.

No, there are all sorts of reasons for joining the housing register and many are given a lower priority. I won't link to OP's allocations policy but if you go on your own council website and put 'housing allocations policy' or 'housing allocations scheme' in the search bar you should find a long, dull PDF document with numbered paragraphs that outlines all the criteria for getting on the housing list, bidding, priority etc.

Bluntness100 - I thought they looked at income? And if the family could afford to privately rent? This family can.

Income is a factor. In OP's area the cutoff is £40,000 for a family. That's how much her council thinks a family needs to earn to be able to buy or rent privately in the area. OP says she and her husband earn £35,000 between them.

She wouldn't be asked to leave her current property if she earned over £40K, and she could still join the list once officially overcrowded, but she would be given reduced priority (bottom of the list).

@donotcovertheradiator You seem like a very angry person to me.

And you are not my boss And i find it very hard to believe you care about tenants after reading your grasping vendors thread.

You sound incredibly selfish

Whatever happens OP I hope things settle for you one way or another soon, I slept three to a room as a child, it’s doable in the short term but isn’t ideal long term as I’m sure you’re already aware.

In the short term a sofa bed in the living room is the answer as a pt least it gives you and your OH some peace (hopefully) in the evening,

If I had to move house in my late 50s or 60s I'd want to move somewhere with step free access and the potential to be adapted if necessary, no matter how fit and active I was at the time. I wouldn't want to risk the potential upheaval of having to move again at a time when I would be older, frailer and less mobile.

There aren't the spare smaller properties for all these older people to move into anyway. Lots of younger people affected by the bedroom tax are unable to find smaller properties to move into.

We need more social housing, it's as simple as that.

OP the only viable solution seems to be putting one child in the bin. Start considering which one, the child catcher will be there shortly. Alternatively you could look for a workhouse?

YY PencilsInSpace Tenants are tenants...............not chess pieces.

We need proper community housing. Like Somerford Grove which had different dwellings built for everyone at all different stages of their lives.

This problem goes further back than 1980
The 1953 White Paper stipulated the continuing of promotion by all possible means the building of houses for owner occupation.

In 1954 private housebuilders were freed from the obligation to secure building licences one of the main ways by which local authority housing had been prioritised in the immediate post war years.

The big change came with the 1954 Housing Act which required that future council efforts be concentrated on redevelopment RATHER THAN general needs.

Where we are now is the result of decades of changes going further back than 1980 Its NOT the fault of tenants.

Not at all, Helena! I am not angry How odd that you should think that... have heard a poster unkindly refer to you as Mrs Angry, so maybe a little self projection there.

I just find you a little...ridiculous, a little worthy maybe but I'm very sure your heart is in the right place and so I smile rather than sneer.

I don't want to agitate you-although that does seem to be easily achieved and so I'll leave you to huff and puff in peace.

Stay calm and try to be happy rather than sniping and bitter.

@PencilsInSpace We do need more social housing, heaps of it and good quality too. In my opinion, it should be impossible to distinguish it from these executive estates that seem to be popping up all over.

But I really don't think anything approaching that is going to happen any time soon so unless we're content to let a generation of social housing children grow up in the appallingly cramped conditions that the OP describes, we have to start looking for solutions' that might be imperfect.

Not to put some forward and just repeat that more housing must be built is akin to refusing a beefburger because we want a steak.

Worthy? Happy to wear the label you have gifted me

@donotcovertheradiator - Helenadove is pretty angry alright. She’s often spraying round random insults on these threads. I think the crux is she lives in social housing after having been brought up elsewhere so it has become some sort of cause for her. But at least she is only pasting links, not the full article as she often does. That’s lots more tedious.

I agree with you though- no reason why pensioners should be exempt from “bedroom tax”. Social housing is very scarce and it’s not fair that one group of people gets to under occupy at the taxpayers expense. It’s a public resource- it should be allocated on the basis of need.

@PencilsInSpace - we definitely need more social housing but that shouldn’t stop us allocating better the ones we have. The vast majority of those who want to swap are looking for larger houses. But those with bigger houses who don’t need the space often don’t want to swap as they are pensioners with no incentive to move as housing benefits cover their rent.