To wonder how people actually afford to move into council properties

[Niknick]

So, me and my dh have been offered a house with our local council after years of being on the waiting list. We have two son’s youngest of whom is autistic and we have been offered 3 bed meaning we’d all have our own bedroom at last. I haven’t had an official viewing of the house yet ie with the hosing officer but workmen are currently doing some repairs and they allowed me and my dh in the other day to have a quick look round whilst they were sat in the garden on a break.

Anyway i went equipped with my tape measure to measure up for carpeta, blinds and just to get a general idea of how things will fit. I’ve since gone to a cheap carpet place and been quoted £1500. Blinds will cost around £450-£500. Then there are things like decoration, removal costs, buying a new oven as our current one our landlord owns etc. The property isn’t in great condition and having viewed another of the council’s houses years back me and my dh are under no illusion that the council will do anymore than the bare minimum.

So far it needs plaster work doing as the workmen have done a rubbish job. It needs scrubbing beyond recognition, the garden is like a jungle so that will be more cost as we’ll need to pay someone to do it as me and my dh are busy with work and the kids. Plus parts of the fences are smashed and need replacing as it’s not safe with my son. I know it’s the tenants responsibility to do a lot of these jobs but usually, people moving into these properties aren’t well off so AIBU to wonder how do people manage to do all this? We have virtually zero savings due to paying high private rent, so long term moving to this house would be financially a good idea, but short term I’m panicking about where the hell we find the kind of money we are going to need to make this house at least comfortable for us all to live in. Moving to my current house paying a months rent up front plus deposit and referencing check fees is cheaper than what we’ll have to spend to move to the new house so I’m quietly panicking.

Can you paint the floors in the short term and put rugs down?

Lol at saying uneven plaster makes a home unliveable. Have you ever seen a Tudor home?

You seriously need to focus on how lucky you are and how nice your new home will be in a few years after you’ve saved up to sort it out. Your. children won’t care if they have cheap rugs on the floor rather than new carpets. Please don’t get into credit card debt for the sake of having everything immaculate straight away. It’s never worth it.

Tbh

I’d be more concerned about the overlap in council tax, that is a big expense, as is any overlap of rent

Have you made sure you’ll give notice on your private rental at the same time as signing up for the council property?

I'm not moving my kids into a half done house
Well, there you go then. That's your choice.
In the meanwhile, other people do. They also shop around for bargains eg charity shops for curtains, second hand shops, free cycle, or you know, just do without until they can afford it.

I live in our own home, just done the kids bedroom, we couldn't afford to replaster so we've painted over the patterned wall paper and my husband fitted the carpet (YouTube videos help).
One cheap flooring option is lino, my friends have wood patterned lino and it looks great, and more practical than laminate.
Blinds are cheap in Ikea.
Do you have friends or family who could help you do the garden? Our old garden was a jungle so both dad's helped us over a weekend and we got it useable.
The council should replace the fencing for you and my sister got money towards paint.
It's lovely that you want a perfect home for your children, but as most people have said it's rare to be able to afford to do a house all at once, and there are much cheaper options than paying people to plaster/ fit blinds/carpets.

You’re right my dc won’t care. Well, my teenager might care slightly more than my youngest ds but he wouldn’t strop or anything like that as he’s a good kid.

Sorry - that should be give notice in private rental 1 month or what ever to coincide with signing for council property?

Currently have newspaper up in the window of a 5 bed detached on a private estate.... my house must be a state! Someone call social services cause god forbid the children should realise that you have to work for nice things and its not all instant. Also carpeted the whole property for less than that + £170 ish for kitchen and bathroom floor.
Definitely get some other quotes!

Unfortunately I think we now live in a world where on social media we follow peoples houses and its all lovely with velour grey carpets with hoover stripes in. Zoflora is thrown down the sink twice a day and everyone has everything on credit. Im not beind a dick OP. Sort your sons room as he is the priority. But as for blinds i got an £8 black out in Argos to tide me over and to be honest its staying!

I’ve no idea yet when the council property will be finished and ready for me to view so I can’t give notice on my current house as I only get a month and then I’d need to be out. Once I’ve signed for the council property we need to pay a months rent upfront and then we’ll have at least one other maybe two payments to make on our current house. For both houses it would be around £1350 in rent which is only a few hundred Off what my dh earns each month. So yeah it’s going to be hard.

We are having a small extension built. Honestly, it’s been going on for a few months and I just want my lovely home back. Dust, ironing in the bath because we have lost two rooms downstairs. Because of CV19 there are now 4 adults living here which was unexpected so we are making do.

Means to and end etc and we prioritised other things to do this extension. Maybe I should have moved everyone out and come back when it’s all done?

Nothing good is done generally without a bit of pain. If you don’t want this house please give it to someone else. Or find a job/more hours that will enable you to afford everything you are demanding

I would consider wood effect lino. DD has it in her bedroom and it is great.
I have used shower curtains for window covers before just to get me by.
I have also visited patients who have lived in council property for years and still have no carpet or floor covering.
You could look at local welfare and see if you are entitled to help.

One more flooring idea - independent carpet shops or fitters will "whip the edge" of offcuts of carpet to turn them into proper looking rugs. You could get really big rugs done cheaply this way, to cover most of the floors while you save up.

Depending on your area, look online for second hand furniture charities - we have a couple round here who help set people up (and also provide jobs by training people to repair and restore furniture).

When I say lay it on thick i just means saying it how it is and fighting for what your child needs which is exactly what my cousin and my friend did. Both of them have been through hell and back with housing and with trying to cope with their dc with very little support. They didn’t lie to get a house they just didn’t make our things were rosey.

Well that's not "laying it on thick" then, is it? Surely that's just telling the truth? Why should they make out things were rosey if they weren't? That's not exactly going improve your chances of getting help is it, if you say everything's fine - even if it's really not.
Your post didn't talk about how hard people fight to get what their child needs though. Instead you wrote that people could "lay it on thick" with the council and magically get priority. That implies that people can exaggerate and get priority.

I didn’t go down the social worker route because of my own anxiety at the thought of it. Me and my dh have morning to hide in terms of our ds’s care, needs, how we parent him etc but the thought of having a social worker, and may be not a defend one who might judge or do bigger all to help us anyway, just wasn’t something we wanted to do.

If you reject the possibility of having a social worker because "it's not something we wanted to do" then you're a world away from the people you've mentioned then. If you really needed that help, you wouldn't have the luxury of "not wanting one."
Funny how you say you don't judge people for taking any support on offer (though tbh, why would anyone judge anyone for that?) but characterise people being honest to get that help as "laying it on thick."

I think you are expecting too much too soon. I was lucky enough to buy my first flat when I was 22. I couldn’t afford curtains/a cooker/a phone line /washing machine etc for years. I got by with a Baby `belling mini oven and a microwave and trips to the launderette for years. When I could afford those things they were second hand.

All that’s a long way behind me now and I’ve lived in our current beautiful 4 bedroom house for 10 years now but even here wasn’t perfect immediately. Some rooms still haven’t got ‘proper’ curtains but have old ones from our last house that aren’t the right size and some improvements still need saving for but I know they’ll come eventually.

So many nice responses and great advice. But I cannot help to think this sounds unbelievably entitled. So many people are I real dyer need and would snap this opportunity up.
It took us 5 years to get our bought house into a comfortable state, 4 of which there was no working oven. First year plasterboard was virtually falling of the walls. And somehow my children remain unscarred.

You trawl second hand shops for old curtains and hem them by hand to the right length. You buy rugs and carpet offcuts again from second hand. You look on Freecycle for an oven, bookcases etc.
You don't expect the house to be "done"!
If the kids have a bed, that's the main thing.
You get realistic!

@Niknick

I can only apologise if I came across as rude I really didn’t mean to. I don’t judge people for doing their absolute best no matter what that is. I just meant that the thought of having no carpets down fills me with dread. But that’s my own issue and anxieties not me judging other people’

Honestly no carpets is fine. Not ideal but no great hardship.

We all have an idealistic view of what our new home will be like. But it doesn’t always work that way.

And I think most people can’t afford to do everything on day one. I have sat on garden furniture in friends living rooms! I think your standards are unrealistically high.

Have you ever watched the money pit? My favourite movie ever and very apt for this situation.

I'm already in a council flat, I'm needing to move due to increasing disability, I've worked out it will cost me about £12k for everything including new kitchen appliances, carpets, curtains, blinds, decorating, new light fittings etc & removal costs. I'm saving like mad & also saving up all my nectar & other loyalty points to help me buy smaller things I will need. When my marriage ended I had to start from scratch with nearly everything, my parents lent me the money to start again, it cost nearly £11k, that was 10 years ago & a lot of things need replacing, new sofas, dining chairs, ds needs a new bed & bedroom furniture. If you are really hard up I would recommend looking in places like B & M, Home Bargains, The Range & TK Maxx for things & Ebay or Facebook Marketplace for second hand stuff.

There did used to be a lot more help than there is now. Grants for white goods and home items, a flooring grant that actually covered the cost of flooring (some areas still have one but it's too low, others have cut it completely). People on a low income could get vouchers towards furniture. Some councils even gave people Argos vouchers. It has got a lot worse.

Years ago the food bank would sometimes give people pots, pans, towels, etc. As well as nappies, formula. Maybe a kettle even. Now they can barely cover basic food for the sheer number of people who are referred there. This is whilst other charities and agencies have been driven into the ground and the councils have had its budgets shrunk.

So yes it might seem 'entitled' to some. But it used to be what happened. Some areas council housing is the same as market rent. So you are paying the same as a private rental with all this stuff provided. The perk of council housing being that it is at least permanent housing, but then there are the people saying that people should give it back once their circumstances improve, and forever is often only a specific term now anyway. If you buy your council house you are selfish and taking a home off somebody more needy. This after you've skint yourself for years to carpet, decorate and repair it to a liveable standard?

Council tenants are getting squeezed, have no doubts about it. Not only that, you get the judgement of living in council, often the antisocial behaviour and crap amenities that comes with living on an estate. All of this after living in a substandard over crowded bedsit for years or paying private rents?

So yes, fight them every step of the way. Be 'entitled.' Nobody else gives a Shit. If they did they wouldn't vote for the Austerity party. They would question a system that others the poor, that thinks it's ok for your kids but not theirs to get screwed every step of the way, through the housing system, the benefits system, the education system, etc.

There will always be people who buy a half million pound wreck and therefore think it's ok to live without carpets, that doesn't make it acceptable.

I have seen so many people (myself included) Make the most of their slum standard homes with no money, so yeah we can be resourceful and creative and patient. Lower our standards. Accept our lot. That's what we are meant to do right?

There may be local charities who might be able to help with some things.

Damages like broken fences, walls etc are the landlords responsibility in my local council area so check before spending money on those, and complain about the builders poor work.
For now do it as cheaply as possible, plain white paint throughout, some cheap wood/Lino flooring throughout is cheap as chips on eBay, cheap curtains or blinds. That will get the basics covered for now then as you settle in you can change bits room by room. It cost me nearly £1000 moving into my social housing home years back including the first month rent they wanted the day I got the keys, so I know how stressful it is. We had to move in as it was, as they don’t give you time to decorate before you have to move in. I done it slowly while living in the living room, once the upstairs was finished we switched. There’s ways to get it done, just take your time and accept it’s not an overnight thing.

Don’t take it then

@Niknick
For both houses it would be around £1350 in rent which is only a few hundred Off what my dh earns each month. So yeah it’s going to be hard.

With these earnings not much higher than this and you part time and DLA for your son you will receive benefits top ups. You could get all kinds of extra help including overlapping rent on both properties, a furniture pack or grants. Have the council asked for a months rent up front, not weekly? You need to seek advice.

I wouldn't want to live without carpets either, so I can see where you are coming from, and I sympathise. That said, we have been in our home for nearly 13 years now and still haven't replaced the old, frankly knackered and sad carpet downstairs because we can't afford to. Our priority when we moved in was a working kitchen, bathroom and DD's room (she was only a toddler at the time and at the time couldn't have cared less). It does take time, and we try to "do" one thing a year - last year it was outside painting, this year we've finally replaced the boiler. We own, so no help from anyone. You need to focus on the fact that you will have a lovely home, but like many things in life, it will take time.

Mine was the same when I got it 10 years ago. Bare plaster walls with holes everywhere, bare floorboars (some also with holes) an absolute muddy bog of a garden. Just mud as soon as you walked of the step. It had absolutely nothing. I was an 18 year old single parent. I had bought a few things but honestly if it wasn't for my mum and dad, I doubt I would have been able to move into it. They paid for everything. The council here now paint walls put in carpets and flooring and give 3 white goods to tenants, but I had a bare cave.