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.

@27Yardsofdentalfloss

We bought our house 20+ years ago, when we were in our early 20s. We had thrown everything into saving for the deposit and then the mortgage, we literally had no money to spare when we moved in. It was in a right state, having been owned by an elderly man on his own who had done nothing to it. We didn't have a carpet for at least a year, we had a small portable TV on a tea chest in the living room, and instead of couches we had two sun loungers! It took us about 3-4 years to get the house into a decent liveable condition, but many many more years to get it exactly right. You can't do these things overnight!

Exactly that and we had a carpet in one bedroom that came from the in-laws and was about 30 years old. You make do and mend.

The house was neglected and we didn't have the money to do exactly what we wanted at the time.

I made curtains from Ikea material and a lot of furniture we still have was from relatives

I don't know if this has already been said but if you get housing benefit or the housing benefit element of UC you may be able to get an overlap payment to help for the time you have 2 rents to pay. This would be applied for through your council.

@Gancanny

If you choose to live in social housing you are already being substantially subsidised by taxpayers

No, council housing stock pays for itself.

It certainly does. I wish this myth could be put to bed, once and for all. After furlough I’m surprised anyone makes snide remarks about taxpayer subsidy although I suppose it didn’t stop people in the banking industry in 2008.

To be fair, I do think it's not on that council and HA properties are being let out dirty. Our current place, the garden was full of dirty nappies and there was a bucket of something full of maggots. It's one thing if the decor is run down or the floors are bare, but surely nobody deserves to be given a filthy home.

It certainly does. I wish this myth could be put to bed, once and for all

Me too.

All the houses in our street were built in 1955 and have paid for themselves several times over, the rents received pay for the upkeep and any upgrades the council think are needed. They renew kitchens and bathrooms every ten years, last year was new boilers, the year before was new roofs, and the year before that was driveways and external doors.

Regardless of whether a property is rented privately, from a council, or from a housing association the incoming tenants should be taking on a home that is clean, safe, and in a habitable state. This is the bare minimum and it is not entitled or greedy to expect it.

I well remember moving into mine. The whole place reeked of dog, not ideal when you're going to be moving in with 2 cats and a four month old baby. DS's dad turned his nose up at it but I told him we were taking it. It looked awful at the time but it was in a good location away from busy roads, near my mum and the rooms are big. Took a very long time and I lived with offcuts of carpets and other things pps have described. It didn't kill us and even now 12 years later, it's still not finished (single parent working full time) but I have a comfortable and quite nice home with preserved right to buy and I don't for one second regret moving here.

Everything will be fine OP, just one step at a time. FWIW, DS is autistic too and the house being unfinished has never affected him

@safariboot

To be fair, I do think it's not on that council and HA properties are being let out dirty. Our current place, the garden was full of dirty nappies and there was a bucket of something full of maggots. It's one thing if the decor is run down or the floors are bare, but surely nobody deserves to be given a filthy home.

Quite right. Each property should be cleared out, including garden, and thoroughly cleaned.

Is this post for real? I’m embarrassed for you OP

OP, the council should be responsible for repairing the fence especially as it was broken before you arrived on the scene so definitely push that with them. For carpeting you could see if anywhere near you does one of those deals where they will carpet your whole house in one colour for a fixed price then once you're in you can replace them as you go and decorate/re-carpet one room at a time. Curtains can be picked up fairly cheaply if you shop around and places like Argos and Dunelm often have them in the sale, you could also look on local selling sites for second hand curtains that will tide you over until you can replace them.

I own my home (well, with a mortgage) thanks to an inheritance. But we couldn't afford any furniture. Some of it was cast offs from mates, we got our bed from a charity shop and our washing machine was a second hand reconditioned one. We don't have a freezer. You just have to accept you can't get everything nice and sparkly and new.

Like others have said do it but by bit. It’s great that you can do this sort of work! We privately rent and have to beg to get permission to do anything, we also get inspected a few times a year and the rent regularly jumps when it comes to renewal of tenancy time. In the grand scheme of things doing it bit by bit isn’t horrific.

@fatgirlslimmer, it's quite funny when you look back.

3 of the 4 rooms in my first house were carpeted with carpet that had been ripped out of Allders department store in Croydon. I had a boyfriend who had been a shopfitting carpenter and had worked at Allders when it was refitted. He was so incensed that they they were going to put perfectly good carpet in a skip that he took home loads of it, some of which found its way to my house. It was incredible quality and ahead of its time - I had grey carpet in the 1980s!

He also helped me get a washing machine out of a skip and take it back to my house. We put a plug on it, tested it out in the garden in case it leaked, and yay! - no more launderette trips for me! That washing machine lasted 7 more years.

My dining chairs came from the former directors' dining room at Segas in about 1985, they cost £2 each. They need reupholstering now, which would cost more than new chairs, but they're comfortable and I'm sort of oddly attached to them.

Wow that’s madness. I wouldn’t rent privately without those things (unless it was nice hardwood floor) that doesn’t seem right that they don’t provide those!!

Hilarious!!

If it were me I think I'd focus on carpets and a garden fence and go from there.

If you claim housing beefing you can apply for overlapping housing benefit to help that first month paying for two houses.

You may be able to get a loan or vouchers from the council for decorating costs.

I know it's hard not having everything as you want it straight away, especially with kids, but it's something what you have to do to have a better home in the long run.

@MrsMomoa

Wow that’s madness. I wouldn’t rent privately without those things (unless it was nice hardwood floor) that doesn’t seem right that they don’t provide those!!

Hilarious!!

'Here's the house'. I'm not going to put you through affordability checks, you've got it for life, can redecorate as you please, have pets and rent out a spare room when your eldest leaves home, and you'd never be able to afford to buy anywhere. I'll just cover my costs. Ordinarily, I'd be able to charge £1800 - 2400 a month for it plus deposit, but because you're a bit skint, I'll charge you £579, do all the standard checks and structural repairs, but you'll need to buy your own carpet, curtains and oven and get the garden sorted'.

Sounds like a deal to me.

I bought my first house almost a year ago. It was certainly liveable in but had issues with damp, needs a full rewire etc. I'm doing a room at a time, just getting tradesmen in to do it bit by bit.

The garden was an absolute jungle (and concealed broken glass, scrap metal etc.) but I'm just getting it done myself in sections. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Just cordon off most of the garden while you sort out a small patch by the door. As you finish each few square feet, you can extend your usable space gradually.

Were you expecting a new build?

@SisterAgatha

Were you expecting a new build?

Good luck with that anyway - most round here have about 15 pages of snags

I’m sure OP would be equally outraged with that. No one moves in to a house like Mrs Hinch’s on day 1

@JamieLeeCurtains

Are you expecting the Council - i.e. everyone else - to pay for your desired lifestyle? If you choose to live in social housing you are already being substantially subsidised by taxpayers

To be fair, it comes out of Housing Revenue Accounts, which are the collected rents of all the tenants in social housing.

Good tips on this thread, though.

Yes, and shock horror some people even pay the rent from their wages that they earn from low income full time jobs because they're not entitled to housing benefit etc but are still priced out of a lot of private rent and saving enough for a deposit to buy (certainly not a dig to those that are in receipt of hb etc btw, just trying to dispel this fucking 'free' house shit that's reared it's ugly head again) So no, not subsidised by the tax payer (of which many social/council housing tenants are anyway!) What's been described here is one of the reasons that council/ha is cheaper, because you get less than in a private rent. Tenants pay their rent and then the money is put back to running the rentals. At least that's how my ha works.

I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect it to look great on entry.

We are at the other end of the spectrum and got a big 8 bed country house... but almost 5 years in and only now are we getting a fitted kitchen (for 4 and 3/4 years it was literally an aga, a table, and open wiring round the walls, our bedroom is not plastered yet, neither is the hall, the downstairs loo has a concrete floor, and I am posting from the bath in a bathroom which has a bath but no flooring or wall tiles, just boards. I know that ours is different from a council house but the basic principal is the same: eventually it will look nice, but we took a long time to be able to sort out even the basics.

We did a room at a time and I did the whole garden myself with a spade and a skip, and a lot of growing perennials from seed. I work part time as a doctor, although part time for us is still around 40 hours per week. Get the kids to 'help' or to play near you while you work. Make a game of it (collecting the most bags of stripped wallpaper, whatever) All of our carpets are offcuts. We stripped all the wallpaper ourselves, we did all the painting ourselves. We even did some of the more desperate plaster ourselves. It doesn't look very good!

Very few people I know bought a pristine house to move into. We have friends
whose children only got a carpet rather than floorboards in their rooms last year... aged 7 and 9. Children don't notice these things.

I understand we are in a fortunate situation to buy a larger house, but honestly- kids need love and attention, not pristine plasterwork or new carpet. Our daughter has some old machine washed second hand curtains and mostly gumtree furniture. She has a very nice life and doesn't notice that her chest of drawers and cupboards are old.

@Niknick you sound a bit entitled 🤔

@Thisisworsethananticpated

The ONLY thing you need to invest in to start with is a shed load of robber gloves ,scouring pads , cif and bleach

Then you paint every single room white
Trust me I’ve been there
It’s makes such a difference when it’s clean and white
Then , you breathe and assess

It’s all doable

This.

This is what I had to do.

From memory you get a £75 grant for paint etc.

What do you want from a council property? We were not lucky enough to be offered a new build but I was lucky enough to get offered what I have.

We had to do all the floors in every room.

Steam and strip every wall in every room.

Every four had a punch mark in or a hole in it.

The garden was rat infested. The council put poison down then I had to research how to make it useable till I could afford to get it done properly.

Do all the room need a full plaster or can you get away with just doing a touch up with filler?

We still need to replace all the skirting and door frames but it is what it is.

You need to weigh up what is more important. A house to the standard you want right now or something that you can do up long term with the saving you will get on the rent. You might get the opportunity to buy it. We used the blanket discount As our deposit. I'd never have been able to buy again otherwise.

It just takes time.

You need to weigh up what's more important to you and what's best long term.

*'Here's the house'. I'm not going to put you through affordability checks, you've got it for life, can redecorate as you please, have pets and rent out a spare room when your eldest leaves home, and you'd never be able to afford to buy anywhere. I'll just cover my costs. Ordinarily, I'd be able to charge £1800 - 2400 a month for it plus deposit, but because you're a bit skint, I'll charge you £579, do all the standard checks and structural repairs, but you'll need to buy your own carpet, curtains and oven and get the garden sorted'.

Sounds like a deal to me.*

Not only that, but if you want to buy it a few years down the line, you’ll get a healthy discount.

@ZarasHouse

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?

Completely agree. Well said.