To think more people should be incentivised to downsize?

[Sprockerdilerock]

I'm sure I will be flamed but here goes.

I know so many older adults who live in family size homes long after their children have left. Would it not be better for the government to offer incentives eg no stamp duty, removal costs paid for them to downsize to free them up for those that need them more?

We do have a housing shortage and I get that we could always build more homes, but we are also heading towards a climate crisis and surely it's better to use what resources we do have more efficiently and plough less energy into creating more.

My MIL is case in point - she still lives in the home my DH and his siblings grew up and often expresses a wish to downsize but she doesn't have a lot of money to spend on things like legal costs etc.

@IrmaFayLear

Italy perhaps has a good solution.

When your spouse dies, the estate is automatically split between the other spouse and dcs. So, three dcs, the widow/er gets a quarter. Either the widow/er buys the dcs out, or the property is sold in order to facilitate the inheritance or, in most cases, one or t’other of the dcs takes over the house.

I’m sure i wouldn’t relish being thrown out of my home by the dcs (!) but it does stop large properties being occupied for years by one person.

Can't the children just say "that's fine mum stay here"? Because my brother and I did in a different country eith same inheritance split. Because we are not heartless little shits

Well, yes. In my family this has just happened. You have to go to a lawyer though and the children have to sign away their portion officially.

Otoh there have been many instances where the mother (it’s always a widow!) has sold or more usually swapped properties with an adult child and their family.

Yeah, we always have to go through lawyer, so that wasn't much extra.
She did sell in the end because it was bit too far from work and friends and bought a teo bed flat. I am fairly confident that contributed to the depression and shortened her lifespan due to less movement on a fresh air... She used to spend lots of her free time gardening and grew the most amazing fruits and veggies. Now she has planters on shared balcony because there are simply no small houses in there for a single person. Annoyingly.

Otoh there have been many instances where the mother (it’s always a widow!)
We always overlive our man in my family. My husband is suspicious😂

They should have steered clear of the mushroom omelettes...

Actually we needs to upsize. The property that we brought 3 children up in doesn't fit 5 more adults and 3 childen.

If you really care about the environment then thevpoint would be to discourage large families, that way there is less environmental impact or a need for larger houses to free up, not that im just suggesting this just pointing out that overpopulation is a larger environmental concern than lack of large houses