1 single person in a 3 bed council house

[Fyptk]

20ish years ago this person exchanged from a 1 bed flat to a 3 bed council house because relatives were moving in with her, so all the bedrooms were needed.

Fastforward a few years and those relatives all moved on and the single person remained in the 3 bed house.

To get out of paying bedroom tax they claim the other bedrooms are used for something to do with their work which they are not. The rooms are unused apart from storing excess clutter.

Meanwhile here in London (where this person lives) families are stuck in hostels and overcrowded rooms whilst the local burroughs housing register has in excess of 10,000 people on it waiting to be housed. The minimum wait for a 3 bed house here is 10 years.

AIBU to think they are selfish?

I hear you, Happy.

Besides.. it doesn't bloody matter why there are 3 kids in a 1 bed flat, those kids need a proper home.

The selfish arses in 3 and 4 bed houses living alone don't need all of that space.

People can make assumptions and judgments about larger families being in small accommodation but all that serves to do is make you look like an arse.

Bigger families need more space.

Single people need very little.

It doesn't actually matter if you've lived somewhere 20 years and get on with your neighbours, why is that more important than the family of 4 living in a hostel or the autistic child needing to share a bedroom with his parents and sibling?

'Me me me' with no actual basis beyond "I don't waaaaant to move"

I'm not in the UK but have always wondered about this. I know someone who is in England in social housing for single parents. She has a small 4 bedroom house. She pays very little in rent (she's shared this) Her children are all adults now with the youngest in early 20s and the oldest mid 30s. She currently has 6 adults living in the house with her, her grown up children & their partners. They all work & are availing of the super cheap rent.
Is this allowed under the premise of these houses being a home for single parents? Should this house be made available to a family with young children & she be offered a 1 bedroom in the area?

You cannot seriously claim community cohesion if you are prepared to sit in a house with capacity for many more such as a family and children when you are single. This is a total piss take. Annual reviews would stop people doing this and if you are saying they will not take care of the place?

Reviewed and told to leave. All these people saying I need moving costs, what about my dog? A piss take when kids are in hostels and god forsaken places when there is capacity clearly.

UnreasonablyPissedOff

I have never heard of housing specifically for single parents. There are developments specifically for people over a certain age but I’ve never heard of single parent specific housing.
Interested to know if anybody else has come across this scheme.

That's a hard one, UPO.

I mean technically they need the space they're occupying if there are so many of them, but if the place is intended for single mothers of children then theoretically they 'should' move elsewhere and free up the home for the demographic of which it was intended.

Oh and to the PP's implying anybody has children to get free council houses, fucking grow up. I almost lost my life having my youngest child and she was very ill at birth. I don't know one person alive who would put themselves or their child through that for a bloody council house.

Direct your judgement at the entitled people who think they should have 3 or 4 bedrooms they don't need nor use, not the unfortunate families who actually are in need.

@LexMitior

You cannot seriously claim community cohesion if you are prepared to sit in a house with capacity for many more such as a family and children when you are single. This is a total piss take. Annual reviews would stop people doing this and if you are saying they will not take care of the place?

Reviewed and told to leave. All these people saying I need moving costs, what about my dog? A piss take when kids are in hostels and god forsaken places when there is capacity clearly.

Here here!

The real piss take is the govt selling houses on the cheap to tenants and not replacing them. We would have this bickering about over occupancy and big house blocking if the councils houses had not been sold off cheap or if one had been built to replace every property sold.
I really feel the anger is misdirected.
When council housing first became a thing people were proud to have a home that they could stay in without fear of eviction if they behaved appropriately and paid their rent. Paying rent and being a good tenant we’re the only stipulations of keeping the tenancy. Right to buy has caused the current problem.
Friend of mine bought her 5 bed council house with 70% discount after 6 of her 7 children had grown up and left home. Just her living there now. She did ask to downsize but everything the council offered her was a complete dump so she stayed put and exercised her right to buy. She should not have been offered the option to buy that house IMO.

That's v interesting! As I said I don't live there but know this person as a distant relative through marriage.
She does talk a lot of crap though!
She moved into this house when her older kids were teens & her marriage broke up. She went on to have the youngest there. She has categorically said the houses were for single mothers as she was complaining about her neighbour moving a partner in & how she was planning on reporting this (she's a charmer!)
Even if the house was for families - is it ok to live there & have your adult kids remain there & move their partners in? Despite them all working?
I honestly don't know what I think. I have a suspicion that's it's cheeky but also realise I could be biased as I just don't like her for a load of other reasons. Plus she is a total freeloader so that gives me extra cause to think she's taking advantage as she'd always on the make..

I'm in a London borough where the minimum wait for a 2 bed flat is 10 years for band 2, a 3 bed flat/house even longer.

On one of the community Facebook groups a lady has shared her experience of living in a hostel with her three children. A neighbour set off a shotgun next door which ricocheted and caused substantial damage to the wall in the room her children slept. It could have killed them.

Did she get moved into a flat or house? Nope, she's still in the same hostel.. just a different room.

Gun bloke taken away and I assume imprisoned but that's just one bad person in a pool of many.

Meanwhile you've got entitled people sitting in their three bed houses sipping their tea, loving life, not giving a shit about children like that.

I could never be so selfish.

Whattodo34

Thank you, people are very judgmental. Maybe if those taking up bigger houses with 2/3 more bedrooms than they need freed up those houses then less people would be forced to live in cramped conditions! I’ve counted today and my council has 6 one beds to bid on, eight 2 beds flats and Three 3 beds (two houses, one flat) but none of the one beds are ground floor so people don’t want to bid on them.

A review system would be quite easy; take the number of families in the hostel list, then review all suitable properties occupied for capacity. If we made certain vulnerable groups entitled to housing, which would be quite lawful, then single people occupying larger public housing would be sorted very fast indeed. Public housing is now designated for social need, not a lifetime.

UnreasonablyPissedOff

Normal social housing rules: yes, adult children can move their partners in and everyone can be in paid employment.

Surely it’s better that they all live together in one property instead of taking up several properties in an already overstretched housing market?
I’m pretty left wing but I don’t think it would be a good idea to say only the very impoverished can live in social housing. We just need more housing to go around.

No one in their right mind would give up a 2-3 bed house for a smaller 1bed flat which most likely would be more expensive in terms of council tax and rent . I know I wouldn’t ( although I bought my council house 😂)

Unless they really wanted to downsize why on earth would they move.

Where I live my friends ex was offered a flat within 3 months of being registered
As he is over 55

Same for a friend of my husband who is also over 50 . In my area a lot of fiats are specifically for over 50s
Both are really nice large 1 bed flats from HA

My council offer an incentive for anyone giving up 2 or more bedrooms (which I don’t think is enough really to make someone give up 2 + bedrooms) and also give the person a band A which means you would be moved in a few months, whereas usual waiting time is 10 years +

That's a great incentive @Happycat1212, I know a few people who would love to take them up on that. We don't have anything like that here unfortunately.

Also interesting to see how different places work things.

@Happycat1212

This could be about my ex! He is a single man in a 3 bed council house in central London! He rents out all the rooms and is allowed to do this and due to the location he gets a lot of money, his council allow it and he’s still allowed to claim benefits as well 🤦‍♀️ Meaning he pays pennies in child maintenance.

Am v late to the thread but how is this allowed? How can he claim benefits (not including health related ones) if he's got 3 lodgers in central London he must be rolling in it!? Also I thought you weren't allowed to sublet council houses. There is a special place in Hell for men who try and wriggle out of paying maintenence!

GeorgeRRRRRMartin

He doesn’t sublet as he is living in the property and is allowed lodgers, he gets enough to not work, (his words, he doesn’t need to work) and under UC money from lodgers isn’t classed as income so he can charge whatever he likes and still claim UC.

EvilOnion

I know some councils that offer thousands so I think it’s on the lower end

Oh right, ours doesn't offer anything.

Being guaranteed a half decent properly quickly and not having to pay higher rent would be enough incentive for the people o know as that's the biggest issue.

We pay £450 for a 3 bed, 2 bathroom and enclosed garden, my friend in the same street pays £390 for a 1 bed with no outdoor access. Same HA too.

I wouldn't be downsizing and paying near enough the same.

YANBU

My mum is living in a 4 bed council house on her own, would now be classed as a 5 bed as it has a seperate dinning room. She's lived there on her own for 10 years, since my dad died, and she's got no intention of ever downsizing. She's only in her 60s so could be there for another 20 years. The council have offered her incentives to move, smaller houses in desireable areas/removal costs etc. But there's absolutely no way she'll agree to it. As far as she is concerned she's paid into the system all her life and that's her home, that she's paid for over and over again in taxes. Which is all bollocks as she's never worked apart from a brief stint as a dinner lady when I was at primary school.

there were tenancy reviews implemented a few years ago - possibly under Grant Shapps I can't recall. The reality was people's circumstances hadn't changed significantly to drive turnover up.

Social housing providers did used to incentivise downsizing - or rightsizing as Lord Best would term it - particularly for older tenants but with the advent of welfare reform/bedroom tax that incentivisation was re-purposed.

@MishMashMummy

One person living in a three bed house is not responsible for the London housing crisis. Blame the Tories, they’re the ones who are actually able to do something to fix the problem but won’t.

It's not one person tho is it.

It's not one person tho is it.

Exactly, it's scores of people some of which are on this thread

If everybody under occupying social housing downsized to accordance of their needs then that would free up so much space for the genuinely needy families stuck in hostels or inadequately small flats.

Its quite telling that some of these people care more about their 'right' to remain in a hugely under occupied council home, than they care about children suffering in poor conditions.

Its a very sad example of the "I'm alright Jack" mentality.

I bet most of those people disingenuously sigh "oh, how awful" when they see adverts or television programs about children living in poverty.

What good is it having a system in place to support the most needy and disadvantaged people in our society when they can't access it because of people like that.

Are the one bed flats we want people to downsize to currently unoccupied and available? Where I live all social housing is full. It’s a couple years wait to get a one bed flat (presumably people move more frequently from these into private housing or to live with other people) and it’s 10 years to get a 3 bed house. Priority is given to people in temporary housing or with medical needs.

I don’t see any one bed empty flats. Swapping an over crowded family from a one bed to a three bed (which is under occupied) would solve that family’s overcrowding issue but it won’t solve the problem of the homeless family unless we make the under occupier homeless because moving somebody to a smaller homes doesn’t create an extra property.