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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think councils should move people to smaller properties when kids move out?

417 replies

Faithin · 27/09/2022 16:20

There's a huge lack of 3 bedroom social housing where I live (and everywhere I think?)
a lot of the people living in the 3 bed places are usually just 1 or 2 adults as the kids have grown up and moved out. Meanwhile there's lots of young families overcrowded in 1 and 2 bed flats with no garden etc
aibu to think those that actually need the space should be in the houses and those who don't should be made to downsize?
as the waiting list is so long, what tends to happen is peoples children are in their teens by the time they are moved into a 3 bed property, the grow up and leave within a couple of years and the parents stay, so the vast majority are under-occupied.

OP posts:
MovinOnUp · 28/09/2022 10:51

So if I managed to up my monthly income by £500 meaning I could afford a private rent, I should hand back my council house and the security that it brings and just keep my fingers crossed that my new landlord renews our lease every six months?

x2boys · 28/09/2022 10:52

Van34 · 28/09/2022 10:31

Why are they not also means tested. There are an awful lot of HA tenants that can now afford to rent privately and so they should. Council housing should not be for life, it should get you through a rough patch and back on your feet.

Again in many parts ofcthe country, social rents and private rents are comparable, but do you seriously think that if people thought they were going to lose their secure home to be at the mercy of private rental they would aim to to get better jobs ,why would anyone do that ?

Damnautocorrect · 28/09/2022 10:53

there are an awful lot of HA tenants who can afford to rent privately.

I’ve privately rented for 15 years now. I’ll give you the reality
I’ve been given notice to move within 6 weeks.

  • find a property, within catchment of the school
  • that’s pack up my home, clear out my home, prepare the children for the unexpected move.
  • find the deposit and associated moving costs (£5k).

Unexpected rent increase of 40% with one months notice.

Putting up with house viewings when the house is for sale

Worrying about catchment areas and friendship groups, E.g house being sold and is having to move out of area so the children cannot finish the school they started at.

The reality you’ll be priced out of an area, so schools clubs, community etc at the landlords whim.

thats even before you cannot decorate, you cannot put a picture up, you can’t have a pet (as this landlord may let you have a pet, but the next may not). The constant judgement on inspection day. Not letting my children have messy play (play dough, paints) incase it damages something and I lose my deposit.

Renting as a family is hard I’d not give up the security HA provides. Not for one second.

I’ve paid out over £250,000 in rent in that time.

MovinOnUp · 28/09/2022 10:53

That was supposed to be in reply to the comment made by @Van34

Damnautocorrect · 28/09/2022 10:53

MovinOnUp · 28/09/2022 10:51

So if I managed to up my monthly income by £500 meaning I could afford a private rent, I should hand back my council house and the security that it brings and just keep my fingers crossed that my new landlord renews our lease every six months?

And keeps the rent the same

MovinOnUp · 28/09/2022 11:01

Damnautocorrect · 28/09/2022 10:53

And keeps the rent the same

Exactly!
Also, everything @Damnautocorrect said!

MovinOnUp · 28/09/2022 11:04

Argh I meant everything you said in your first post, clearly haven't had my coffee today!
But then again, I'm a council tenant....if I can afford coffee I should just move into a private rental

x2boys · 28/09/2022 11:07

MovinOnUp · 28/09/2022 11:04

Argh I meant everything you said in your first post, clearly haven't had my coffee today!
But then again, I'm a council tenant....if I can afford coffee I should just move into a private rental

I hope you dont wear clothes?
Or if you do rags,?

MovinOnUp · 28/09/2022 11:43

x2boys · 28/09/2022 11:07

I hope you dont wear clothes?
Or if you do rags,?

Actually not far off it today ☺️

JustLyra · 28/09/2022 11:44

And as for "well, we should go on a building spree and build a mllion new council houses"--yes, I agree, but even if we started tomorrow it would take years. There are families who need bigger properties right now.

The glut of smaller properties needed to shift people from bigger places down won’t appear overnight either.

Building new council and HA properties is the long term solution. Far better than gimmicks like the bedroom tax and incentives to move.

Suedomin · 28/09/2022 11:48

Council housing should not be for life, it should get you through a rough patch and back on your feet.
This totally misunderstands the point of council housing. Social housing is not designed to be housing just for people who can't afford private renting or those going through s rough patch. It is supposed to be a home for life and to provide security.

JustLyra · 28/09/2022 11:49

There should also be a spree of buying properties by councils.

I’m a LL. I inherited my grandparents flat when my Nana died. As it was about to go up for sale a friend of a friend asked if I’d consider renting it out as it has certain adaptions and her parent was waiting for a place. Thinking it would be short term I did.

When she moved out the housing officer assisting her asked me if I’d consider temporarily renting to someone else who desperately needed the adaptions while they were waiting.

Over the years I’ve now had 6 tenants in the same position. All long-ish term and all struggling to find somewhere suitable. All have moved into council or HA properties eventually.

Several of them have had their rent paid by housing benefit. The amount paid over the years could easily have purchased the flat (and the rent has never been high private rental style amounts), but despite going through their buying scheme three times they’ve always opted not to - which is baffling given the seeming need for it.

50percentNamaste50percentGoFuckYourself · 28/09/2022 11:51

Maybe if the UK was more like Ireland...where private renters have far more rights (part 4 tenancies means that after 6 months you can't be kicked out for 6 years unless the landlord is selling or doing extensive renovations) and every new estate has to give 10% for social housing, so new properties are constantly becoming available....

Pollydon · 28/09/2022 13:03

Van34 · 28/09/2022 10:31

Why are they not also means tested. There are an awful lot of HA tenants that can now afford to rent privately and so they should. Council housing should not be for life, it should get you through a rough patch and back on your feet.

Bollocks. DH and I lived in the area he had grown up in, had elderly parents in. Unfortunately it was a naice area that lots of people retired to and that sent both house prices and private rent cost sky high.
I work in healthcare , DH owned a small business in that area. To live where we could afford to buy would mean locating 1.5 hours away with no work for either of us.

WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps · 28/09/2022 13:10

SadPanda · 27/09/2022 19:05

I've got splinters from fence sitting on this one. On the one hand I think it's their home and forcing elderly people out of the homes they may have lived in for many, many years is pretty shit. But on the other hand my mother has lived in her 4 bedroomed council house for 35 years, the last 10 of which have been entirely by herself. But then her house is in a village where she knows everyone and downsizing would mean moving away completely. Away from neighbours who pop in for a cuppa, away from kids who help her carry her shopping, away from the only community she knows.

So maybe the answer is to build more council houses rather than pit younger families against older people.

Yeah this. ^ If people have been in a secure-tenancy 3/4 bed council/HA house for 30+ years and are now classed as having too many bedrooms (so need to LEAVE,) they need to be offered a bungalow (preferably 2 bed,) or a 2 bed house with a garden. Basically like for like of what they have now but smaller, in the same area OR another area of their choice.

My friend - a widow aged 57 who lost her DH in 2019, is in a 3 bed house with no kids there for 12 years. She has been asked a few times if she will move/downsize, but she says unless they give her a bungalow in the village she is in, (or one of 3 other villages within 2 miles,) it's a round fat NO. The list for these bungalows would go twice around Mount Snowdon. She is 'under-occupied' so is fairly high on the list, but despite bidding on some 20 bungalows for 3 years or so, she has had no luck. They don't come up too often, maybe one a month in one of the 4 villages, but she has never come higher than 15th/16th...

She works, and can afford the rent on her 3 bed house. Indeed the rent is cheaper than a 1 bed flat to rent privately, and only about £20 a week more than a 1 bed council flat. She said like fucking hell is she moving into a shitty squalid 1 bed flat with no garden in a crappy, high crime area, with pot smokers and gangs of teens/young 20-somethings hanging around in the stairwells, and doing wheelies in a stolen ford focus on the communal car park. No garden, no driveway, no garage, no washing line of her own, no privacy, nowhere for her to sit in peace sunbathing or reading, no security for her car, and neighbours above, below, to the right, and to the left.

So unless people are offered what they desire, why the fuck should they move? I know I wouldn't.

WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps · 28/09/2022 13:14

@Van34

Why are they not also means tested. There are an awful lot of HA tenants that can now afford to rent privately and so they should. Council housing should not be for life, it should get you through a rough patch and back on your feet.

Typical stupid ignorant ill-informed comment, from one of the many people who are bitterly jealous that some people have secure council and housing association tenancies.

This may come as a shock to you luv, but really well off/solvent people don't generally go into bloody social housing! Do educate yourself - you're making yourself look really silly!

Damnautocorrect · 28/09/2022 13:23

Decent social housing gives stability to communities.
it builds happy lives, happy families, happy communities. People who are forced into a transient lifestyle don’t feel part of the same community. As a result areas suffer. You can stay and care for elderly parents, children can go on apprenticeships or Uni without fear of it causing housing issues.

do not under estimate what having a secure home gives you

gamerchick · 28/09/2022 13:44

WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps · 28/09/2022 13:14

@Van34

Why are they not also means tested. There are an awful lot of HA tenants that can now afford to rent privately and so they should. Council housing should not be for life, it should get you through a rough patch and back on your feet.

Typical stupid ignorant ill-informed comment, from one of the many people who are bitterly jealous that some people have secure council and housing association tenancies.

This may come as a shock to you luv, but really well off/solvent people don't generally go into bloody social housing! Do educate yourself - you're making yourself look really silly!

Because people are a bit dim and can't let go of the thought that SH is linked to benefits.

It isn't and never has been.

Seymour5 · 28/09/2022 13:51

greenteafiend · 28/09/2022 10:42

This thread seems to have a lot of compassion for some quite minor inconveniences for empty nesters ("Imagine having to move to somewhere without a garden!") and very little compassion for families with kids stuck in cramped little flats.

The guiding principle of UK policies, as always, is that the boomers need to get what they want, every time. And everyone else gets the privilege of paying for it.

Priorities, people.

And as for "well, we should go on a building spree and build a mllion new council houses"--yes, I agree, but even if we started tomorrow it would take years. There are families who need bigger properties right now.

Boomer here. We gave up a council flat in the 70s to move a few hundred miles, job related, and couldn’t even get on the waiting list. It was all a bit Royston Vasyish, ‘local homes for local people’ before the 80s. So we lived in private rented. We could have been quids in, nice house, Right to Buy, no such luck.

Both of us worked, bought a house, until in his late 40s, DH could work no more for health reasons. Fortunately we had enough equity to replace the ‘family home’ with a smaller, cheaper one. That’s reality. Why couldn’t we remain? Because we couldn’t afford to. All sorts of reasons why people have to move.

Mrsjayy · 28/09/2022 13:59

ImAvingOops · 28/09/2022 10:18

The councils could build mobile homes to address the housing shortages - the ones that were built after ww2 lasted for decades and these days it's possible to build strong, energy efficient, really nice homes that don't cost the earth to buy. I would happily live in one

Those were prefabs not mobile homes, the ones where I am were refurbished and had roofs put on them because they were rotten with damp.

PaperMonster · 28/09/2022 14:06

We have a couple of single neighbours in three bed houses and they’d both like to downsize - but there isn’t anywhere smaller available locally. We’re very rural and they struggle to find tenants when something does become available so as long as the rent is being received that’s all that matters really.

ThatGirlInACountrySong · 28/09/2022 14:16

greenteafiend · 28/09/2022 10:42

This thread seems to have a lot of compassion for some quite minor inconveniences for empty nesters ("Imagine having to move to somewhere without a garden!") and very little compassion for families with kids stuck in cramped little flats.

The guiding principle of UK policies, as always, is that the boomers need to get what they want, every time. And everyone else gets the privilege of paying for it.

Priorities, people.

And as for "well, we should go on a building spree and build a mllion new council houses"--yes, I agree, but even if we started tomorrow it would take years. There are families who need bigger properties right now.

But why have all these kids yo start with if you are only able to afford a 'cramped little flat'!

Priorities eh?

ThatGirlInACountrySong · 28/09/2022 14:18

Lots of bitter jealous people on this thread

Quite funny hearing of their 'suggestions'

Whammyyammy · 28/09/2022 14:37

Whether it's socially or privates owned housing, its still someone's home. I don't think moving families is the answer.
More social housing is needed, or better access to private homes through better mortgages etc.
But I think both those avenues are fooked...

Faithin · 28/09/2022 15:05

ThatGirlInACountrySong · 28/09/2022 14:16

But why have all these kids yo start with if you are only able to afford a 'cramped little flat'!

Priorities eh?

So only rich people should have children? Ok

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