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

[Faithin]

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.

Are you for real @YellowTreeHouse ?

My Nanna lived in a large 5 bedroom council estate (large family) many many many years ago! When the older children moved out she downsized - she asked for a certain area and to have a garden - she got it. Again once all the other children moved on they pottered around in their home , the council asked numerous times for her to consider moving out - they only ever offered flats which she would never move out to. Eventually a 2 bedroom bungalow came up with a small garden she moved out. They needed 2 bedrooms due to my grandad medical equipment - the 2nd bedroom though is tiny!!

That’s what’s needed small 1/2 bedroom homes with the gardens, for them to make it their home - my Nan had no interest being on a block of flats, noise , lack of lifts etc her biggest fear was to die in a high rise flat, never being able leave if lift broke!
My Mum lives on the edge of a estate beautiful large cul-de-sac of 3/4 bedroom council homes with big gardens - vegetables growing in the gardens. All elderly people living in them, it’s their home and their community, most have been their for years and all know each other, they don’t want to move. Though interestingly with the utilities bills they all worried about being able to afford to heat them.

My council housed parents have never missed a payment. They have also never been a nuisance, so no need for the council to evict them.

Yes they should be moved to a smaller property if possible. Social housing is a mess.

You and me both.
Scratching each other to bits over a few crumbs while others have more cake than they can manage.

Are some posters on here under the impression that social housing is rent free ?

Tell that to the Tories ......

This approach is either total stupidity or nastiness for the sake of it. There is no sense in this.

Yet if this were private rented I'm pretty sure on here the landlord would be considered all kinds of evil if they even suggest a tenant moves out, for any reason.

I wonder what the bank would say to me if I missed a payment and I told them they couldn't repossess because I like gardening and I need to use the spare room for visitors.

Probably the same as my HA....pay up or else. What makes you think social housing tenants get a free pass if the rent's not paid?

When it's being funded by housing benefit it kind of is

Urgh I hate this. My small 2 bed private rental is also my home; it doesn’t mean I get to stay in it however long I want or pass it on to my children, both absolutely ridiculous things people in social housing get to do without paying for repairs and while only paying massively subsidised ‘rent’. Of course people should be moved on. It’s a rental ultimately, not a permanent home and it’s a public service so should be administered for the best benefit of the public.

Is it me or is it c**t season?

They are. My parents are still paying rent at an age when most people would have been mortgage free for over 10/15 years already.

I'm in a council house. In the nw. 5 bedroom, drive way, back garden. I pay £98 a week and it's a poor area. My brother in law lives 1.2 miles away from me in a 2 bedroom flat and pays £128 a week rent. Why on Earth would I down size to pay MORE money for LESS space? My council do offer incentives for downsizing. If you take one of the empty priorities they have then they will pay £1000 towards decorating and removals cost. But you don't get to choose your proper and it will be one of maisonettes in smack head row and that's why it's empty in the first place. It stinks of piss and has literal human shit in the communal areas.

But my house is adapted for me. Was done 4 years ago when my house was full to bursting with kids. But 3 have gone to Uni now. So I'm very under occupying with just one kid at home but the adaptations cost £36k . Even the council told me that I'm better off buying the house than moving. We luckily live in a place where we have lots of new council and affordable housing being built so I might just do that in a few years.

🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

How are you going to make those with lifetime tenancies relocate and where are you going to move them to?

There are literally no other council houses near here to move people to. There are no flats and a very limited number of bungalows. It's rural. There's nothing within 8 or 9 miles.

Not all tenants are on housing benefit.....some (a lot), of us have jobs and pay our own rent.

When my Mum died my dad was willing to move from his 3 bedroom HA house to a smaller property, when my Mum was alive they had a scheme where they would pay £1000 for every room that was given up, find a family for the house and find the tenant a smaller property, only Mum didnt want to move, after she dies Dad thought he would take the offer up, on the HA had been taken over and they no longer did it instead he had to go on a home swapper site, it caused him so much stress either the people wanting his house owed rent and were refused permission to move, or his house was deemed too big for people wanting to move from a one bed to a 3 bed it made him ill in the end so we told him to stop doing it, he felt so guilty about living in a 3 bed with a garden that a young family should have.

But the WORSE thing is that Dad died in March I am in touch with his old neighbours and the house is still EMPTY even though we packed up everything in a week and cleaned the house, so don't blame the poor elderly person or call then greedy for wanting to stay in their house blame councils/HAs who give their elderly tenants no help or support to move and certainly blame HA's /councils who must have desperate people who need housing but leave properties empty - Oh and the only correspondence I had with his HA is them trying to get me to pay a month's rent even though he didn't owe rent as he always paid a month in advance

As long as you buy it at actual market rate, fine. I’m glad you got the adaptations you need but the council has subsidised enough with £36k of adsorptions and years of that tiny contribution to rent.

Not everyone in HA housing is on benefits.

@XenoBitch good thing no one claimed that then isn't it

Not to mention that they may still need the extra space. My PIL for example have my nieces to stay over night twice a week when DSiL works a night shift and her DH doesn't finish work till 11pm. They wouldn't be able to have them over night if they were forced to downsize, leaving DSiL with no childcare. Nothing is ever just black and white

Some people are so entitled.

No one needs a spare room, unless you have an overnight carer.

If you want the luxury of having a spare room then go and rent privately.

And there are loads in private rent claiming housing benefit. It's not just a council house thing.

Private landlords are the biggest recipients of housing benefit @XenoBitch, mostly because the rents are unaffordable.