To think you should downsize your council house if it’s just you?

[OuchOuchOuchh]

Oh my goodness I have created war at work and everyone is gunning for me.

My auntie has a huge 4 bedroom council house she has lived there since the 90s with her one son. That has now moved out.

All i said was I think it’s unfair that she’s living in such a big family home perfect for a family to bring their kids up in. Large garden backs on to the woods plenty of visits from deers and fox’s it’s beautiful! Anyway all I said is that if you haven’t purchased the property in a certain amount of time you should have to downsize if it’s just you living there.

Theres families overcrowded and can’t get anywhere then you have my auntie paying £100 a week in rent for a massive house for just herself.

please tell me if I am being an asshole! I appreciate it’s her family home but it just doesn’t seem fair to me.

Downsizing needn't be instant though. It wouldn't be hard to make allowances for transitory young adult dependents.

Why is it auntie’s problem more than yours?
Why are poorer people not allowed a secure tenancy, to know that they have somewhere to live and can’t be chucked out at a landlord’s whim or because they can’t afford the increased rent.
Do you think it would create a healthier society to have people in fear and trembling that they are going to be moved somewhere miles from home on a civil servant miles away saying so? Or do you think because they are poor they don’t deserve to put down roots, build a life within a community? Or do you just think only mortgagees and home owners should have that luxury. A lot of people on here seem to think that there is a morality to home ‘ownership’, most of you do not own most of your homes and the bank can take them away if you fall behind after all. There is no inherent goodness about someone owning a house. Indeed from the last 40 years one could confidently say speculation on the property market has caused swathes of damage across society.
Most people as they get older don’t want to maintain and clean and heat properties that are too big for them. They do want to remain near their friends, neighbours, doctors, the shops they know, the library etc. but you think they should be shipped off to wherever they can be shoved in.

We moved to a four bedroom flat when I was eleven there were 8 kids and my mum and dad . We all grew my dad died and my mum was left in her home yes home! Until she died. I think as long as you pay the rent you should be allowed to stay in your family home council or not. So no I dont agree with you. I expect you also think that pensioners dont deserve their state pension either.

Years ago, when your aunt got a council house, it was pretty much thought it was ‘yours’ - obviously on a rent basis not owned.

This.

There has been a social shift in the way council housing is viewed.

Years ago it was seen as a home for life. Somewhere to settle and raise a family and grow old. The bricks may never belong to you but the right to live there was yours as long as you wanted it.

Now it is seen more like temporary emergency accomodation that, ideally, is only needed for a finite amount of time.

The clash comes from people who moved into homes under the old expectation and now find themsleves judged by the new.

I have an auntie in a similar position: she has lived in her council house for as long as I can remember (so, at least 40 years). It has 3 bedrooms, two of which are unused. It has a huge garden. But when she moved in she expected it to be her home for life. So she has decorated several times, made improvements that suit her (e.g. a place to store her mobility scooter), she has loved that garden and tended it carefully. I no more want to see her made to leave now she is 70 than I would want to see another young family have to squash into a bedsit because that's all that's available.

There are no easy answers and no clear rights and wrongs, imo.

I feel that housing authority places should be on a "rental" basis and that they should never be assumed to be kept by the tenants. If this was the rule from the start then we wouldn't have this issue. I also think that these places should be for people who really cannot afford to privately rent, and once/if circumstances change then a fair amount of notice be given to move on to do so, giving low income people and families a chance themselves.

The usual then, your opinion is based on bitterness and jealousy.

So weird nowadays, people used to look down their noses at council tenants, now they are jealous of us.

Thankfully your irrelevant opinion about freedom of choice being a luxury for those in the private market is invalid in my situation, and I can remain in my home until my dying day if I wish.

100% this. Attitudes on this thread are shocking. I can see why the Tory party keeps getting re-elected

But alot of people work hard to decorate their privately owned/rented homes whilst paying crippling rent/mortgages to live there.

You have been helped out (presumably you’ve worked hard but unable to afford private rental/mortgage), so it is only fair that you should be prepared to change houses when you no longer need the state owned asset (funded by the tax payer) that you have live in?

Surely longer term the preferred option is not to let people buy council houses so that they stay within the council? Imagine how many more houses there would be for families if councils had never sold them in the first place??

What happens if someone lives in an adapted house that's now too big? Will you move this person somewhere smaller and pay thousands for the same adaptations?

We have a labour shortage and falling birth rates, one reason for the falling birth rates is the young people cannot access homes suitable for bringing up families. If governments want businesses and services to be staffed they need to incentivise young people to create a new humans to staff said businesses and services.
They will have to find a way to get people to downsize in order to free up family homes this is going to be very difficult because no one will willingly give up their home for something that they see as much less attractive.

Isn't she now paying bedroom tax on superfluous bedrooms, a financial incentive to downsize.

I'm not sure when you were saving or bought your home, but these days Universal Credit has a moderately low cap on capital/savings allowed. It's a massive disincentive for people in receipt of UC to save, especially anywhere near enough to get a viable deposit together. Anything over 6k and your UC starts reducing, once you get to 16k you lose entitlement altogether.

That along with so much stuff on finance/monthly contract/buy now pay later and ridiculous student tuition fees/loans/graduate debt have conditioned everyone into a hand to mouth, debt heavy society.

Not if she's a pensioner...

Council tenants aren’t ‘helped out’. They meet the criteria for housing under the relevant government scheme. They pay rent to live in those homes. They are legally bound by a tenancy agreement. You do realise the VAST majority of council tenants are tax payers too don’t you? Unreal the amount of people who think a legal agreement should be ripped up because a lower income person has signed it yet were up in arms when interest rates went up because it put their mortgages up and were stamping their feet and demanding government action to assist them in relation to the private legal agreements they had entered in to with commercial banks.

It's also very entitled of you to consider that the house you RENT (from the state/public no less) is yours forever.

It is not her house but it is her home.

They are 2 different things and your are ignoring the real impact a home has including the local environment, social and family support networks.
In an ideal world there would be a secure local suitably sized house in the local area, but the chances are, if she gave up this place, her next place could be miles away from any support network.

I spent my 20s in private rentals and you have to move on regularly, if the landlord wants
to sell, or move in or whatever. Why should people in social housing get more security than those on the private rental market? It’s not your house. They should redo the housing list every five years or so given there is a huge housing crisis.

YANBU despite what the socialist mumsnetters will think. It’s common sense, and absolutely unjustifiable. The level of entitlement to public resources of some posters on here is staggering.

So? If I couldn’t afford my house the bank would repossess me. They wouldn’t care that it’s my ‘home’, my kids home, near their schools/nurseries or whatever. We don’t get it cheap because we were lucky enough to get our foot in a public resource.

The people you're talking about were given lifetime tenancies. Its the new tenancies that need to have clauses in about downsizing.

She is entitled to rely on that because she signed a lifetime tenancy. So until she dies so long as she abuses by the terms of the tenancy she is entitled to live there.
Also she the state is her servant as much as it yours. She is a member of the public the same as you are.

*abides by

Hhhmmm not sure I implied you get a council house to accommodate visiting grandchildren!!

I was making the point that it's not just a house but a home. How many of you have a grandparent in a home with more than one bedroom?

All are offered on a needs basis...sadly the needs have worsened...but that isn't other tenants fault who have made theirs a home.

So if we push out people who have been good paying, proud of their homes tenants, often long term tenents, keeping many estates from turning into sink estates.

Diversity and mixed housing stock stops a lot of social issues....social problems cost money...nhs...social services...crime....etc

So turfing little Ednia out of her house that she has kept nicely and has a garden that's looked after, into a one bed flat ..in an area not familiar to her...she looses contact from neighbours and friends..support network..her MH declines...her physical health may decline...more social support will be needed...

New family get 5 minutes in her old home as it will be whipped from them as soon as things change...so they don't invest...place runs down...estate runs down...crime up.....cost to tax payer up...

It hasn't always been this way...council houses were just seen as homes for ordinary families for life...many people still in them believe they have that security.

If you want to change the goalpost now fine...but protect those already there.. and be prepared for the wider longer more damaging costs to come when housing stock is only seen as temporary.

Personally I'd rather Ednia stayed put, paid her gardner once a month, kept the house from decline and had the support of her community and her community gets the value of her life experience, until such time she might go into care.

Then another nice home will be ready to pass to a family.
You can say that is idiolistic...but if you consider the alternative it is practical to...focus on demanding good housing from councils and governments.

But unless we’re all being offered huge houses for £100 a month on a lifetime tenancy, some members of the public seem to be more equal than others don’t they?