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.

They are subsidised because they are charged out at lower rates. I wish I could have a 20% (and more) discount on real world housing costs

This is not what 'subsidised' means. Social housing costs are the real world housing costs. Private housing rents are inflated.

As far as I know and other posters have said on the thread who have direct experience, many LAs no longer offer lifetime tenancies. Guess what though? That hasn’t solved the housing crisis yet and it won’t either. It just means the least secure in society have been made even less secure. Some people here only see houses as capital and I do get that when you have slogged your guts out to get a mortgage on a house. However stable societies are not built on transient populations and short term thinking such as this is damaging to society at every level, with only the most immediate effect on those on lower incomes.

On paper yes - I agree. Its not your aunts house, its the councils, and morally to have her living there alone and denying a family who could use every bedroom to be able to move in is not morally correct

But its such a contentious issue.

I own my own home but live alone (3bd) and have had people say to me I had no right to buy a 3bd and should be made to sell and downsize as its stopping families who need the space buying it. I obviously do not agree so I also see the other side to your aunt, but at the end of the day she does rent.

‘Force tenants’ vs ‘spirit in which it was built’ ummmm yay for human dignity!!!! In the 1950s you know there was a major housing shortage because parts of England had been carpet bombed. That’s not the case now is it? The housing crisis is a manufactured emergency caused by greed. Why should the poorest have to suffer?

@Jonnywishbone yes and private rentals near me are well over the actual costs of a mortgage and maintenance.
On my estate the 2 bed houses have gone up in value by £80k in the last five years HA pay the same in rent as someone that bought 5 years ago. The private renters paythree times that amount. Which means on any new buildings the housing association rent it will be considerably higher.

It was my grandparents tenancy. I don't live in a council house and never have. My point is that the purpose of council housing was housing for people in need and in the past councils put multiple families in the same house in order to accomodate them. The rent council tenants pay is legally capped at a discount to the private sector so it is subsidised. The quid pro quo of that should be that if you want your cheap rent and you have spare room then guess what you will be housing someone who is on the waiting list - just as it was in the past!

I think morally it would be great if people who no longer need 3/4 bedroom houses would tell the council they want to downsize when their children have left home, thus freeing them up for families who really need the space.
But we’re all selfish aren’t we? Or at least 99% of us are. Whatever our personal situation or finances, we do exactly what is best for us. So why expect council tenants to be selfless when no one else is?

But the government is having to pay expensive private sector rents out of tax funds to house families because they can’t get an adequate council house.

If the choice is to buy your council house or downsize to free it up for another family, won't this encourage more people to buy their council houses, thus shrinking the council housing stocks even more?
If these people don't buy the house, then at some point, it will house another family.
However, I am not a supporter of buying govt housing at a huge discount while the govt does not reinvest that money into building equivalent council homes.

Soooo the problem is the person charging eye gouging rents then? Nothing to do with council tenants. Maybe you should campaign for a rent cap.

Then if they won't move out of their below market rent subsidised housing they can use the spare rooms to house people on the council waiting list, just as used to happen in the past!

If the state started selling off buildings below market rate would we think that was okay? Or would we think someone is taking the p* and making a monkey out of the rest of us?

Except it didn't! Your mom's case was very unusual.

Because you are renting it. Any landlord can give notice, why can't the council when they know your circumstances have changed? I think this is a big part of the problem with housing tbh.

Op, assume aunty is paying bedroom tax or whatever it is these days.

Ummm I don’t know how to break it to you but that’s because the government sold all the council houses to begin with and for a song. Like they did with a lot of public assets in a pursuit of a failed ideological experiment with monetarism which has now been recognised as an abject failure. So now to compound that failure they should chuck people out of their long term homes to pay more private rental costs on smaller properties, which are already in short supply, inflating the prices further so the tax payer pays more and there’s even less money to spend on building new social housing. Great.

Except it did though didn't it and I suspect it wasn't that unusual.

Then you would lose your bet.
You have to show you are properly living there for a long period of time. Name on bills, voting etc. And even then it can usually only be passed on once and to specific people i.e. partner or adult child.
I got the tenancy passed onto my mum. She had lived there for 30 years so it was easy. The tenancy officer said anything under five years they really scrutinise. I still had to provide lots of proof including statements from neighbours.

Thesonglastslonger · Today 10:05
It isn’t her family home. It’s the government’s family home that she’s borrowed for a pittance. If she still can’t afford market rent (after all this time!) then she should be housed in a one bed so that homeless children squashed with their parents into a single bedroom at a ‘temporary’ hostel for 1+ yr can have a home.
Council houses should be there to help the temporarily homeless get back on their feet, not to provide cheap rent for life to the lucky chosen few while others sleep on the street

I agree with @Thesonglastslonger

No problem they can move into the spare rooms council tenants have.

She has a lifetime tenancy. Even if you have a private lifetime tenancy it would be very difficult for a landlord to remove you bar for extreme reasons. That’s the purpose of it, to give people security.

Why not ban holiday homes that are not rented out?

If you can’t understand the difference between funding yourself and profiting from someone else funding you, we literally cannot have this discussion.

I disagree. The whole point of social housing is the security it provides. She will have spent a lot on the house while she has been there and it is her home. Also there may not even be anywhere suitable for her to move to even if she wanted to.
I do think she should be helped to move to a smaller palace that suits her but it has to be her decision.

My nan is in a 3 bed council house all alone. My parents too. They'd all happily downsize but there's nothing suitable to downsize too. My parents love their little garden and have a dog. They can't drive. There's no 1 or 2 bed houses/flats/bungalow with a garden and in a location suitable for non drivers to downsize to. They can't afford private rent for a smaller property which matches what they'd like as its more than twice the price of their current rent.

These are peoples homes and lives, the cost of moving is expensive. How's about you all mind what does not concern you, and leave the poor lady alone.

😂