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.

You know what is cognitive dissonance- your refusal to answer my first point. Do you know of any other situation where someone would be required to abandon their legal rights under an agreement at a detriment to themselves because you think that to do otherwise is ‘Selfish’? And if not why do think it’s acceptable to ask it of council tenants. Either we can all stand over the agreements we make or no one can - you just don’t think that will ever apply to you because you think council tenants are less than you, probably deserve it.
The majority of whatabouttery I have seen is actually from you. 1 person getting a redundancy and buying a house isn’t a solution to the housing crisis and again selfishness is not a valid consideration in this argument.

what has it got to do with you or your colleagues at work?
and not everybody buys a house
a home is a home however you pay for it

I agree with you 100 %.

The bedroom tax created some movement in social housing with the downsizing it created , but it fell short because it doesn’t apply to pensioners who are often the worst culprits .
It’s heartbreaking to see so many overcrowded families in too small properties when single people are occupying family homes.

Selfish of them in my opinion .

• There should be improved policy to make swapping easier and make financial sense (ie not paying more for less bedrooms).

• People who are able to swap somewhere smaller once they don’t need the bedrooms, should.

The first statement being true doesn’t make the second statement not true/not relevant.

We live in a lovely coastal fairly rural area, where the biggest house in this part of the village is HA, it’s detached and in the best plot. It’s probably worth £550-600k, and it’s a working age couple whose various kids and step kids have long moved out but they don’t work as they have very little outgoings! I do find it frustrating when they brag about their latest long haul holiday (Maldives over Xmas), or when the housing association van arrives to renew the fences/new doors/windows/kitchen/paintwork/garden every few months!

The voice of sanity. What many on this thread to realise is that many conditions in the private rental sector are currently almost as poor as you describe (with an indoor bathroom though) but the difference now is people don’t even have the security to know that they will have a roof over their heads in 12 months time (and have to find the gouging fees to pay for the lease renewal, etc.).

Why don't all of the posters saying it's selfish and that the tenants should move out of their HOME (and yes it is THEIR home but not their house) open up their properties and take some homeless people into their spare rooms? How selfish are you that you've got all of these spare rooms in your house but you just walk past people who have to sleep on the streets. I mean, according to some of you there's an abundance of one bedroom flats available so it makes you wonder why single homeless people are on the waiting list for so long doesn't it?

Yes I will ALWAYS put my own family's well-being before other peoples. And when they grow up, after their well-being I will then put myself first. I'm not going to work hard all my life in a low paid job where I already make sacrifices to afford my "cheap" council house and then at the end of my life either give it up and risk an unsafe private tenancy or move to a tower block, which would eventually become unsuitable but I would be classed as "adequately housed" so nothing would be done to help.

Unfortunately, I've not been able to buy a house so the weekly rent I've paid is gone, nothing to show for it. No security, nothing to fall back on, nothing to leave my children. Not many mortgage lenders would lend a single parent on a low paid income enough to buy a house. And I don't know about your areas but the shared ownership schemes round here a a rip off! They're asking for very very high prices for a 50% share of a house. What a bad mistake that would be because I can almost guarantee that if I needed to sell or move before it was paid off, it would be in negative equity.

I work in the homeless sector so I know exactly how it all works in our areas. I know the amount of people on the waiting list and where people place on the list. The main problem here is that there are less than 15 x 4 bedroom houses on the housing associations stock list. And much fewer 3 bedroom homes than needed and that's because so many were sold off. On my previous street 80% of the houses were privately owned. This village is probably 50%. Someone last bought one about 5 years ago on this street.

Sigh.

No intention of leaving otherwise. Really? Even if you started making 70k a year? Even if you inherited £200,000? Even if you married a partner who owned their own home? No intention of leaving?

Because these are the cases I am talking about as selfish.

Of course people who cannot well afford to leave HA would have no intention of leaving, they should not move out, they should not put themselves in financial hardship.

But if you’re a couple earning 50k each going on several flash holidays each year, still in a 4 bed council house you’ve lived in since your 20s? Yes I think you should hand it back to the council for the next person to use. You are literally ABLE to give a struggling family a home and choosing not to.

Sigh...

That was never going to happen with the jobs we had at the time or I wouldn't have said I had no intention of moving would I. After all you used me as a glowing example in your last post. And again, no chance of inheritance of that much. Remember my nan is the selfish one taking up a 2 bed bungalow.

The system is completely broken. If you live in a council house, you cant afford holidays to the Maldives. Its a luxury location -I wouldn’t expect to go there on holiday and we have a mortgage that could easily cripple us if we didnt work so hard. Honestly, I despair 🙈

That must be a very unusual situation indeed. Doesn’t matter though as they signed a tenancy. If the council wants them to end the tenancy they should do what any one does when trying to break a tenancy agreement - make an offer either to rehouse or compensate them for giving up the tenancy. I would imagine from your description of the large house though not many people in your rural location would be willing to take it on. Am confused as they don’t work but are away to the Maldives. How??? Job seekers is 70 odd pound a week for a single person and it’s less than half of double that for a couple. Is one or both of them disabled? Must say it would take probably two years of saving every penny of income to afford that kind of trip. Well done to the super efficient HA maintaining the property, many of the people I have dealt with are waiting months to get their heating fixed so it’s great to see someone has got it right! Tenants in any property are of course entitled to have the landlord maintain the property to a reasonable standard in return for the rent they pay. Whether HA OR private

I agree with you. I also know people who are mid-high earners living in social housing on low rents absolutely rinsing it where there are people like myself and husband on fairly low incomes paying £1000pm rent with zero chance to save to buy.

See this is what I don’t understand - people who can afford to spend “a fortune” on their council house and are likely to spend thousands more shouldn’t have qualified for one. They should be for the people who are genuinely poor and don’t have x amount of disposable income. Also, they aren’t your home as you are renting. Making it nicer is one thing, but spending a fortune on something that isn’t actually yours is just crazy. You may not be responsible for housing people who need a bigger home, but neither is the government responsible for housing you on the cheap in a massive house that other people need more than you, regardless of what you chose to spend on it.

It shouldn't be like this though. My god. It is not this posters fault that the government have fucked it. The poster has a tenancy and it is within their right to live in that house as long as they bloody well want to.

Yes if they're literally rolling in it, you have a point. But just living a normal, average life? They should be allowed to just bloody crack on!

Social housing should be means tested every 5 years. If people’s circumstances change and they can afford to rent privately or buy they shouldn’t keep their council house. There is limited space to keep building indefinitely in the U.K. and there are many people in need. The most in need should be prioritised.

@Eyerollcentral

You know what is cognitive dissonance- your refusal to answer my first point. Do you know of any other situation where someone would be required to abandon their legal rights under an agreement at a detriment to themselves because you think that to do otherwise is ‘Selfish’? And if not why do think it’s acceptable to ask it of council tenants. Either we can all stand over the agreements we make or no one can - you just don’t think that will ever apply to you because you think council tenants are less than you, probably deserve it.

I just don’t really get your point. Just because you have the legal right to something, doesn’t mean it’s not selfish. Landlords have the legal right to crank rents up, chuck out their tenants etc, it’s still despicable and selfish. A person giving money to charity is giving up money that’s legally theirs in order to help someone else. I also think billionaires should give a huge % of their fortune away. Do they legally have to? No. Is it selfish not to? Yes. There’s so many examples of people doing stuff they don’t legally have to in order to be selfless.

In this case, it would be because they don’t NEED the security of a lifetime tenancy of below-market rates, because they can well afford to cover their own housing the rest of their lives and still be financially secure. I’m gonna peace out in a minute because I dunno how many times I can say the same thing over again.

I also think wealthy pensioners/landlords who own massive or multiple properties, not allowing young people to buy, are similarly selfish. No a buy-to-let landlord doesn’t legally HAVE to give up his 5 homes. They are thinking of themselves and their own comfort and prosperity, rather than the bigger picture and good for society.

I definitely don’t think council tenants are less than me. I am - by definition - and for the millionth time on this thread! - only talking about council tenants who earn much more than me. Why would I think they are less than me?

Building any at all would be a help wouldn't it. And your little plan wouldn't work. It would lead to absolute no go areas. What incentive would there be for people to look after their property or better themselves or get jobs when the kids start school, if they were going to get kicked out of their house after 5 years to struggle on the private market where there is zero security? Not what anyone needs.

It isn’t crazy to make your home nice when you are going to live there for the rest of your life, is it though?
Have you tried to rent a property on the private market recently? Rents are double or three times what a mortgage would be on the same property. Demand is through the roof and many people are paying 6 - 12 months rent in advance to get a place. So say you get a terrace in a medium sized city in a not amazing area for 750 per month. That’s at least £1,500 you have to find for a deposit and first months rent. Plus let’s say £300 for credit searches (screwed if you have bad or middling credit), lease, keys to the estate agent. So that’s the guts of £2,000 gone in the best case scenario. And by the way you have to pay another £150 - £200 at the end of twelve months just to keep living there. Given interest rates will continue to go up, guess what so is your rent. If you are in a high demand area £750 becomes £900 or even £1,000 a month at the end of that year. Yet you are genuinely suggesting that people should give up secure tenancies with a reasonable rent to try and navigate the private rental sector. Anyone would have to be absolutely certifiable to do it and there is not one person amongst those crowing on this thread that would do it.

AllThingsServeTheBeam Above people more genuinely in need than them? Why does someone have the right to a massive house when there are families living in hostels? There is no infinite pot of money and the house doesn’t belong to them. If you don’t think the poorest/most in need in society should be prioritised then you’re part of the problem.

do you live in social housing? @LaDamaDeElche

all this peole should do this and should suddenly be able to afford a private rental

You are the only one in society who has got it right. Peace out

@uhtredsonofuhtred1
Why don't all of the posters saying it's selfish and that the tenants should move out of their HOME (and yes it is THEIR home but not their house) open up their properties and take some homeless people into their spare rooms?

I don’t have a spare room, my kids share a room because I can’t afford to buy a bigger house. Why don’t all the council tenants with spare bedrooms take homeless people in, as per your logic? You get the award for stupidest post on the thread.

AllThingsServeTheBeam So basically you are saying that you agree with someone keeping a 4 bed properly when their kids move out when there are families in genuine need of that house?

Massive house? A 3 bed. And the poster has said that currently they have a family living in it. Maybe by the time that posters kids have grown and fled the nest the government will have come through with their promises and built some suitable social housing ay?

Solve homelessness by making more people homeless