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.

Or private landlords could be forced to reduce their prices and not discriminate, houses could be more affordable to buy, so there wouldnt be a need for social housing in the first place.

i dont think the op's aunt could get a mortgage
mortgages are so out of reach to so many people.

Oh this would be fabulous. Sad it will never happen!

@OnTheRoadAgain1

There is a huge reluctance to swap council housing from say a 3 bed to a 2 bed. Often, the houses are not in a similar condition. They’re also not in the same area and this is important even though people in mumsnet like to dismiss that importance. No one wants to move to accommodation that is poorer in quality (potential mould issues etc that tenants keep quiet about). Additionally (and this is a BIG one). No one really wants to risk swapping and ending up with terrible neighbours. As a council tenant that’s often just down to luck and you’re at a higher risk for anti social behaviour etc. if you’ve managed to get a HA house and you have good neighbours you’ll not want to upset that apple cart. Call me selfish all you like, I waited long enough for my property in awful conditions with my kids. I work in a community role that really benefits my local community so I really don’t need to justify myself to mumsnetters with their council house opinions (and no doubt sitting in 4 bed detached OWNED houses in leafy areas). I mean yeah, good for you and all that jazz but getting called selfish is really quite laughable.

exactly, no way would i want to return to where i was before, terrible neighbours.

As a council tenant of 4.5 years I have made cosmetic renovations to my home.
Yes I have spent money on the house and at my last inspection was told it was one of the nicest kept they’ve seen but the money I’ve spent over the past 4.5 years is no more than about 4k no where near enough to ‘save that money and buy somewhere else’. The biggest outlay was when I first got the house.

When I moved in the house it was bare plaster walls downstairs, graffiti all over the kitchen walls, forest green and neon orange walls upstairs and bare floorboards everywhere and nothing at the windows. It had just been treated for a major flea infestation and had dog urine soaked floorboards.

I don’t think a lot of people realise that majority of council properties are let out totally unfurnished without any flooring/ blinds/ curtains etc and most are in a state that you’re left to sort. And no I didn’t get a penny of help to decorate or sort

What!? You just made that up.

@onanotherday
In the private sector no-one would question a single person or couple in a large house....

You'd think not but I worked in a council customer contact centre and remember taking a call in from a lady complaining that her daughter and family had been on the council waiting list for ages and it was ridiculous and not right that the old woman living opposite lived alone in a three-bedroom home and so had two wasted bedrooms and the council should do something about it.

I was at a loss to answer why this was allowed so asked the caller some questions. It turned out that the property the woman over the road was living in was privately owned by her... so I had to explain that the council had no influence in this matter and could not force the owner to give up her property. I felt bad for the caller because her daughter's situation was obviously incredibly stressful for all of them and it was a sign of how distressed the mother was that her thinking was so skewed. This must have been about 10 years' ago and things have only got worse in that time.

It's a secure tenancy not the poorhouse!

Not according to the angry mob on here, you are a selfish wart on society for wanting to continue to live in the house you are legally entitled to live in and continue to pay for 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️even though the government agreed you could live there for life

Eh?

subsidize
verb
support (an organization or activity) financially.

CH are cheaper but still turn a profit of millions per annum for local councils. Therefore are self funded and not subsidised at all.

Private rents are inflated. Ridiculously so because of BTL landlord scum who want both their mortgage paid and to make a profit. BTL Mortgages should be gotten rid of and properties with mortgages on them should not be allowed to be let for profit. Private rent caps dictated by an independent body and policed by the government should be introduced.

This is the problem. Not CH tenants who are following their tenancy and paying the non subsidised rent asked of them.

Easy.
I don't want y council tax being wasted on keeping people like her in clover.
So sell the property to a commercial landlord and they can charge her market rent. Put it to auction first so she can choose to buy at a fair market price.

Fgs your council tax is not paying for anyone’s housing. Read the post directly above yours.

Wouldn't councils make a small profit from lower rents simply because the most of the houses were built/acquired decades ago?
If a house has been built by or owned by the council since the 1950s for example, they likely have paid for it and make a profit even with typically much lower rents than private. A private let that was built or bought 5 years ago would have a much greater mortgage or expense attached

Most councils incentivise downsizing and give you a higher priority to allow for a speedy move to a smaller property . It’s shortsighted of them if they don’t do this

Council houses should not be sold. They should always remain as council houses available to rent for those who need them.

Private lets aren’t typically new builds, unless they are buy to rent developments which are designed and built solely for the purpose of providing a return for investors. They are designed and marketed never to be owner occupied. The vast majority of private rental properties in the UK are not new builds.

I’ve got a council house and pay £500 per month. When my kids are grown I won’t move out. Why should I? I wasn’t able to afford to rent a nice private place while my friends were showing off in their Show home houses. I wasn’t able to get a mortgage to buy somewhere while my DB and DH family were boasting their homes and lovely renovations. Bit now I am laughing as I have a home for life with an affordable rent, no debt and no one can move us unless we misbehave which we won’t.

It’s not that simple to say don’t spend money on your social housing, spend it on one you own. Whilst I can afford the rent, there’s no way can I afford to buy a house. I don’t have the deposit and a mortgage is too expensive. Are people suggesting you don’t make your house nice whilst you’re in it? It’s your home. I work hard and pay my rent. Of course you want to make it how you like it. I’m in a 4 bed house with 3 children at home but I anticipate them moving out in the next 3 - 4 years. It fills me with dread that I may have to move and downsize. I would not cope in a flat without a garden and obviously my friends and family are around me. As you get older you need that support network. As a number of people have said, the 2 & 3 beds are not always available. I’ll leave eventually when I pop my clogs and it will go to another family!

You see it wrong. Home is home, it doesn't depend on ownership.

It's so insulting to tell renters they don't have a home. What do they they have then?

All the talk of why should X older person suffer because of the governments mistakes are really short sighted.

Yes it's the governments fault. But the point is we're here now, it would take years and years to undo all those mistakes so in the mean time someone has to 'suffer' - and it boils down to either the old or the young.

And I'd say the 'suffering' of older people of having to move from one subsidised tenancy to another, having had the chance to raise their family in a lovely secure home for most of their life, (yes I know they may have an emotional attachment to that home) is far lesser a suffering of that of the young. Who right now are suffering whole families in 1 room B&B's, or being banded about the private market with 0 security barely making ends meet.

It sucks that their isn't a solution where everyone's happy. But if you compare the 'suffering' there's one group who is far far worse off than the other (and that's before we start talking about other massive generational wealth divides and the removal of opportunities for the young over the last 15-20 years).

It's not subsided. OMFG. Read the bloody thread

@AllThingsServeTheBeam replace the word subsidised with affordable. You've nitpicked one detail and wilfully glossed over the entire overall point of my post

There’s loads of vacant private properties though. People want to shred council tenancies but no one seems willing to say that those empty properties should be let at affordable rents or the government should compulsorily purchase them and put social housing tenants in. You are asking one set of poor people to abandon their property rights without considering that there are a whole set of other wealthier people who wouldn’t lose their only home if their their property rights were altered. Why pick on those in society who have least because of the government’s failures?
PS for the millionth time social housing is not subsidised.

Why use a word incorrectly? Subsidised and affordable are not the same.

Go read through the thread. The points you've made have been answered about 100 times.