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.

Its not subsidised housing and its not funded by government. Your taxes are not providing this imaginary "aunty" with free bedrooms. I wish people would stop propagating this propaganda designed to bash social housing tenants, set low income families against each other and divert from the actual root cause of the problem.

Instead hold governments to account for failing to have any housing strategy which provides affordable long term rents in the way it used to and in the way much of Europe still manages. And for failing to reverse the complete free for all in the rental market that results in such shocking instability in housing.

Its not a race to the bottom.

Yes exactly - far from being subsidised housing, the rents were being used to subsidise other areas of spending so saving local tax payers' money. Of course that doesn't fit the tabloidesque ranting of some.

Happy to look at any evidence that social housing as a category is subsidised by general taxation - I won't be holding my breath waiting.

It's easy to discuss if you look at it coldly, logically, clinically.

However when you remember you are talking about people, family homes, memories it's not

Thank you. That's what I was looking for.
I would still argue that as these figures don't appear to account for historical or future reinvestment then under occupying a council is a form of subsidy imo. But I understand why people would disagree.

Here's my local council HRA account for 2021-2022

All coucils have this info available online

Hear! Hear!

@ForTheLoveOfSleep thanks for the example. Great to see a surplus.

Council homes should be available to anyone who wants or needs them

They should guarantee the occupier a right to stay for life at a reasonable not profit making rent

Because safe secure homes should be a basic human right

As they are in much of Europe

Instead of trying to force people out of their homes target your energy at getting the system to change

I completely agree. My own nan is in this situation. She lives in a large 3 bed semi Council house. Has lived there for 60 years. She is 94 now. The house is unmanageable for her, and has front & back gardens to maintain.
Her next door neighbours are council flats. One downstairs, one upstairs. Both families with multiple children in small 2 bed flats with no gardens. It makes me feel guilty every time Im there. My nan should be in the flat, and them in the house!!

Absolutely council homes should be available for anyone who wants or needs them. But they aren't and won't be in the near future. It's all well and good saying systems need to change, but people need appropriate housing now.

But they are not available

Why is it not ok to have a family in a hotel but it is ok to have an oap in the hotel ?

Because there isn't anywhere for the OAP to go either

You can't give to someone without taking away from another

There may be odd cases where a home swap would be nice but I don't think it would touch the sides of the problem

And whilst people squabble over crumbs the rich and powerful laugh at us

With regards to the whole “subsidised” issue. I rent from an HA. They’re basically “non profit”. Rent paid (I pay all mine myself) goes to repairs, building/purchasing new stock etc.

A couple of years back our rent was actually reduced as the HA made too much money the previous year! Granted it wasn’t by much, but there are no “subsidies” involved.

”Market rents” are ridiculously inflated because private renting is a money making business. Anyone who owns a buy to let and has tenants in receipt of housing benefit/UC housing element are the ones taking money from the taxpayer. Housing benefits are payable to eligible SH tenants and private renters (up to a limit). That is what is “tax payers money” if you want to be picky about it. It’s not down to whether it’s SH or not, it’s how the rent is paid.

Anyone who owns a buy to let and has tenants in receipt of housing benefit/UC housing element are the ones taking money from the taxpayer

But more people on benefit are in these properties because the social housing is being blocked by people like OP’s aunt. That’s the point.

It is funded by the public coffers, I.e. taxes.

It is not. Legally it has to be self funded.

This is always going to be an emotive subject but the government and councils cannot keep building more and more. There should be a review for all social housing tenants every 5 years and they should be made to keep it in good repair (I speak from experience as having inspected a 1 year old new build council house as part of a job and the family had kicked holes in the walls and dumped rubbish in the garden), in order to house as many people as possible and keep the rents low tenants shouldn't be hanging onto properties that are too large for them. My Great Aunt is the same, a 3 bed property just for her now and she struggles with the stairs!! But she won't move. Across the road is a friend in a 2 bed ground floor flat (council) who needs a bigger place due to her children. Where's the logic? The fact is my friend may have to move out of the area, I also know of others that are in temporary accommodation and the bill footed by the council. The situation is just crazy. If you rent, whether it's privately owned or not it's not yours.

Nope. Just go up a few posts. I've attached my coucil's housing account. It has a £5.7 million surplus last year. They fund themselves and are a public asset.

There needs to be a review on the private rental market. BTL mortgages are literally destroying people financially due to the greed of a paid mortgage plus some profit.

Mortaged properties should not be allowed to be let out for profit.

BTL should be abolished

An idependent body needs to be set up to set rent caps that the goverment should police.

The thing is, not all SH is created equal.

There is so much more to it than number of bedrooms, is the location good? what are the neighbours like? is there any ASB? any outside space? is the decor up to scratch? (I've exchanged several times and seen some horrors!) even things like what heating system is there? I had a place with storage heaters once, never again! And of course how much is the rent? and so on.

When people stay in places they've lived in a long time it is mostly because it ticks all the boxes. Not because they desperately want to hang on to more bedrooms. So arguing that oh you don't need those bedrooms, doesn't make a difference. I know people who have stayed in smaller places than they needed as the property was great in all other ways, my neighbour is one of them. So it works both ways.

ForTheLoveOfSleep I can't directly reply to you but you can't abolish BTL you'd create a bigger housing shortage. Not everyone wants to buy at a particular point in their lives, someone working temporarily in an area, a new couple trying out living together etc so they need to rent privately. while I agree there should be rules around rent rates unfortunately due to supply and demand it won't happen.

Of course you can. There would be a flood of houses on the market at lower prices ( as BTL are greedy scum who can't afford their extra houses so would have to sellin most cases) and as I stated those already mortagaged who don't choose to sell should not be allowed to rent at profit.

They aren’t being blocked by anyone’s aunt. There is insufficient supply to meet demand. The original poster is 100% correct, if any one is fleecing the tax payer is private rental profiteers.

How many do you think they are building? Do you think they’ve replaced what was sold off yet?
You inspected one council house once that had been damaged…take them all away from the and chuck them all in the streets! That’s pretty unusual for someone to do, were there other issues in the household? Or as soon as they signed the tenancy did they just turn, like werewolves in the moonlight, in to wild animals?
For all intents and purposes though the property is your aunt’s for the duration of the lease. Have you spoken to her about why she wants to remain in the property? Or investigated whether or not she could even get the handy property across the road?

I hear this argument all the time. However if people can’t buy to profiteer it frees up supply in the market. Certainly for those purchasing property the price would fall due to that increased supply. There’s no reason social housing properties can’t be purchased from this over supply when the market resets from its current, inflated position