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.

I mean I do get that it's social housing, but the point is that property values are always a crapshoot / toss up and sometimes people (whether council house renter or the property-based Grosvenor family fiefdom) just get lucky. Unfortunately that's how capitalism works and I don't think it's fair to have double standards.

On paper, you're right, but for the individual it must be really tough. The one beds that are available around here are usually flats in blocks that are either unsuitable for older people or horribly run down.

The system is at fault not the people!

This comes up all the time on MN.

I'd love to know where all these mythical one bed properties are for those to swap to. In London they're non existent.

have not RTFT. Joining the undoubted chorus of "where are all these 1 bedroom properties?"

They're not non existant. They're just occupied by overcrowded families. Just because they're not sitting empty doesn't mean they don't exist.

Social housing should be a temporary (medium term) solution for people to get them back on their feet and self sufficient. Somehow we've ended up with a mantra that social housing means a home for life.

I don't agree with this. In many places, where there is a huge amount of pressure on the social housing stock, new council or housing association tenancies are allocated to people who are in housing crisis, or who are particularly vulnerable - but social housing should just be for anybody, otherwise we risk creating ghettos. The solution is for councils to insist on a proportion of social housing to be included in every new development, not to make people fight over scraps.

Was there not a law about over occupancy? I think there was around a decade ago. Did they reverse it? Maybe there was a reason for this, not that I know.

I’m In London, there are far more one beds than 3 beds!!! Tower blocks 😑 you are seriously trying to tell me there are more family homes in London than one bed flats 🤥??

Sounds fine in theory. But there are a fair number of elderly people in council houses who have not bought. When they die the council house will be available to a family.
If this was a policy, most of these people would just buy their houses. This would take the houses out of the council house availability for ever. So it solves nothing.
My parents rented their council house until they died. I would have bought it for them if they were going to be forced to move. My dad had early dementia and would not have coped with a move.

So someone has known the size of the property they live in, continued to have children and became overcrowded? And a complete stranger is meant to upend their life to accommodate these choices?

Obviously right to buy should be scrapped as well.

London is very different to other parts of the country. Although all the flats I have ever been in a tower block were two bedrooms not one bedroom.

@Kabalagala I agree with scrapping right to buy.

The person with the big house would have done the same since you don’t get given a big council property for no reason 🥱

Only a complete stranger benefiting from subsidised housing.
Having a small family shouldn't be a luxury for those rich enough or born long enough ago. It's not the fault of younger people that there's no affordable housing left.

@OuchOuchOuchh It does strike me as particularly mean spirited to talk about your elderly Aunt in this way to people you work with. Some of them will be reacting simply to this.

The person I was quoting said they are non existent in London if you read again. My brother lives in a one bed tower block.

Quite. Lots of councils built very few one-bed places because they focussed on accommodating families. My council is something of an exception and built lots of one-bed places in the 60s/early 70s. They're really nice flats, too, lovely big bedrooms and living rooms, and only 4 flats in each 2-storey block.

They're very short of 2-beds though. They used to let families with 2 kids of opposite sexes move to 3-bed places when the oldest was 7, but now they would be hit by the bedroom tax for 3 years if they did that, so they're a bit stuffed.

I'm a bit in 2 minds about the principle though. It makes a lot of sense, but then I think of my MIL.

She has lived in the same 2-bed council house since she was 22, so 62 years. Three of her children were born there and all 4 brought up there (they put a partition across the biggest bedroom, boys in one half, girls in the other). They paid full rent until she stopped working at 65, but she now gets housing benefit because she's on pension credit. The amount of rent they must have paid in those years would have paid for that house several times over.

She is a really keen gardener, and over the years has transformed what was nothing but clay and builders' rubble into the most beautiful garden, with over 70 different roses, clematis, delphiniums and traditional perennials. I've seen less impressive rose gardens at stately homes. It is her life's work and her passion, and it keeps her fit and active. It would break her heart to leave it and I reckon she'd decline rapidly if she had to move, especially if she had to go into a flat.

In practice, I don't think it would happen. I think if they tried to force her to move to somewhere smaller, my 2 SILs, who are very wealthy, would stump up the money for her to buy it under Right To Buy, and the house would never be a council house again. There may be plenty of families who would be in a position to do the same, as they would inherit it later on.

Social housing should only ever be a temporary measure, it shouldn't be a case of get a council house and then never have to move out even if your circumstances would mean you'd no longer be eligible for that house if you applied now. It would be a bit like me still getting £80 a week JSA because when I applied in the early 2000s that's what I got.

Social housing should be an emergency measure for people who can't house themselves privately. If someone lives alone in a four bedroom council house their choice should either be downsize to a one bedroom flat or share with another family (or families).

No, they would have waited on a housing list and been allocated. There isn't currently a system which chucks people out of their home if under occupied. No-one with current social housing has their property because someone else was forced to move due to under occupancy.

Of course it's her home. Are you saying everyone who rents is homeless?

Didn't they introduce bedroom tax some years ago... she would be paying for under occupancy under those rules.

That's an ideological stance. There's no reason at all why there couldn't be enough social housing for people who want it.

How is it subsidised? This is just not true. Council housing is a public asset that brings in more money for councils in rent than it costs in management and maintenance.

Strange that your aunt was given a 4 bed house with only 1 child. I call bullshit.