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.

Yes, people like your aunt should be made to downsize.
It should be standard for circumstances to be reviewed on a regular basis, every 5 years or so to see what their current housing needs are and whether they are still eligible.
No one who can't afford their mortgage or rents in the private sector has the luxury of never moving if they can't afford the bills or their home is now unsuitable. Apart from this, single, older people occupying 4 bedroom houses are depriving families in desperate need.
Saying all this, the much greater problem is successive government's total failure to build more social housing particularly as they have encouraged more and more immigration.

Completely agree OP. It's not her house and others have more need.

My parents lived in a 3 bed council house. My mum wanted to downsize but all the smaller places had been sold off privately. She would have had to love out of area but she relied on support from her neighbours and family.
Selling off council homes has lots of impacts, this is one of them.
When she moved in there were small council bungalows a few streets away aimed at elderly people. All sold off now.

More than enough empty buildings, shops etc that could be utilised for housing

It actually is her house. Legally she will have a protected tenancy.

I would like to know where you live if your aunt, a mum of 1, was given a 4 bedroom house!

It does.

I'm sorry you have fallen for the narrative of "We are all paying for the council house scum!". A simple google search will explain how council housing is a public asset and runs at a profit. The attitude that because I pay more so should you is an awful stance.

If council house rent was at market value

Market value? What is market rent? The amount set by buy to let mortgage holders who clearly can't afford the property they bought but out of greed wanted an extra property and for renters to pay for it and make a profit?

Or maybe market rent should be set by an idependent body.

BTL mortgages should be stopped.

Private LLs should only be able to rent out mortage free properties.

RTB should be stopped until the housing stock is replenished.

It's Margaret Thatcher's policies and successive Tory governments you should be blaming, not your aunt.

They haven't responded to the housing shortage by overseeing the creation of truly affordable, decent, secure homes. They've left it to the private sector and now we have numerous hovels and unaffordable rents.

Regardless of whose fault it is, we have to work with the situation we are all in. We don't live in some fantasy world where housing is plentiful and affordable and everyone can live where they like.

Well said, people talk like social housing is meant to be like something that is only to be used in an emergency and then given up as soon as ones financial situation improves a bit. Like you say it was never intended this way but to be life long decent homes for the working classes.
Well said.
Isn't it a sad state of affairs where people being shafted in a poor housing situation would rather see nobody have long term, appropriate, affordable housing than get on at the government to ensure that everyone has long term, affordable housing, that allows for communities to thrive.

I'd be happy to mass build council houses so more people have affordable housing and stop housing benefit being used to line the pockets of landlords who rent out poor quality properties at astronomical prices.

Stop transfering tax to private pockets and use it to build decent housing for normal people at affordable prices.

I have a lifetime tenancy and a 4 bed council house.

All the new places being built here are HA so, if I were to move out, I would be paying more for a much smaller house on the other side of my city (in the region of £200 a month more for 3 less bedrooms)

It would make absolutely no sense to do that at all, I've spent a fortune on my home, I would have to take my sheds down, take the 6ft fence I put up down and replace with the council one I would be responsible for ripping up the flooring and putting new stuff down in the new place, as well as having to get rid of lots of my stuff.

It would probably cost me the best part of 4 grand to move to somewhere smaller and more expensive. No matter how santamonious people get about this subject, very few would actually do it.

If they could offer her a 2 bed, in similar area, similar quality of house with a garden and her rent reduced then maybe, however uprooting her out of her community and a nice place to live to live in a flat then no, that is not on. I own my house outright I wouldn't be happy if I was forced to sell in my retirement just because I had too many bedrooms and told to downsize to a flat. People in council houses should have the same dignity.

The government need to invest in more social houses first and foremost and stop selling stock which inevitably ends up in the hands of landlords.

Agree completely - why should two people rattle around in a 4 bedroom property when there are families squashed in tiny properties. If you are being helped out by being given a council house, it should be one that suits the needs of the family living there. In the case of your Auntie, a 2 bedroom property would be enough.

I have friends both working full time in decent paid jobs who cant afford more than a 2 bedroom flat in our area with a tiny garden. Kids squashed together in the same room, paying a big mortgage. Im sure they would love to have a 4 bedroom property backing on to woods and deer!

I agree with OP. I also agree that it would be awful to be forced to leave the home where my DC were raised and not to have space to have them back, but not as awful as raising a family without adequate housing.

I don't agree with "if you haven't bought" because I don't think anyone should be able to buy social housing stock, profiteering and removing it forever from future generations.

Which is why it shouldn't be up to you.

Social housing was never intended to be sold off... We've whole estates here, privately owned and poorly maintained, let out by the children of the people who bought them in the 80s and 90s. That surely was never the intention either?

Yes why should she enjoy the deer and the foxes? Get her out of her home it sounds lovely. She should be moved out forcibly and a better, more worthwhile and larger family should move in.

there is an argument that she should be allowed to stay if she is paying the market rate (which it appears she is not).

however ideally after all these years she should have used the cheap rent to save up to buy her own place. Of course it’s not always that simple.

Which is why council houses/social housing stock should be there for people who really need it and not a ‘forever home’. Saying you’ve ‘spent a fortune’ whilst living in a council house doesn’t paint the picture that you desperately need/needed it?

Government shouldn't be selling homes anyway. Council houses should just be lower rent for those who legitimately cant afford it. Although lots of people who work and grew up in areas where house prices have gone up have to move further out yet others who don't work or do minimal work are prioritises to get council property where people working full time can't.

Social housing was never intended to be sold off... We've whole estates here, privately owned and poorly maintained, let out by the children of the people who bought them in the 80s and 90s. That surely was never the intention either?
I don't think it should have been sold off.

I'm in favour of large scale social housing so that people have an appropriate, affordable place to live long term without sending taxes into the pockets of private landlords and leaving people in the horrible position of paying through the nose for housing when a huge section of society is on low wages.

I kind of agree with you OP but I also sympathise with people who don’t want to leave their home that they have lived in for 20+ years.

My grandad occupied a 4 bed house alone for many years, we tried hard to find him a nice 1/2 bed bungalow so his 4 bed could be freed up for a family, the issue was he had lived in that house for 50+ years, raised 5 children there, his wife had died there. He spent years planting and growing in the garden. The house was his life and all his memories were there. Yes, he should have moved but I can see why he didn’t want too?

I live in a HA property myself and my dc are teenagers so one day they will move out and it will just be me here. I will look for somewhere smaller but I won’t be forced out into a flat in a area I don’t want to live in. Hopefully when the time comes I will be in a position to rent privately, there’s no way I would be able to buy. Of course my house should be given to a family who needs it but an alternative needs to be offered and at the moment there’s a shortage of properties including 1 bedroom properties.

I think councils do encourage people to move but they can’t/won’t force them out. It’s great that people can swap properties which makes it a little less stressful. When the time comes I would happily look at swapping with a family who needs more space. My next door neighbours swapped when there kids had left home.

Then it's sold to them at a 70% discount. Makes no sense. Perhaps why there's a shortage of labour. Some think it's better not to work.

It’s still her home even if she is renting it. You must be trolling now. Get out tf you aul witch, move away from all your friends and neighbours of 30 odd years, all your support networks. Come along dear hurry up and shuffle off to die in a bed sit WITHOUT idyllic views of animals out the window…. She has the tenancy, she pays the rent, mind your own business.
Hope you hold on to your presumably mortgaged home OP (which by the way, you at best only own part of - is that only a partial home then?) and heaven forbid don’t have to move in to a rented non home. Maybe your aunt would put you up in her palatial council house

Me too, but it's because of that policy that we are where we are now. Yes, there should be more social housing (council housing for preference) built but also, we're going to have to use what we have left more efficiently.