Jeremy Vine - people are morally obliged to downsize and free up property

[JoanThursday1972]

Currently have this on the radio. Suggestion is that people are not entitled to remain in and live in the house that they have bought and paid for. That they should downsize and free this up for more deserving occupants, ie families.

This is surely a personal choice and not an obligation? Anyone is entitled to live in a house they have bought, regardless of size.

I mean, I know you were trying to make a point but this isnt really a bad idea. Car sharing should be encouraged!

We are trying to downsize, there is such a shortage of property in our area we are going to have to spend more to downsize than to upsize . Nuts !

I think the point is that Jeremy has hosted a debate where there is not much to debate.

"Are people entitled to stay as long as they like in homes they have purchased with their own money?"

Er..yes..

ER might be their solution.

All assets have to be declared. But surely it isn't reasonable to make someone sell up and move just because they need a couple of visits from a carer each day.
How would that be achieved?
Once you go into a care home you have to sell your house unless you can afford to self fund without selling up. Self funders pay a lot more in care home fees than LAs do because they subsidise the LA funded residents. In my area the self funders pay twice as much per place.

It would be ok to ask this if there were places suitable for people to downsize to but a lot of the time there isn't. People need to be building homes not just got first time buyers, but also with downsizers in mind. Many older people would like to move somewhere smaller, but allegedly 'luxury' flats by arterial roads with few nearby amenities and no storage are no good for this demographic (or anyone for that matter) but seem to be most of what's being built.

My HA home. £480 per month rent

Exact same style home but Private Rental next door. She pays out £1,250 a month
SE London/Kent borders by postcode only (Kent by the skin of its teeth, but rent goes to a London Borough)

DH and I are boomers who would love to downsize but can’t find anywhere appropriate. The options seem to be retirement flats that come with incredibly service charges literally thousands per year. Alternatively you can move into a bungalow which is in the middle of a housing estate with no facilities nearby.

Anyone who can come up with any suggestions please let me know.

Can you elaborate on this please?

Wills? Don't understand the context of that in relation to downsizing.

CGT? No CGT on your main residence if residential so what do you mean by that?

Intentional deprivation of assets? If you downsize and spend the money for your own enjoyment that's not intentional deprivation. Downsizing and gifting it away could be deprivation unless it was done for IHT purposes.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post.

Fairyliz
I know a few people in your situation.
They'd like to move house in early retirement so they've got a property that could work for later life and keep them independent as long as possible.

Unfortunately the charges on retirement properties are astronomical and will bankrupt them and there's limited bungalows or smaller accessible properties for them.

@SalaDaeng again does housing get included for care in the home? I don't see why there can't be a charge on the home. One of mums neighbours gets free transport to appointments, free carers visit, etc . She has a home worth 1.6m & a holiday home abroad but little savings & income. A relative of mine paid thousands for care because they have a cheap house but lots of savings. How is that equal?

The LA can put a charge on the home for care home fees. I agree that the case you mention seems unfair. I don't know anyone who gets free transport or free visits from carers. I suppose you could write to your local authority and ask them why they allow this?

I'm not talking about care homes as I've said repeatedly

Yeah I agree that boomers who are roaming in around in houses three / four times the size of them should move into smaller houses and give some of that wealth to their kids and grand kids.

Loads of the people / clients I come across at work get their care packages paid for despite living in big houses that they own outright because they have no or little savings or income. Once savings drop below £23, 250, the local authority start contributing to care costs regardless of the size of your home which is disregarded I believe.

😂😂😂No.

RTFT

There are no places to downsize to, even when people want to. Unless you think there's a magic bungalow tree alongside that magic money tree.

I am a Boomer. I live in a 3 bedroomed detatched house. It is quite big with a conservatory and quite a big garden. I will not move, because I like my surroungings. I really like the village we live in.

Same situation here. Our neighbour's 4 bed detached house was valued at £500k. A 2 bed bungalow one road over was on the market for £600k.

The only issue I have with people staying in their large property and rattling around til the bitter end, like my gm did until she was ordered by doctors into a nursing home, is the poor people who then buy it and have 3
30 years of neglect to sort out. Young families taking on older properties from elderly people and having to spend significant amounts of time and money returning them to a state fit for purpose is the biggest generational joke, along with pension deficits and old people complaining about living next to schools!

Private & Council houses both pay Council Tax, might be called Community Charge or something in England.

The tax that funds the local council, that essentially taxes bigger more valuable houses more than smaller houses

Boomers - a generation who got lucky to be born at the right time to buy affordable housing, with their parents the ones who fought ridiculously hard during WW2 and THEN fought to overturn the stultifying class system that ruled this country so their children had a more equal world to grow up in post-war, whilst those boomers were still toddling around.

But yeah, the boomers all just worked soooooooooo hard, and every single thing they have materially is a direct representation of just how great they are, as opposed to how great their PARENTS were.

The ‘poor’ people who buy it should have the intelligence to realise that to renovate a house costs money, if they can’t afford it, tough, buy a house that’s within their means, it’s not up to the previous owner to maintain a house to a future buyers wants and needs, your post is ridiculous.

In the medium term, council housing was self-funding. Councils borrowed money to build houses, and the rents paid back the money borrowed.

Once the borrowed money was paid back, the rent more than covered the costs of maintenance etc and the surplus was used to build more houses.

Now that housing revenue accounts are ring-fenced, I have no idea what happens to any surplus once the initial borrowing has been repaid.

@ifIwerenotanandroid · Today 13:28
@LakieLady A bungalow near me was demolished & three houses built cheek by jowl on the plot! >

A bungalow one garden across from me was demolished, and on the land the developers who bought it built seven apartments and 2 bungalows. On one of my boundaries around 170 properties are being built since 2019 on what used to be a school playing field. I went from living somewhere I could see and hear all sorts of wildlife to living on construction sites. I wouldn't live in any of those properties if you paid me to do it. The power to influence home/property ownship or usage is in the hands of property developers and central government. There's no onus (so far) on any property owner to benefit them or help them with that.