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.

While I don't think anyone should forced to downsize I don't think anyone should be subsidised to stay in a big house. I'd do away with stuff like single person discount on council tax, and as for people whingeing that they can't afford to heat or maintain a massive house they live alone in, zero sympathy, just downsize. This might be easy for me to say though because I'll never understand the love some people have for their house or other material possession.

The issue is a lack of available property not people hoarding houses which are too big.

Doing away with single person rate on council tax would affect single people living in a teeny one bed Band A flat. What would you actually gain by penalising them for committing the shocking crime of being single?

Do you get really angry at celebrities, royals, bankers etc occupying large homes? or is your venom just saved for average people living in normal homes, you know the ones that they have bought and paid for? The ‘families crammed into very modest and small homes’ should have thought if they could house their children adequately, it isn’t Mrs Smith in her 6 bedroom house problem that the Jones’s down the road are crammed into a 2 bed terrace, it is not up to her to solve those peoples life choices. There are plenty of family sized houses for sale, the fact is families ‘crammed into very modest and small homes’ are highly unlikely to suddenly be able to afford the 6 bedroom house even if it did come up for sale.

So why is it ok for social housing tenants to be responsible for others life choices?

What does that mean?

We have a 4 bed house, just us and DS1 live here. We currently have DGS staying over so that's 3 out of the 4 taken so it only needs DD and her DH to want to stay too and we're full. Then if my other DS and his family want to come were talking mattresses in the office. I've mentally chosen a 5 bed and a 3 reception room property when we next move.

Read the post above mine. Plenty of people on this thread have said it should be one rule for owners and another rule for SH tenants

Social housing should be temporary housing not for life. It should be there to cover a need and there should be affordable non social housing for when people are back on their feet. If you have a property you own and have paid for you should be able to live in it as long as you can afford it. It's not rocket science to say you should be able to control something you own. I say that as someone who grew up in poverty, free school meals and shank's pony, and lived in housing association and council homes until we could afford to buy. We then moved to allow another tenant who needed council housing to move in. That is the way it should be. Our childhood was hard but all of us children worked from as early as we could and parents had two jobs for most of their working lives.

I find it such a weird idea to "just" downsize. I spent at least 20k on the garden so it would be exactly what I want it to be, all building work on the house is done with the idea in mind that we want good quality (so the dearer option) because we want to stay in this house. It's not like you can get the same quality by downsizing, you'd have to start over! Oh, and since covid our extra bedrooms are offices... that did come in handy when we were told to stay away from other people.

Some of these couples may have bought these houses assuming they would have children and it never happened. Should they then be expected to vacate their homes for people who are more fertile than they are?

Thanks for returning with clarification on this- no, labour never made noises about compulsory purchase of people's gardens. God, we had it good then, and let the media twist things to a point that let the coalition in... and normal people have been fucked ever since.

The issue is a lack of available property not people hoarding houses which are too big.

It's the same thing though. In theory a large house could be converted into four flats. Given that a) households have been getting smaller with birth rates going down and more people remaining single, b) there's a lot of old houses in the UK, of course you were going to end up with a situation where we have too many large dwellings and not enough small dwellings. And lack of availability is exacerbated by the fact we are also not building enough new houses for a growing total population. Currently councils aren't incentivised to allow much more building, as they don't make much money of it. So it's not worth them taking on the NIMBYs etc to make it happen. If council tax was raised it would be worth their while to force through more new builds and the extra money would help improve the infrastructure, that a larger settlement needs to function smoothly.

The sensible way to fix this issue is via market forces - tax property more heavily, and make the tax difference between small and large properties larger.

Yes, the idea of someone having to leave a large property they have worked hard on and love doesn't seem fair. But neither is it fair that a family with hard working parents can't afford a house where they are not all on top of each other. A sensible balance needs to be found. At the moment we have a massive wealth divide based on the luck of your generation.

@StaringAtTheWater Being devil's advocate, why would they not make sure they could afford to buy and maintain a house big enough for a family before having children?

@JoanThursday1972 you could look at it another way though. If everyone waited until they could afford a 4 bed house to live in most people (at least round where I live which is London) wouldn't be able to afford until it was too late to have kids. So who's going to be paying the pensions of all those retirees living in the big houses?

Yanbu there are plenty of older people living nearby who live their home, community and area

Some widowed and relying on being settled

If something was introduced to force them to shift I’d be against it

There’s also the issue that the design of smaller properties simply does not suit downsizers. They may be looking to have fewer bedrooms, but that generally doesn’t mean they want a cupboard for a kitchen and a tiny living room.

Then there’s the fact that it costs money to move. If you own a house outright, in a location you like, and which you’ve decorated to your taste, why would you want to pay stamp duty and have to start again in sorting out a house?

Down here you can guarantee that when a couple in their seventies sell their five bed detached because they need to downsize it'll be snapped up by people the same age who've always wanted to live by the sea.

I have a 4 bedroom house with just two people in it

Worked hard, saved a lot, put a lot of effort into improving things

Also planned ahead

I am now getting the benefits in my retirement

Why should I downsize and start again?

Down sizing is expensive and a lot of hassle

When we die, my family get the house to use or sell I.e. They get money but no doubt IHT kicks in

Being devil's advocate, why would they not make sure they could afford to buy and maintain a house big enough for a family before having children?

You are aware of the disparity between salaries & house prices & new parents ages & birth rates ?

Why should single person living in a mansion pay ANY more than a family of 4 in a smaller house?

If a tax on property such as Council Tax didn't exist already there would be a revolution if it was proposed. To make people pay any asset based Tax that's completely unrelated to ability to pay is bizarre.

A local income tax would be a far fairer solution. If the old biddy in the mansion is a millionaire they'll pay way more than Council tax would be. If they are a pauper they'll pay less.

Yes, the idea of someone having to leave a large property they have worked hard on and love doesn't seem fair. But neither is it fair that a family with hard working parents can't afford a house where they are not all on top of each other. A sensible balance needs to be found. At the moment we have a massive wealth divide based on the luck of your generation.

No, it's not fair and not the problem of the person in the larger house. I live in a one bedroom maisonette so wouldn't be affected by this but if I was, I would only downsize if I wanted/needed to, not for the benefit of a random family I don't know.

When my Dad died Mum stayed in their home, it was an extended two bed semi so nothing over the top. Her brother asked her when she was going to move as she was 'rattling around' on her own! Had she moved where was she supposed to go? She'd have had to have given up her pets and her garden for a start. Moved away from where she'd lived 50 odd years as house prices are so ridiculous here. Instead she had a stair lift fitted and made the house more suitable as it was. Would she have been better in a smaller, single floor property? Physically yes, mentally no.

How big is Jeremy Vine’s house, and is he planning on downsizing?

The fact is, unless it’s a 5+ bedroom job with morning room and Hyacinth Bucket’s ‘room for a pony’, most ordinary family homes with 3 or 4 bedrooms and ordinary sized gardens, are not too big or unmanageable for older couples, or much too expensive to heat. They are not ‘rattling around’ in them. And if where they live is anywhere like around here, there’s hardly anything just bit smaller that doesn’t cost nearly as much - so it’s just not worth all the monumental hassle and expense of moving.

Moving to a cheaper area may well make it worth it, but many people wouldn’t want to.

I do know a couple who had such a substantial house for 30 odd years, and did eventually downsize, but the house took ages to sell, for the simple reason that prices had shot up so much, far fewer of the sort of families who’d have been able to afford it 30 odd years ago, could even even think of it.

Fair? So its unfair for a family with hard working parents who can't afford a house to be on top of each other. So we should force (tax or whatever 'fair' method the government will use) someone who had two jobs to get by and who could not afford to retire until they were almost 80, to move out of a 3 bed room house so that said family can move in? Or if they live in a 4 - 6 bed house, then split that house into multiple homes/HMO/ Flats with a communal outside side and virtually no living space. Lets face it we all know how altruistic developers are when it come to liveable space. For good measure we will also repurpose some of these garden for additional homes. So now we have everybody living on top of each other. That sounds really fair.
Lets ignore the following.
-This housing issue is a symptom of a bigger problem not the actual source of the problem.

-People who own one home are not the reason there is no affordable/housing of the right size.
-Successive governments have caused and then failed to address this issue. There needs to be a well thought out government led solution which address the actual issue.
-Waste - The direct and indirect consequences of avoidable health issues costs the government billions each year - smoking, excessive drinking. unhealthy eating, lack of exercise. How many affordable homes could be provided with that money? How much better funded would the NHS be. But lets ignore this drain on resources and tax hardworking people.
I could go on.
The biggest problem in this country is not people living in bigger houses, which they own but people refusing to see the bigger picture. The government is getting away with murder and all the blinkered want to do is set their sights on anyone with more than them. Madness.

@GETTGETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER. I believe he has a 4 bed and has 2 kids. Also it is not some policy he is putting to parliament, he is merely the debate host.