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.

People aren't sitting on assets when it's their only home. Everyone needs a place to live - you either rent or buy. Taxing income is the fairest system - Why should someone be penalised for spending money on bricks and mortar, furniture tradesmen, and gardeners, rather than the handbags and holidays. This country is in the state it is in because of a lack of critical thinking skills and an attitude of entitlement to the fruits of other peoples labour.

Im on the verge of up sizing. The kids have left home. Ive always wanted a large detached wuth a ig garden. Ive got more spare money han ive ever had so its now or never. There will be just me and Dh.

This 'call them boomers, then we can demonise them as selfish & having had it easy all their lives' is rubbish & dangerous. From my viewpoint, younger adults fall for it through ignorance of the past.

Don't they realise that this is how things have always been? In the 1960s & 70s I knew personally, or was aware of, plenty of people living on their own or as a couple in houses, bungalows or apartments which today would be characterised as being too big for their needs. One old lady I knew lived in a modest terrace house but only used the ground floor due to a health condition. Some people were in houses they'd raised their family in. Other people were simply wealthy enough to buy whatever they wanted.

And so what? It's a free country. This is the way it's always been. And there's always been talk of a housing shortage.

We bought our house in the 1980s. We're still here, just the two of us, same as it ever was. It still suits our needs. But suddenly we're 'utterly selfish'.

And far from having it easy all our lives, neither my husband nor I inherited anything or had any help financially from our families or from anyone else. What we've got, we worked for, starting out with precisely, literally, nothing. My family were so appalling that they made me homeless when I was recovering from a serious illness. I had to shift for myself & get a job & somewhere to live when I should have been convalescing. If that's the sort of luxury life these offensive young adults envy, they can have it.

What younger adults today are seeing is those of us who survived the vagaries of life & managed to get what we wanted through our own hard graft. They don't see the graft, because they weren't alive then. They don't understand people's lives, or social history. They're easy to manipulate by governments who like to divide & conquer. Previously it's been benefit scroungers, the disabled, refugees & immigrants who've been 'the enemy' who are doing you down. Now it's the older generation. Don't fall for it.

I used to just listen along and ignore most of it, it was interesting at times. Then one day he did a piece about something I happen to know a lot about, and I realised what an absolute waste of space he and the show are. It wasn’t balanced at all and it made me think about all the other shit he and his callers and “experts” have quoted, and gradually I just stopped listening to his show. And now I have dumped radio 2 completely 😂

you’ll only get them out by taxing them out. Ie a bedroom tax for private properties

You do realise that council tax is partially predicated on bedrooms and hence they're already contributing towards local facilities?

Can these people who pop out sprogs regularly afford to buy the aforementioned properties or do they expect to get them for almost nothing from these awful people?

When my Mum died my Dad talked about selling their lovely 4-bed house “so another family can enjoy it”. I pointed out he’ll still need 3 bedrooms - one for him, one for his study, and one for me/my brother/anyone else coming to stay.

More importantly, he’d miss the community of the cul-de-sac he lives in, where everyone knows everyone else and looks out for one another. My Mum had dementia and was always disappearing, trying to get “home” to Ireland from their house in Hertfordshire - the whole street used to mount impromptu search parties. Most streets in modern Britain aren’t like that.

He was persuaded not to move!

(It’s also recommended that we don’t make life-changing decisions within a year of bereavement.)

Tax on assets should be increased and on income reduced. Especially inheritance tax which is a bit of a joke really.

So those who have worked hard, saved money and provided their family with a good home should be responsible for funding the benefit recipients? The reason that so many of we boomers are where we are today is because we lived within our means and that included procreating.

Lots of people with kids have more space than they need. I have a relative who lives with partner and one child in a three storey, five bedroom two bathroom Victorian townhouse, but I bet no one would suggest they move to a three bed semi.

@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting Then you have no right to moan about social housing estates becoming ghettos because that is the result when social housing becomes a welfarised ambulance type service.

Oh and as for hard working parents. Parenthood is a choice or it was the last time i checked.

I live in a ONE bedroom social housing flat and am childfree by choice. Might be a surprise to you but its not only the more well off who decide to remain child free I suppose you expect me to downsize to a garden shed.

Where exactly are people planning to draw the line on ‘too much space’? Are people allowed a spare bedroom? What if they WFH and use it as an office?

What about the public rooms? Is it acceptable for people to have a dining room if there’s a kitchen table too? What about people with something as luxurious as a playroom?

Who is going to decide this shit?

We are talking about houses that people own and pay for themselves here. On what basis is the government going to intervene to say ‘no. You aren’t allowed to have that.’?

I have no idea what you are talking about.

By taxing the hell out of you so that you can't afford to stay there and have to downsize to some miserable unsuitable accommodation and the home that you worked hard for goes to someone more 'deserving'. How dare you expect to enjoy the fruits of your labour, for which you have paid an insane amount of interest and have paid tax on the money to buy, and continue to pay tax (effectively a bedroom tax) for. <<sigh>>

I’m pretty sure the British public won’t actually be up for that though. Not least because it would mean the ‘deserving’ families are all paying huge property taxes too.

@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting Proof that common sense and brains are two different things. You know damn well that you were saying there should be a time limit on people living in social housing. Sorry that its now unpalatable to you that what you were suggesting is a welfarised ambulance type service. Which will turn estates into ghettos. Ah but then people like you can have a group you can feel superior to.

YY @KimberleyClark no one would suggest they move. Have living proof that you have had sex without contraception and you wont be expected to move.

We are talking about houses that people own and pay for themselves here. On what basis is the government going to intervene to say ‘no. You aren’t allowed to have that.’?

The government isnt going to dare try and do that. Along with trying to tax people so highly so highly they can no longer stay in the property that they have bought and paid for. Because that really is against the law.

comptesse
retirement complexes which allow for residents to live completely independently in their own apartments whilst they are relatively able, but then able to access on site support gradually as they need it, and then ultimately live in care if they end up needing that.

This is what my parents have done. They moved out of choice before they became more frail and other people had to make choices for them. They have such a great active social life with people of their own age. I would definitely do this at an older age if I get the chance.

I was confused by your ridiculous leap. I never said that you should have to down size from social housing nor did I imply that. You are the proof that common sense and brains are two different things. Social housing should be for those with the greatest need and should be the most subsidised. They don't have to become ghettos. Once people are back on their feet they should move to reasonably price private rentals or buy to free up social housing for people with the greatest need/ who are more vulnerable. Some people will always need social housing because of their personal situation but many wont. The government should have a duty to ensure there is adequate social housing stock and that that there are affordable rents in the private sector available. Do you have a problem with those who have the greatest need being prioritised by the government for housing?

A mansion tax has been mooted by political parties previously and universities have been commissioned to investigate how a wealth tax might work, where wealth might include the value of the home you live in as well any pensions, savings and any other assets.

Still don't understand the relevance of your Wills comment in relation to downsizing.

What's CGT got to do with it?

Downsizing and spending your wealth is very different from downsizing to gift it away.

It's a odd concept that someone who has bought and paid for something, ie their own home, should be required to move out and sell it to a, younger, different sort of family, who is all probability couldn't afford it anyway, because in someone's view 'that's only fair'.

We're not in a communist country, no one can take legally acquired property from anyone.

Where do we draw the line here.

I drive a car that has seating for another four people but there is only one of me. Should I be required to sell it and buy a smaller car, perhaps a two seater, because surely, I don't need to drive around with that much space behind me and there might very well be a family with three children who is finding it hard to fit all their car seats in the back of their current car and there would be room in mine.

Do we limit the amount of clothes anyone can own, because you can only wear one outfit at a time, and those trousers might be needed by someone more deserving or someone they would fit better.

If someone buys a home they're entitled to live in it until they die. They have no moral or social obligation to give it up for anyone else to live in and if it's falling apart when they die, so be it. It's their home, bought with their own money.

This is a big, complex and very thorny issue 😬

@Socrateswasrightaboutvoting

www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/the-rise-and-fall-of-council-housing-56139the welfarisation of council housing.

By John Boughton the author of Municipal Dreams The Rise and fall of Council Housing

In the 1980s, residualisation may have been a partly unintended consequence of housing policies pursued with varying ideological intent.

Since 2010, and more so since the return of single-party Conservative government in 2015, we’ve seen something further: welfarisation – ‘a conception of social housing as a very small, highly residualised sector catering only for the very poorest, and those with additional social “vulnerabilities”, on a short-term “ambulance” basis

@pigsDOfly
Things like clothes and cars can't be compared to property, partly due to the way in which property appreciates in value whereas clothes and cars (with the exception of a few vintage examples) do not

@Thesharkradar

I wasn't comparing them, I was making a somewhat 'tongue in cheek' observation that if someone buys something it belongs to them and they need feel no obligation or pressure to give it up because someone else might want it.