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.

And if they downsize fully then the starter homes are now full of OAPs so the first time buyer is shafted

I did read that the classic 3 bed house was going to become the most competitive market as families will be trying to get them but so will downsizers.

To be fair it wasn't him who said that it was another contributor right at the start.

There's a theory that there will be a glut of larger properties on the market

There’s never a glut of any houses. We don’t have enough housing stock for the population.

My favourite bit was when Jeremy said “there used to be a bungalow near me. People laughed at it, but maybe bungalows are the answer?”

Has the man never left central London?! Can’t move for bungalows in N Wales.

@JoanThursday1972 Oh I missed the start, I don’t usually listen to JV but was driving. I do think a proper plan to deal with the housing crisis is badly needed.

Quite.

Having a debate on this topic is definitely worthwhile, but as ever nuance and proper thought are overridden by "it's my house why should I give it up evah!!!!1111".

JV lives in a large 4 bedrooms house in Chiswick, easily googled as he's been in many newspaper articles. Looks like he lives with his wife & 2 daughter's so should really be moving to a 2 bed & DD share a room. Oviously he practices what he preaches....

The problem is that this country houses are considered investments but don’t attract the tax of other investments so totally skewing the landscape.
Ridiculous to have one person living in a 4 bedroom house.
We should be taxing this type of situation much more heavily so that it incentivises people to move to an appropriate dwelling.

JV is chairing a debate. It's not his view

Downsizing lies ahead of us, but right now we still have young adult DC under our roof, so not quite yet.

Yet because we are contemplating all the options before we make any decisions, I would observe that I almost never see property advertised that I would bother to view. We shall want fewer rooms, but not smaller ones. We shall still want some garden, and parking for at least one car. It won't be a retirement property because of the service charges and the iniquitous leaseholds. On the rare occasions I've spotted something that looks reasonably appealing, it costs the same or even more than the house we have now, plus stamp duty. Where is the motivation?

The bedroom tax only applies to people in social housing who getting help with their rent via UC or HB. If they can pay the rent themselves, they're not expected to pay more.

People in private rentals only get the amount of UC/HB for the size of the property they need, so single people or couples are restricted to the one-bed rate.

I think that the bedroom tax should be extended to pensioners though. There are too many couples getting HB for the full rent of the family home they brought their kids up in, while there are homeless families in B&Bs etc desperate for a house or flat.

My father who's widowed ans us nearly 80 years old is in a spacious 3 bed house that he's lived in for 53 years, bought and paid for with a lifetime of memories tied up in it. Why the fuck should he feel pressured to move out ? Ridiculous idea.

He chaired the debate.

I’m not sure that it’s always about house size, I wanted to move house but dc have autism and so finding schools that suit them was the priority. It turns out both will be going to schools 30 miles from each other and we live in a large detached house, near the bus stops for both. So I probably look selfish in an unnecessarily big house but I could move to a flat and have neighbours complaining about dd2 noisy stimming and meltdowns. If only my council gave better funding to local schools! I am thinking about home schooling dd2 but then the space will be even more important.

So I think if specific areas had a greater diversity of housing that might help. I know older people who like their area as it’s walking distance of a shopping parade or near their neighbours/ friends but there are no smaller houses nearby to move to. Some people live in a nice community and I understand why they wouldn’t want to move away. There are emotional reasons for staying put as well as practical and financial ones.

I mean, alternatively, people could actually not have children that they can’t afford to house.

Telling people that they cannot keep properties that they have bought, paid for etc is rather communist.

For council properties, it is a greyer area - the whole point of them is to allow the most vulnerable to access housing. If you have an elderly couple or person in a large council property when they could be offered a smaller property and free up the larger one for a family, then that kind of goes against the principle of providing housing for the most vulnerable - as larger housing is being blocked. This only applies as all the people involved are vulnerable and that is met if they are in a council property.

People need to be far more responsible re having kids, rather than saying oh I have a family, my needs must trump everyone else’s. I didn’t have kids when I wanted to because I couldn’t afford it (married, aged about 25). My db had a friend at the time who said: don’t worry, the government pays, I’m going to have one (aged 17). And she did.

I have another friend who owned a 1 bed flat with her h. She, her h and her ds all lived in the 1 bed flat. And stopped having kids as no more would fit in.

The government needs to build affordable family housing. I am a single parent in a tiny two-bed flat. I have to share a bed with my daughter (8). She has to do her schoolwork at a desk suitable for toddlers. We don't have space for a dining table. My son is in a box room, it is very very cramped.
Life and our home life is a constant struggle for us. I desperately would love a house for them. It would make all the difference. There is absolutely nothing affordable for us near here, and I am loathe to uproot my children again as they've been through enough, and are settled at school.
I do feel angry at this situation, when there are couples living in the four-bed homes here, whilst we live like this.

Speaking as an evil boomer I have been left alone in a 4 bedroom house, huge kitchen, a dining room, a big sitting room and a massive garden. Looking around for a smaller place I am finding that a 2/3 bed bungalow would cost the same if not more because of the larger footprint a bungalow occupies. In addition the rooms are fairly pokey. I have come to the conclusion that it's cheaper to stay here, better the devil you know etc., and pay for help in the garden than it would be to move with all the associated costs. As a person who had worked most of my life before retirement, who pays the costs associated with this size house, has received nothing from benefits other than child benefit and state pension I don't feel I have any obligation to reduce my living standards to appease others, it also means that I can have my grandchildren stay for the school holidays,

Downsizing sounds great, DC is off at uni and we are in a 4 bed house. But we need an office as dh works from home often, we like being rural and want a large garden and preferably to be detached. These smaller houses don't seem to exist. And seeing as DC is home as much as they're at uni we would still need a 3 bed.

Once they've left home for good we could get a 2 bed. But round us they're all terraced type starter homes. You never see new 2 bed detached homes with a decent garden. And the older, small cottages have either been extended or are very rare.

So we will probably stay in a property too large for us but we've both worked 50+ hours a week over the last 10 years to be able to afford that option.

We should be taxing this type of situation much more heavily so that it incentivises people to move to an appropriate dwelling

😂How can you tax someone on something they’ve spent all their life paying for? The biggest thing is stamp duty. That’s more incentivising. It makes sense to pay stamp duty for something better. But the cost for moving sonewhere smaller doesn’t. Why would anyone pay for a fortune to move to a smaller house and lose all that money.

Jeremy Vine?

Oh dear God. That's almost as bad as This Morning and Loose Women.

Whatever happened to the other daytime tossers? Jeremy Kyle, Matthew Wright, or that orange arse Kilroy?

I wonder how big Jeremy Vine's house is and whether he owns more than one.

This!

We should be taxing this type of situation much more heavily so that it incentivises people to move to an appropriate dwelling.

I think it will happen by stealth as it will be used for care.

Good point! The dodgy financial set ups of many retirement developments are horrendous. They're basically set up with the assumption that everyone over 60 is an Idiot to be scammed.

A bit unfair comparing Matthew Wright to JV 😂