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 don’t agree with this but I do think holiday homes are extremely selfish. They are a waste of housing and ruin communities.

Just about every bungalow in this area has been/is being knocked down and being replaced with multiple houses, so there certainly won't be many of those available.

I lived in a flat before moving to my current home - never again. I don't want to deal with a leasehold managing agency (and their costs), neighbour noise and no private outside space.

I would happily downsize to a bungalow when the time comes, but there are so few available with decent space - and what is available tends to be very expensive.

Well, it's not helpful if you have 2 people rumbling around in a 4/5 bed house and families of 6 stuck in 2 bedroom flats.

That said, it's hardly a moral issue.

Doesn't the problem usually resolve itself eventually anyway? Either people die and their houses are sold as part of their estate, or they need care and the houses are sold to cover the costs?

And adult children are often at home for a period nowadays anyway so under-occupation isn't such an issue.

So you're really only talking about the period of early old age between adult children becoming totally independent and needing to downsize for health reasons/ the house being sold to meet care needs.

Problem is a lack of suitable things to downsize too in areas that retired people actually would choose to live- my FIL would like to move from his detached 3 bed chalet bungalow in the south east to a 2 bed detached one level one nearer to us in Bath- there are very very few and the odd ones there are are often in poor Nick and overpriced for what they are- he doesn't want a flat due to the 'leasehold aspect- he has a big issue with this given that the Uk seems like the Wild West in being able to charge vast amounts out the blue for repairs and there are few suitable share of freehold flats and he doesn't want a retirement flat due to worrying about them being hard to sell and huge service charges- personally I think he should rent a good modern flat but older people in the UK just don't tend to have that 'apartment' mindset

Tell this to DH. He stubbornly refuses to let us downsize. My son will move out into his own house at the end of this month. Then there will be just DH, me and Foster son rattling around in a 6 bedroom house with 4 bathrooms. I want to downsize to 3 bedrooms, still leaving us a guest room but he absolutely refuses. I know we are going to have a falling out about it.

Jeremy is just hosting a debate on this topic, it's not his personal view. The title of this thread makes it sound like its his view, but it was just a debate on his programme.

Fair enough - didn't hear the programme as I was working.

The use of the term 'baby boomers' in itself is not offensive, it's the ageist, offensive way in which 'boomer' has been used in this thread.

Primary properties only - The money is taxed as you earn it. You pay stamp duty (tax) and other legal fees when you buy your home, if it is over a certain level. You pay council tax for the privilege of living in your home. By the time you have finished paying for your house you have paid x time the amount of the original mortgage. How is that not enough tax? After 25-30 years of paying a mortgage people should be taxed out of their homes or forced to give them up for someone more 'deserving'?

He’s not saying you don’t have the right to the property though is he? He’s saying morally can you justify staying in a big house on your own if there’s a huge shortage of family sized homes. We have families locally desperate for homes and ultimately having to move kids out of schools and relocate while retired people own the majority of the 3 or 4 bed homes. If you look at the big picture it’s hard to disagree that something has gone wrong somewhere. The question is how do we fix it?

There is no motivation for this. DM lives alone in the 4 bed detached family home with an acre garden. I would estimate that at least 1/2 if not 2/3 of the properties her village are 3+ bedrooms , 1800sq feet and occupied by retired couples or single people. DM has zero intention of moving (is mid 70s). Neighbours on both sides of us are 80+ singles living in 2000sqft + houses with big gardens. Maintenance is minimal. When the fence blew down on one side they said that all their money was tied up in the house and they couldnt afford to replace it. They could go halves- so the choice was go halves or no fence. Inside the same house they have no central heating, use an Emersion for hot water (once a week shower) and haven’t done anything for at least 30 years. They’ll sell it to some poor sucker for £700k who will need to take it back to the bricks. I think they bought it for £20k. She has mentioned downsizing but wants to downsize ‘to a detached cottage with a large garden’. I want to scream ‘No. you are 85. You need to downsize to a bungalow with a patio’. What do these people think???
you’ll only get them out by taxing them out. Ie a bedroom tax for private properties.

Whoever you are. Please don't 'report as offensive' the term Boomer. The classification Baby Boom is given to a definite measurable ie factual rise in birthrate directly after WW2.
I am an early boomer, Father early med discharge from Army.
I'll do my own getting indignant and having a rant Thank you very Much

Do you mean the proposal to allow councils to compulsorily purchase land that was otherwise left vacant and derelict? Often an eyesore in the local area? I'm not aware of any proposal to build in people's actual gardens, but prepared to be corrected if you can point me to the source of the information.

It’s not that it is more prohibitive , it’s that is an unnecessary expense - I have a home that I am happy in, with a modest garden, near amenities.

DH and I are looking at improvements which would mean we could live on the ground floor if we were unable to use the stairs ( hopefully a long way off) vs moving.

Said improvements are less costly than stamp duty, legal fees etc. So unless a smaller home which we prefer becomes available, why would we move ?

Downsizing etc does not fix the rental market, which is a disaster zone.

Even if we built far more houses, the bottom line is many people cannot afford to buy, they have to rent & atm, renters can't save and are struggling with very high rents plus landlords are selling up and issuing eviction orders.

Affordable new build HA properties in Plymouth are 300k for a 3 bed, avg wage in Plymouth is 26k.

Rents are around £850 to 1.1k per month and there are hardly any houses available, 100s of section 21 's have been issued in Plymouth recently.

Govt is sitting on its hands, the solution is to build 100s of '000s of council houses, not fiddling at the edges and forcing people to downsize.

Perhaps Jeremy would think we should downsize our belongings as well.
One knife fork spoon plate and mug each and a chair to sit on. 2 blankets.

I am in a large 4 bed detached house in big grounds, but my grandsons live with me so rooms are all used at present. But we do want to downsize so I find the implied criticism somewhat hard to take.

Last year we had our house for sale. It was expensive but not as expensive as many similar and we did take the lower of three valuations. Viewers felt it was not modernised enough. By this they wanted different room configuration ie large kitchen diner whereas ours is a vicarage and has separate kitchen, dining room and utility. It has a large living room and also a smaller living room typical of vicarage layout. The family viewers were complaining they hated their newbuild homes, the quality was poor but wanted to replicate the same home here.

I also felt awkward that the price was outside what many younger families could afford not to mention the added expenses of a larger property. It is a house that would be great for a large family.

We did take on board complaints about modernisation and have had a new central heating system put in alongside new oil tank. Undoubtedly it will still not be enough.

I dont know what the answer is here. We looked at smaller homes but they were as expensive as ours for much less tbh.

Jokers! Maybe start with the 30 bedroom plus houses or estates first? Bet JRM has a few spare bedrooms - sure he’d be happy to lead the way and downsize 🙄

There aren't many 1 bed houses though so should single people have to live in flats regardless of whether they'd prefer or afford houses?

Also why is it always bedrooms that are the issue- nobody complains or is taxed if a house has too many bathrooms or a conservatory or utility or whatever but these are still rooms in excess of what is needed for bare minimum housing!

We technically have more bedrooms than people but I wfh full time so the extra room is an office which is pretty much needed - why should I downsize into a smaller house and have to lose space in the kitchen or wherever I need to set up 3 screens with a lack of privacy (against all guidance which stresses the importance of a permanent set up that you can close the door on if at all possible) when I can afford a spare room?

Yes.

Perhaps those with 2nd homes should be encouraged to free those up for families before expecting people to sell up their main home.

My mum sold her family home to move closer to us a couple of years ago. She'd lived there a few years after my dad died but realised she was struggling with the garden. Despite a massive enclosed garden and 4 big bedrooms, it was bought by a single woman in her 50s. Should she have been barred from buying it?

Also she really struggled to find something near us because of air bnbs. She ended up in a massive bungalow that footprintwise was very similar to the house she left.

You realise he chairs a discussion programme? He’s not putting forward his own beliefs.

I agree with comtesse on page 1 - this all needs to be part of a larger conversation about aging well, amenities needed, suitability of housing, and there needs to be some acknowledgement that often when people want to "do the right thing" and move to somewhere smaller and more manageable it's nowhere to be had / the stamp duty and relative cost is too high. There's enough scope for government meddling there, but no appetite it seems.