All old people should sell up family homes for families.

[benigogo]

Not really an AIBU, more a hypothetical question really. This view comes up a lot on MN, and I'm interested in the detail of what people actually imagine when they say it. What type of property should they be giving up? What type of property should they be moving to? How old is old? What about younger people who under occupy a property? For example 2 friend couples, have recently downsized. Both from a 4 bed detached, one to a 4 bed semi, and the other to a 3 bed semi. Their homes were bought, one by a young professional couple, and the other by a couple in their seventies, themselves downsizing. If you hold this view what do you visualise?

Well @benigogo you know the idea is unreasonable. YABU but it’s an interesting question in terms of asking those who really do think in this ageist and intolerant way to put their ideas on the line.

Let’s start with social housing. If you are lucky enough to have a Council house for your family, hugely subsidised by the rest of us, why should you hang onto it when your DC have left home for independent life?

Cue howls of “Oh no, it’s my family hooooome”.

If it’s not appropriate to require Council tenants to downsize, why would it be any more reasonable to require owners to downsize?

Your OP emphasises how ridiculous the idea is.

Thanks for letting me know I'm old😁. Both working and renovating the house. Finally we have a house we always wanted ...a big enough place for our 3 adult children and extended family to stay whenever they want ( and boy are we busy ! ) ..a quick.look on local house search shows lots of 4 bed plus houses. There is no housing shortage round here and prices are ' affordable ' because we're not close enough to cities or transpor The problem is job distribution ...its London and city centric .

Retirement flats are plentiful in our area, but the ground rent and maintenance costs would soon eat into the small amount she would receive when selling her house, assuming there is anything left over from sales and moving costs.

Plenty in our area too but if we had to move into a flat I’d rather one in the waterfront area with a sea view.

Good luck getting me out of my 4 bed detached.

Good Lord! The ageism indicated in the language of this post!

Older people are “they”. And “we” can’t force them to do what “we” know “they” should do. As if older people are not the same sort of human being that you are.

You wait, @WeightInLine you’ll be old inevitably. The alternative is worse.

And it gives me great pleasure to tell all the ageist hard of thinking posters on this thread that I live in a very large 4 bedroom townhouse. All.By.Myself.

So you can all fuck off.

Best post on here!!! 💓

I am 71 my OH is 75. I work part time, so I spend half my day working and the other half is usually looking after a GC. Every spare minute I have I am out in the garden. We have discussed moving from our 3 bed semi but decided to stay. He is outside building a new fish pond as I write this so we are still very active. We have the luxury of a bedroom each and room to be apart when we need it with a spare room for GC. I am sorry but a retirement community is my idea of hell!!

I am a much younger 71 year old than my mother was at this age, I know I will deteriorate but I am not prepared to give up my house until the very end. I would rather have the space to move a carer in than go to a care home, in fact I have a Plan B in case of serious deterioration that involves a very cold night and a bottle of whisky. I saw my mother's time in a dementia ward and it was horrible.

Finally what youngsters forget is that it isn't until you retire that you make more use of the space you have because you are in it all day instead of going to work etc. I really don't want to move in a bungalow and never have the space to be alone, much as I love my OH. My modest 3 bed semi would only get us a tiny bungalow at best, and I would feel trapped.

It is weird that my mum was pretty much given her home by the council - had 3 kids young, then bought it at a cheap price. She is now rattling around in there on her own whereas we are in a 2 bed flat cramped in as a family of four. It is arse about face. Maybe I shouldn't have had kids, but you know, nobody told me how difficult housing would be now as nobody has a crystal ball!

I don't think they should give up their homes, they need to be incentivised to sell up and have better retirement properties which don't fleece you on ground rent etc. The fact that homes are seen as an investment which increases in value has meant people have hung onto them when they don't need them. If we didn't have such a huge wealth divide between old and young we wouldn't have this mess. We need to incentivise selling or build more family homes.

They only build small retirement/investor properties old, holiday lets or profession sharer properties In my area. So basically high rise flats. None of these are built for families, have no parking or outside space or storage, small rooms too. This is because they only build on brownfield sites in densely populated towns and don't create new towns anymore, so the properties are shit to live in as a family. Another annoying thing they do is build massive 4 beds, so no starter homes for families either.

Let me guess they should also sell the property for the price they paid so it's affordable too...?

What a ridiculous post. Why should anyone be forced from their homes. Those families most likely can not even afford a large home so why make older generations move.

I don’t agree with this at all. House prices compared to salary are extortionate these days and so many younger people, including families, can’t afford to buy a property at all. I know they haven’t lived through any wars but the housing market is far harder for younger people. And those I know certainly aren’t asking for anything on a plate - they’re often going without, month after month, so they can save a big enough deposit for a house.

In my area young families who desperately need an extra bedroom often can’t afford to buy a larger house because the prices have been pushed up by older people and Londoners moving to ‘the country’. Nurses, teachers, supermarket workers (key workers basically) simply can’t compete.

For this reason, all the new builds in my area in the last few years have been 5-bed houses costing over £800k. They build small developments to sidestep the requirement for a proportion being set aside as affordable housing. The result is that there IS no affordable housing here for families trying to buy a standard family home. This isn’t older people wanting to stay in their family home - this is older couples buying a new 5-bed house just because they can.

Obviously you can’t force people out of their homes but I do think there should be council tax incentives for people to move out of homes that are disproportionately large for their needs.

@queenofthewild so true re bungalows. They seem to be the most popular choice for younger people looking to 'add value' (I include my own neices/nephews in this). Moved from perfectly adequate and lovely family houses to bungalow ripe for redevelopment. Huge family kitchen/dining/living extension out the back, expand into the upstairs space with master-en-suite.

Ridiculous mortgages, of course, but pricing the 'old' people out of the market.

Obviously you can’t force people out of their homes but I do think there should be council tax incentives for people to move out of homes that are disproportionately large for their needs.

So let me guess your a labour voter, what part of these people who worked hard all their life, paid their taxes and paid interest on their mortgages to get their home is offensive to you. They spent their working lives to buy some thing to own and grow old in. What gives you the right to say they should penalised in more tax for them to live in some thing they have legitimately earned the right to own?

@Kazzyhoward 100% agree. I posted this earlier, but it is exactly what you have experienced.

My Dad had only ever lived in two houses - the one he was born in, and then the one they bought when they married. 57 years in the same house meant that as his dementia progressed he could still find the fridge, the bathroom, knew exactly which drawer his watch was kept in, the exact turn in the stair etc. Muscle memory kept him safe when his cognitive memory was in decline. Short spells in an unfamiliar environment and he was a lost soul, back at home he walked into the kitchen and made scrambled eggs (as he had being doing for the previous 50+ years).

Obviously you can’t force people out of their homes but I do think there should be council tax incentives for people to move out of homes that are disproportionately large for their needs.

You can have a go but I'm still not moving. It'd take a long time for me to make back the money I'd spent on selling my house and buying a new one.

When people come out with this claptrap, they're living in Cloud Cuckoo Labour Land. In real life, people who have bought their own houses can do what the hell they like with them. I like my house and I'm staying here until I'm carried out in a box.

So true , lots of let's boot the oldies out .
I think there are many people out there who may have to admit that they have had way more children than they could actually accommodate both financially and with housing needs . I live in a house that many would think I should downsize probably even my kids but trust me if one of my kids lives went tits up they would be mewing on the doorstep to move back in !🙄

So don't help the young. Help the old. Tell us you are a boomer without telling us you are a boomer

I think there are many people out there who may have to admit that they have had way more children than they could actually accommodate both financially and with housing needs

Can we stop with the trope of people having too many dc! Birth rates are much lower than previous generations! And the reason people can't afford houses nowadays has far more to do with salaries vs house prices 🙄

My parents adored the large old house that they lived in for 50 years until my mother died. They went without holidays and new cars for a long time to afford it and restored it beautifully. They looked to downsize many times but a 2 bed house usually means tiny rooms. My mother, especially, wanted a good sized living room and a decent sized bedroom. Everything else she would compromise on. My father only sold up when she died last year. It's still a family sized modern home but he likes the space and he can afford it.

Is boomer supposed to be an insult? I'm not in that age group but posts like this makes me glad I'm not in the bracket that thinks like this pathetic shit.

Of course we shouldn’t expect older people to move. DH & I are 40 & 39 years old and unlikely to have children now. We live in a two bed flat and as we only need one bedroom should we move.

My DM is 64 and DF is 69 and they live in a four bed bungalow should they now move even though they love having their four grandchildren to stay and at Christmas time, Easter etc there is room for the 12 of us to all eat together (I have two married siblings).

My DFIL is 72 and as a joiner to trade is building his own 4 bed home with the help of DMIL who is 69. My in-laws have 3 children between them, 5 grandchildren and a great grandchild on the way. Should they not have the house of their dreams so they can have everyone round.

Despite being 72 years old my DFIL is according to his doctor still middle aged. They no longer use an arbitrary age to determine when you are elderly but take it on a case by case basis. Similarly DMIL has Neuroendocrine Tumours (NETS)and had to go to the doctor before they would consider trying a new treatment as they wanted to know if she would physically benefit from it. Her NETS are incurable but the treatment has for the past four years stopped the tumours getting any bigger. So what age do you pick for people to have to start downsizing?

I think single, child free people get screwed over enough as it is never mind wanting to take their homes from them as well. Why should somebody live in a one bedroom gardenless flat just because they chose not to have children.

Imagine ...." Sorry Edith, I know your children have grown up and your husband's died but time to shift out of your family home of 50 years as you're taking up too much space"

Hear freaking hear.

So many old people -and people are living very long lives - develop dementia that the state would be bankrupted if there wasn't that stock of property to sell off to help pay for it. Just imagine the cost to the state. I know it stinks when your mum and dad worked their backsides off for years paying mortgages at sky-high interest, thinking they were going to 'leave something' to you, but I can't really see mass downsizing as viable, given that dementia nursing care costs about £40K a year per person. Perhaps for this reason, the govt doesn't do much to encourage it? But I also think that downsizing to a sheltered dwelling/flat works better for people as they are getting older, moving from homes with stairs etc, catering for themselves on a more manageable scale, is more secure, and frees up housing stock for families. From personal experience, I know my parents were very reluctant to give up their home, garden etc, even though they struggled on a practical level as the years progressed.