Surprised with the quality of some council houses

[LydieL]

Hi all, so I recently moved to a town in the north west, very low income area, the town is as you’d expect a sea of terrace houses that open to the street with concrete yards, some of the nicer parts have gardens but for the most part that’s not the case. There are also some newer estates.

Anyway I work for a charity, we support families where a parent or sibling has passed away. As part of my job I’ve seen a lot of council houses, in this area it’s mostly the terraces which are small or post war builds which are bigger but these tend to be “rougher” areas to live.

Lately I’ve been working with a family, mums been offered a council house and today I went with her to just go over a list of what she needs to do to get out of temporary accommodation asap and into it. I’ll be honest I’m a little stunned at the quality, it’s a 3 bed terrace, small front garden, mid size back garden (more than most around here), large kitchen, bay window. Council have fitted a new kitchen and bathroom and re-plastered the whole house.

It’s also in a “nicer” area. For the amount this place would sell for, you could probably buy 2 cheaper 3 bed terraces and considering the shortage of council housing stock I’m surprised that hasn’t happened! She will be paying about a little Over half what it would go for on the rental market.

Now I know this is the exception rather than the norm but AIBU to be surprised councils are holding onto higher value properties like this rather than selling them and either getting 2 houses (so 2 families can be housed) or putting the profit into the local area?

I am aware this is far from the norm but after talking to colleagues the council seems to have several properties in this little area, this mum has also got very lucky with her housing situation as she’s only been in temporary accommodation for a couple of months.

The problem is we should still be getting this. We’ve had twenty years of totally out-of-touch housing, with a few landlords allowed to profit from the work of more deserving plebs, and now the two-tier society is normalised.

In times of such economic hardship and scarcity, when wealth depends more on luck and inheritance than anything you can actually control, people will turn on each other.

We are not what we were. We are degenerate and degenerating, and it was all to feed the arrogance and greed of a few. 😥

It makes sense because lifetime tenants look after property, and social landlords (usually) have better standards than the bottom rung private landlords.

Also mixed tenure neighbourhoods generally are more harmonious than areas where the social tenants are ghettoised. Those estates tend to have ASB problems.

OP I think you should definitely reconsider your career you shouldn't be judging the people you are supposed to be helping. You also seem to be lacking in empathy.

It’s not an unfair system at all, it’s based on housing need. I’m sure we would all prefer social housing to private rent but you can’t expect to bump a seriously disabled child or whomever off the top of the list because you are 2 working adults who want one.

And here we have it ….what a horrid and unprofessional attitude.

So what do you think should happen?
Council houses should be assessed and if they're too nice for council tenants they should be sold off and replaced with a smaller one in a grotty area and the tenants forced to move there?

Erm maybe quit your job if you’re supporting people in vulnerable situations and then feel aggrieved when they get a positive outcome that you feel is ‘too good’ for their circumstances, jeez!

The shit I was given for growing up poor and my mum receiving benefits and living in a council house and now everyone seems almost jealous of that kind of situation, absolutely bizarre! We didn’t have a bloody penny! It’s a bloody good thing that some council properties are lovely, ours was in a right state when we got it.

I know what you are saying OP

It would be great if all council tenants could live in expensive houses, but demand is very high and supply is low. Councils have a duty to act on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number. If they can get two acceptable houses (not shit holes) for the price of one McMansion, then they should.

For those of you saying why shouldn't the tenant have a nice house, I assume you'd be happy for you and your family to be stuck in a B&B to facilitate this? Because that will be what's happening to another family

Presumably it makes financial sense for the council/ HA to have a good quality assets and it would be uneconomic in the long term to buy poor quality housing? Even if it pisses off people who think the only social housing should be slum housing?

Council housing where I live is well designed and well built, which is as it should be. If there's a lot of poor quality private housing in the same area then that's a separate problem.
I doubt if you could sell one of the houses you describe and buy two three bed family homes in its place, or if you did, they would be in terrible condition.

You don’t understand how it works. There is no “two average houses to one McMansion”

businesses and councils don’t make decisions based on the market price of things. The value to their organisation is represented completely differently to that. There are more important and impactful factors at play, and they know what they’re doing, not you

It is where I live, and probably varies by area. There is a financial "test" you have to pass. If you have more than £16k in savings, you can't get on the list.
A single person earning more than £30k also can't get on the list.
My DP went to the council for help. He has too much in savings, and earns a tiny bit over £30k. So he has to private rent... with almost half his take home pay going on rent.

I was stuck in a refuge for a year, had my baby while I lived there and couldn't invite anyone over to help me get my other kids to school or even for general support etc, it was hell.

Still don't begrudge anyone having a lovely home.

Lets hope she doesn't use mumsnet then as she'll now know what her support worker really thinks of her

I hope you lose your job, clearly in the wrong one anyway

It must vary a lot by area.

When my DSIS divorced and applied for shared ownership, there was a whole kerfuffle because she had to be on the general housing list to apply for the local schemes, but the modest deposit/equity had was a couple of hundred £s more than the capital limit for getting on the list. I think the threshold was something like £40k or £45k. So substantially more than £16k.

She had to wait for her savings to drop slightly, apply for the housing list, then save frantically again while she waited for the shared ownership houses to be released.

It was all very complicated and stressful. I think anything local councils run is prone to complication.

They are the rules for universal credit, not social housing

Crikey! I hope the poor woman burnt some sage as she left your presence. Imagine bringing all your toxic energy into her new home - shudders

@Imbluedalale Everyone is one step away from needing help. As you know, you've nothing to feel guilty about.

It also goes to show how wrong the modern and still-current narrative of ‘private sector always better’ really is. Pp’s have highlighted the standards of post war council housing. It was also designed for anyone, not just the destitute created by an intrinsically unjust society. We expect standards of the public sector, which exists to better all of our citizens and not to make profit off them. Private businesses and individuals exist to fleece as much profit out of people for as little expenditure as possible. But still politicians lie.

That’s unusual. It’s not the case for housing association shared ownership, which is 90% of the shared ownership market.

I work for a council in the department that buys and builds new council houses. The standards for the council houses are much higher than those for private sale, rooms need to bigger etc…

No, this is the rule for social housing where I live...

For studio or one bedroom, where a single applicant, with no other adult household members, has an annual income in excess of £30,000, they will be ineligible to join the Scheme. For joint applicants (this also includes partners of the main applicant and all adult household members) where they have a combined annual income in excess of £40,000, they will be ineligible to join the Scheme

and

Where the main and/or joint applicant (this also includes partner of the main applicant included on the application) have a combined savings/capital in excess of £16,000, they will be ineligible to join the Scheme. The applicant/s will be expected to use this money to secure accommodation

I am in Swindon.
https://www.swindon.gov.uk/downloads/file/3986/housing_allocations_policy

Page 35 is where I got those bits from.

You beat me to it!

I just posted a link to the social housing allocation policy for my local council.

I consider myself to be very lucky. In our area, an area that many can't afford to live, council houses tend to be on a big housing estate with small gardens and communal parking areas.

We were allocated an old council house when DD1 was small because she had SEN and it wasn't safe to stay in our private rental. We are on a small estate with about 30 houses. We have a large back garden. We have a garage (not built by the council but we asked for it to stay), and a large driveway with room for 3 cars (4 if we push it).

We know we're lucky.