To keep our council property when we can technically buy?

[HungaryForLove]

Hi all,

My partner and I are TTC and thinking about our future. Ideally, after I have a baby I only want to work maximum 2 days weekly so I can be around for our kids, and also save on childcare costs. Partner earns about £35k/year before tax/pension, and we have around £16k in savings. We wouldn’t be claiming UC, just child benefit.

We currently live in a council house that my partner grew up in — he inherited it when his mum moved abroad. It’s a 3-bedroom house. Rent is £480/month. The estate is fine, some people are bit rough around the edges but they never give us any trouble and there’s actually a nice community. I regularly walk to the local shop at night and never feel unsafe. It’s full of young families.

The alternative is buying a 3-bedroom house (we need 3 bed as want 2 DC and I often WFH), which seems to start around £160,000 here and with the 10% deposit of £16,000 our savings would go back down to £0 with no buffer for house maintenance, car issues, maternity leave etc. Also with a 30-year mortgage (we’d need 30 years to be able to afford the monthly payments) at 4.35% interest, I’d realistically need to work 4–5 days a week just to cover costs. I am currently only earning £26,000 full-time. Working so many days would mean barely seeing our kids and only taking home less than £1000 anyway after childcare, and that’s with taking into account the 30 free hours as you still end up paying hundreds a month anyway (I know this from my sister who uses our local nursery 4 days a week for her son who is soon changing to 2 days as she will pay nothing then).

If we stay in the council house, we could comfortably manage on one full-time income and one very part-time income and retain over £10,000 in savings (that would otherwise go on house deposit) to get us through maternity leaves etc, and the a portion of the money we’d otherwise spend on mortgage interest we would invest. Even considering rent going up a few percent per year, we’d still be much more comfortable.

So, AIBU for wanting to stay put in our inherited council house for now, even though we could technically afford to buy? I’m not saying we would stay forever but at least until the expensive childcare years are over, and maybe by then mortgage rates will have become more reasonable and I could go back to working full-time and we’d only be paying wrap-around care.

I do appreciate we are in a fortunate position to be even able to make this choice. Me and DP did grow up in severe poverty, I had alcoholic gambling addict parents and DP is originally from a very deprived country which his DM has moved back to and neither of us will inherit anything. Just to add context.

You can take that issue up with our council then as they are the ones who appear to want us as tenants, do you want me to provide you with the contact email for our local authority?

The ignorance on this thread is astounding!

No one is being subsidised. They are paying the rent themselves, not claiming and benefits and nor will they be....cost to the tax payer? Nothing. They earn enought to both be paying tax, so are contributing not taking out.

The only difference between this and private rental is that most LA housing non profit, whereas a private landlord would rake in a lot more for the same sized house. Looking at the OP's figures I would say that while technically they can buy it would be very risky to do it without significantly more savings in order to buffer them in emergencies or job losses. Therefore the alternative is to move out, pay a fortune in rent and line a landlords pocket to live in the same sort of house!

So bearing all of that in mind, they are not unreasonable at all.

As for the "free kitchens" comment, word fail me.

If your not actually named on the Tennancy if you apply you probably wouldn’t be able to take over the tennancy

plus if your other half inherited it from his mum he can’t ( generally pass it on to you either )

my nephew just got added to his grandmother council house and he is very happy
he lives there with her and in fairness does a lot of her care but for him it’s a fantastic chance of a secure cheap home in a very up and coming and popular area

Thank you.

The OP is a very long post so I'll summarise. Despite being able to afford to be independent of the state, you would like to live in a tax payer supported house that you don't need so that you can give up work whilst blocking the use of the property for someone who actually needs it.

Yes, thats unreasonable and immoral. You know that otherwise you wouldn't have asked. Do the right thing.

(And if you won't do it for someone who needs it, do it for yourself. There is nothing that is economically sensible about renting instead of buying).

why do you care what anyone thinks

You don’t appear to earn enough to buy at the moment. I would stay put. It does not seem economical to have 1 or 2 small kids and shell out for nursery when you and your DH are low paid.

I would however add to your savings if you can and go back to work (maybe retrain?) when your kids are older. Aim to buy then and in any case save for your pension or if you and DH split up.

I would stay in your situation and wanting to only work part time. It is a sensitive issue there is so much demand for council housing you are in a privileged position.

You can barely afford to buy, so I’d stay in the council house.

Think very carefully about what would happen if you split from your partner, after kids and after reducing your income to buttons. Would the house still be his? Where would you go then?

Not an answer to your question, but seriously, all the home owners insulting you because they mistakenly believe you're receiving some sort of subsidy ... It's the other way round. The rest of us are subsidising the home owners. Ridiculous amounts of tax payers' money was poured into the pockets of banks to stop the housing market collapsing in 2008. Interest rates have been artificially depressed to encourage mortgages (which literally translates from the French as 'death grip'). In the 1980s rates were at something like 12%. Do people honestly believe it's just some sort of luck that they can magically afford the current much lower rates? No. It's fiscal policy that's costing the rest of us dear.

Just outrageous.

As a full-time teacher who works their arse off, I'm sick to death of the excuses these money grubbing economically ignorant gobshites come out with. It's verging on a psychotic version of reality.

Stay put.
Do the calculation about how much you would pay in interest and repayments on a mortgage vs how much you can save and earn in savings and inveatment interest over say a five or ten year peiod.
I am pretty sure it will be financially the best decision to stay put.
There are some website calculators i have used for rent vs buy calculations. If you google them.

Please explain why you believe that their house is "tax payer supported".

I would love to know where you have got that from!

I think that posts like these are false and intended to do the job of nigel farage for him

Anybody with sense wouldnt be posting about this, they would keep quiet and live in peace in their forever council home 🙄🙄

Yabu.

Stay where you are and build up your savings for a few more years, especially if it means you’ll be able to work part time and spend more time with your baby

I don’t think you’re exploiting the system at all, but personally I would look to move. I would want to build up the equity in a property, it’s an investment in your future. I would also be wary of dropping too many days at work. Think of yours and your children’s future. Having that extra money, the equity, a pension, also the ability to support yourself if god forbid something happened between you and your partner.

It’s nothing to you (or me for that matter) but OP has explained why that’s right at the top of her budget so how is this comment useful in any way?!

So do people who privately rent?

Council Housing was never intended to be just for poor people on benefits. The idea was to provide good quality housing stock for the population.

It's actually really important that there are a mix of income levels and societal groups in council/social housing.

Do the council know you are living there and what your joint incomes are

Yes.

god stay put! It sounds like you'd have a great work life balance and wouldn't be putting yourself under financial stress!

I was being sarcastic. It’s the usual comment made towards people living in council housing.

I would stay and save

Not ethical in my opinion but can’t you buy it? You’d get a bit of a discount and at least you’d have something to pass on to your kids. If you wait too long, you might get priced out (although not much chance of that happening at the moment).

I'm not sure.
It sounds like it would be a bit of a stretch to buy a house now.
But on the other hand, becoming a home owner isn't going to get any cheaper. If you wait a few years , house prices may well increase and the extra money you save between now and then may mean you have the same % of deposit as you do now.
You've also 'lost ' a few years where you could have been paying towards a mortgage. If you include the 'dead money' you're paying out in rent as well, it soon adds up.
If the ultimate aim is to become a homeowner, the sooner you do it the better tbh. You don't want to still have a mortgage in your late 60's and the longer you leave it to get on the property ladder, the more likely that will be.

This