Keeping a 3 bedroom council house when your children have grown up

[Iwishitwerewarmer]

Just pondering - what are everyone’s opinions on a single parent raising their children in a council house/housing association house and staying there once their children have moved out? Should they downsize into a one bed flat/smaller property or is it their right to remain in their home/neighbourhood?

Added extra - they have looked after the property well, have landscaped the garden, installed a new kitchen and generally added value to the property.

I don't think a 2 bed is excessive for a single person.

Think this has been a source of debate for many years. If you have lived in the house for many years, always paid the rent, looked after the property, why should you have to move just to free up the space , no one makes people move out of their own homes in similar circumstances

We really still have a serf mentality in this country.

Personally, I wouldn’t have installed a new kitchen or done major work on a garden when I didn’t actually own the property.

Given the housing shortage I do think it’s rather selfish for a single person to remain in a 3 bedroom family property when there’s so many families crying out for a suitable home and having to remain in a B & B. The number of empty properties is sinful too.

A question about a council house on MN. What could possibly go wrong?

Council rent is below market value, in all the years they've paid a reduced rate they could've saved to support themselves. Council housing should be for those in need while they need it, not forever and as for right to buy it should never happen. That person loving in a 3 bed had the help when their family were young and needed it, there are now others in the same position.
I have no skin in this game I don't want or have a council house

Social housing is for needs not wants.
if you need a 3 bedroom you should have it
if you want it just in case family might want to stay then you save work and buy your own.

The probability of it be used to fund Council fat cat salaries. No thanks, already too many of those. Council Tax goes up 5% and MPs give themselves a 5% wage increase (funded by the tax payer).

I doubt I will get a 5% wage increase this year - more like 1.%. I still not seeing any evidence of being £1K better off under the Labour government like Rachel Thieves said. All my bills have gone up this year!

Sadly as you get older you realise how corrupt it all is.

In an ideal world, people should be able to stay in council properties for life, regardless of circumstances changing. But the reality is there is a massive shortage of social housing, has been for years and that won’t change any time soon.

What do you mean in this context?

Not everywhere. The difference in price in my area is small, LHA covers most private and social rentals.

'It's your home' is a fact, not an opinion. The definition of a home is a permanent or semi-permanent residence.

If you have lived in your home for 30+ years and paid full rent it is not your responsibilty to move to provide for someone else. You cannot solve one family's problem by creating a problem for someone else.

It's their home as in they live in it at the moment but it isn't their house. People who rent have to move when circumstances dictate eg landlord selling etc.

The tax payer should not be funding people to live in homes which are needed by families with children. They should be moved into smaller properties.

We're too emotional when we make practical decisions in this country these days. Which is the ruin of us. If someone is housed with taxpayer input it should be simply according to their need. Not because they have emotional attachment to the house and want to stay put even if they no longer need that sized house . And we have limited housing stock unfortunately with an awful lot of people needing social housing, so practical decisions need to be made for the good of everyone. Otherwise the system fails.

We are lucky to live in a country with any sort of safety net really. In an ideal world everyone would have a lovely home but there's nearly 70 million of us now on this tiny island with an increasing number of people not working who need the state to provide a roof over their heads. This will only get worse as unemployment rises.

I own my house, so don't really have any skin in the game. I do think the current system seems a bit unfair. There's not enough council subsidised housing to give to every young family who would benefit from it, so plenty are stuck in unsecure private rentals, often paying higher rent. On the flip side, I guess there aren't currently enough one bed places for every to downsize to.

I do think the system would benefit from being more needs based. My neighbour lives with her adult son in a 3 bed housing association house, she told me he will take on the tenancy once she dies. There's no reason why he is unable to work and pay for a private rental and none of his kids ever stay with him over night. Seems a bit of a strange situation, although I can't blame him for wanting to take over the tenancy.

No, just intolerance to entitlement and selfishness.

It's appalling that people with good salaries are allowed to stay in these ha lifetime rent places, let alone in 3 beds when 1 would suffice. Should be means/needs tested every 3 months then kick out. Scroungers.

Private landlords whose tenants receive housing benefit are the ones actually ‘benefitting from the taxpayer’. They are having their ‘huge mortgages’ paid by them. And they end up with a lovely asset at the end of it.
It’s been explained multiple times on the thread why council rents are lower.

I think they should remain in it as long as they can manage and afford it.

My own dad is in a 3 bed and approached the council to swap to a 1 bed. He was told to go onto a mutual exchange site. He’s found nothing so far.

This house is fully adapted to his needs after a horrific accident btw.

I don't think Reeves is in charge of the war in Ukraine (and now Iran) which are largely responsible for your bills going up this year, and the years previous.

So if you ever ended up in social housing you wouldn't do your garden ? Kitchens and bathrooms aside that is a personal choice but surely you would upkeep a garden maybe plant a few flowers to make your space nice?

What nonsense. This is public housing and should be allocated where the need is greatest. There are families living in hotel rooms, but you'd rather a single person stays in a house that would better suit the family?

If she wanted to stay put in a house for life then she should have bought her own house, that is why people scrimp and save to do so.

Yes, but he's got to be ABLE to move out. And that won't happen without help. Packing. Funding moving. Arranging a moving company. Sometimes it's the practicalities that are the log jam.

@HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend There is a demand for bungalows/one beds, I recently had a meeting with a developer who is coming to our town and this was raised that there were no bungalows, they stated that they knew they could sell loads but they take up too much land for less profit than squeezing a 3/4/5 bed on the same plot.

When I got divorced I had to move to a different area as I couldn’t afford to buy in the original area. Moving house / area is part of life.

It's something I've always had very strong opinions on.
I think it's absolutely disgusting that someone can stay in a massive three or four bed house all by themselves and pay cheap, subsidised rent, in a house built by the taxpayer, while families struggle in shitty bedsits. It's disgusting they're allowed to and it's disgusting that they are morally OK with it themselves.
I don't care that your rosebushes are doing well and you have family memories there. You were given it at a heavily subsidised rate for a reason, and you took that help when you needed it. Now you happily block others that need it from getting the same help. It's supremely selfish.
And don't even get me started on the people that buy council houses and then sell them on, taking that house off the SH market forever whilst enjoying a nice profit. It's gross.

And the people that say we should just build more... No. We can't just keep building and building until we have no countryside left.