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.

DM is in a 3 bed HA home but can't get a 1 bed flat for love nor money.

We also cant magic up one bedroom properties for people to move in too.

The council would not house a family with 3 children in a one bedroom flat.

I would say it's no ones business apart from theirs and the housing associations.

I live in a council house and my children are grown up. We just have one at home.

Bedroom tax only applies if you're claiming benefits.

It didn’t mean you were poor if you lived in one 🤣

The same place that the money has come from to build all these new places to turf the older folks into. Except build it with the purpose of providing good homes for the families and not recycling old homes to the detriment of the person who already lives there. when that person gets old enough to move to care or die then their home will be freed up for a future family.

Housing associations commonly have loan agreements with banks to build the housing and it’s built to modern standards so much better for people with children than sticking them into houses built in 60s or 70s. The rent generated pays back the loan and new loans then are advanced for more housing.

You were definitely bottom of the pile if you lived in a Council property even in the late 90s
There was an Estate nearby and nobody mixed with those children.

Same.

I'm definitely a minority in not working.

The elephant in the room is that UK population has increased by some 10 million people since 2000. House building has not kept pace and most likely never will. The solution to this problem cannot always be to focus on the supply of housing, without also addressing the demand.

What’s a council mortgage?

I think its a tragic indictment of how successive governments for decades have so destroyed the housing market that people now feel aggrieved that social housing provides secure life long homes but instead view it as a temporary privilege. Social housing should never have been sold off under right to buy. And we should have managed our population and house building so that housing did not become unaffordable.

Its housing scarcity that has made people feel like this.

It most certainly is not

Yes it is. They'll have a tenancy arrangement.

It’s not the same as owning your property. Of course people should downsize when they don’t need the larger property any more. The council need to house people, and can’t. We have an awful housing crisis in this country with some families seriously overcrowded.

Because it’s subsidised, you’re not paying the true value of the house, the maintenance and administration still costs and the council would have money if it could sell it, directly and indirectly it is costing tax payers.

Not saying anything is wrong with any of that but that’s why there is still a public cost to providing public housing and why it’s not more universally available, if tenants truly paid at least or more than what the system cost to fund it, more housing would be available.

I’m torn on this, as a socialist I don’t think people should be kicked out of homes, but equally, due to the lack of commitment by successive governments to truly fund social housing it is in short supply so I think it does have to be allocated on need as opposed to wants. In an ideal world I would support wider funding of social housing that supported people from cradle to grave.

No. Private rents are more expensive. Meanwhile no one cares that private landlords are in many cases having their mortgages paid by the taxpayer, all while getting a tax credit (let’s call it a subsidy) on their mortgage interest.

Downsize to where? Lots of housing associations or councils have very few one bedroom houses or flats

Yeah, but that benefit would reduce if it was only one person in the house, wouldn’t it?

I can understand anyone not wanting to move house once their children have gone to a home of their own. Far beyond things like not wanting change, the hidden investment in their home (decorating, furniture etc), or good neighbours.

Especially but not exclusively with social housing, you could be moving to somewhere with nightmare neighbours and you can read any number of threads about these, where the police and courts have insufficient will or resources to act promptly and deal with criminality.

There are 1 million empty homes in the U.K. It isn’t only about house building It’s also about the type of houses being built, second homes and ‘buy to leave’ properties.

But the same could be said of private landlords benefiting from others wages, having their mortgages paid by their tenants going to work.

That’s the benefit of being a landlord, someone else buys the property for them - or at least gives them a decent monthly income. Everyone knows this and why else would anyone become a landlord if this wasn’t the case.

The tax-payer could be removed from the situation for tenants renting privately if the tenants didn’t claim benefits and worked. The tax-payer is not out of or never can be when tenants are renting a council property (bought with tax-payers money). That’s why tax-payers feel they have a say on who the council properties should go to.

Tenancy agreement is in place to show that they can legally occupy the property. It doesn’t confirm ownership. Just like a book you borrow from a library is never yours but there is an agreement in place that you can use it providing you stick to their T&C’s.

My best friend is in this exact position. She would 100 percent be open to moving into 1 bed social housing but there is nothing but flats in run down areas. She has her adult children to stay every couple of months, and grandchild. She has a rescue dog that needs a garden and keeps the house immaculate.
She’s worked for the council her whole life full time and is a good neighbour.

I’ll be in a similar position in 6 years time when my dc goes off to uni. No garden but I will be ‘over occupying’ a 2 bed property.

We were both allocated these properties as we couldn’t find anywhere else to live. She was a victim of domestic abuse and a RAF wife, and I lived in a private rented property that was suddenly taken away when my landlord went bankrupt.

My sons grew up in HA They’re both professionals now