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.

My mother lives in a five bedroom house on her own. It's not a council property as she owns it.

I have asked would she be better off in a smaller house but she said no. She's lived there for years. She's settled and knows all the neighbours well and they all look out for her. She had an accident last year and broke her ankle. The man next door stepped up straight away mowing her grass and doing jobs like that for her.

I fully understand why people don't want to move on. It's not just a home, it's a support network of relationships they have built over time. It must be daunting moving to a new place and not knowing if they people you are going to be living next to will be as pleasant as the ones you're leaving behind.

Not sure why you think the taxpayer subsidises the rents for all social housing tenants? If the tenant does receive housing benefit, it will be reduced due to her having too many bedrooms, the reduction is commonly known as ‘Bedroom Tax’. That is a big incentive for some tenants to downsize.

However, if the tenant is paying the full rent for the property, then there is no financial incentive for her to move into a smaller home.

You are going to be pelted with "it isn't their house" and they should move into a box but there is nowhere for them to move to, they are within their tenancy to stay put and imo that is fine

Because council housing is subsidised, often significantly. This comes up on MN all the time. It's quite complicated but basically the state covers the cost of capital (i.e. interest payments) and often funds or discounts a significant proportion of the build cost. Imagine an owner occupier or BTL landlord having access to interest free mortgages. What a huge difference that would make! Then imagine that the land the housing was built on was potentially given for free or at a huge discount or even that you had access to houses on a development that had their building costs subsidised by everyone else that bought on the estate. This is why social housing is often so cheap and why we can't just knock up loads more of it if it's apparently self sustaining.

The reality is that social housing will always be a limited resource because the government subsidises it and can't afford to build lots of three bed houses just because people quite like to stay in their family home when their kids have gone.

Over the years this has been a topic of conversation in the neighbourhood where I live.

There are only one or two council properties in the area. The one near me, a three bedroomed house, had a long term tenant who lived there alone after her children left home. There was a lot of gossip about how selfish she was staying there when it was '" a family home". I think a lot of it was fuelled by the fact she had mental health and alcohol problems and they actually just wanted her to leave. But ironically sone of the worst gossiping was from women who also occupied 2 or 3 bedroom houses alone. The difference being that their's weren't council owned.

My feeling was it was her home. Why should she have to leave it?

Ironically when she died the tenancy was given to a family with children. However their chaotic life style means the tenant and her children are often not even living there and the house is either empty or extended family and their partners have the use of the house for periods of time.

So to my mind there are various abuses of the council house system but I don't count a long term tenant staying in their family home after the children have left as one of them.

This would create the obligation for councils to rehouse them so they’d just be there anyway as there’s nowhere for them to move.

I am more concerned about children in temporary accommodation living in one room with their parent than moving people out of social housing larger than their needs.

Even at the expense of another family all crammed in together and having a shit life?
Gross.

There are too many children in unsuitable housing. A single person should not have a 3 bed council house.

I’m mainly surprised that they haven’t bought it. Are they not able to do that?

Even if the tenant isn't on housing benefit, who do you think paid for the council home to be built?

I think they should be given a good amount of time, say a year rather than months, before they need to move to a smaller property. Council homes are for those who need them most at the time, it isn't right that one isn't available for a family with children because one person is continuing to use that home. I also think there should be stricter rules around income and savings as I do think they should be for those who really do need them. However, I think more help and support should be given to help people move to their next home.

My initial answer would be it’s their home so they should be allowed to stay but thinking about it logically, they wouldn’t have got the house if it was just them so it does seem unfair that they continue living there.
Also I said it was there home but in reality it is not their house.

I mean it’s their home. Plus what if there kids need to gone back, and when they have children themselves th grandparents need a decent home.

Difficult choice to make.

My aunty was talking about her next door neighbour’s adult children who have four children of their own and live in a two bedroom council house.

Aunty thought it disgusting that they have to live like this until my mum suggested that perhaps she (or the next door neighbour) could give up their large three bed council houses, so that families like these could live more comfortably.

Aunty was appalled at the thought.

I think everyone should be entitled to a home for life at decent affordable rents

so in principle they should stay - why should they be punished for a system failure

I don’t think council homes should be for the truely destitute . I think when we had a large quantity of council homes the housing market worked and people spent a fa smaller percentage of their income on rent / mortgage / giving money to landlords and banks

Do you think an middle aged or elderly couple/person should move into that room? It isn't a moral duty to give your house to someone else regardless of their circumstances, you are angry at the wrong people.

There are very very few one bed properties for people to downsize to even if they want to (and some do want to).

a lot of the one bed properties are not suitable for elderly people any way - they are for example flats in a small block that don’t have a lift and do you have to do stairs and many elderly people if they do downsize are looking for somewhere without stairs - so a bungalow or a flat with a lift.

many people also want to stay in the area where they have a support network which is incredibly helpful when you become ill or less mobile and again most areas have a real shortage of smaller houses/flats with lifts/bungalows.

I have considered downsizing (own my own home) but it would still be a two bed house and it wouldn’t be much cheaper.

How entitled she is and to think that I work my butt off to pay for her selfishness. I'd prefer a young family in need in this property.

I believe the rent isn’t market value rent though. That’s one of the reasons why council properties and housing associations properties are appealing rather than renting privately.

It probably isn’t acceptable to remain in the house when there are families with children desperate for help. It belongs to the council or HA who are trying to accommodate these families. I understand the councils do try to move people on, they apply empty bedroom tax, and rightly so.

The councils or HA helped when it was needed but now it’s time to help another family.

I’m sure the person who had a new kitchen fitted and garden landscaped would have been advised by someone that it’s silly spending this type of money on a property they don’t actually own and could one day have to leave.

Exactly this!

Whilst I truly sympathise with the thought of "forcing" people out of the homes and communities they have made a life in, ultimately it's not right that the alternative is that the needs of others are not met. The whole social housing issue needs to be completely revamped and it's just not fit for purpose as it is, but I expect the huge politics and stigma around it prevents the appropriate funding being implemented.
Unless you own the home, I do think that the person should be made to downsize, surely the point of the system is to provide the home the person needs at any particular point and there just isn't enough to go around once that need changes. It happens in every other area of the housing market, so social housing is no different. My in laws privately rented, and once their children moved out they downsized to reduce the rent to have more spending money each month, and many homeowners have to make this decision too.

That's why it's called "social housing", because it's subsidised by taxpayers.

Council housing and housing association rents are subsidised and aren't market rents.

Hard disagree with those saying 'it's your home', no, it's not, it's social housing the tenant was allocated for the benefit of their children to ensure they had sufficient space for the family. The family have now moved on so the property should be allocated to a family in need of it, not left with a single adult enjoying a subsidised 3 bedroom home while families with young children are overcrowded.

Finding the right house in area can be difficult too