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.

What about the private renters who get HB? They pay less rent and The 'tax payer' buys the private landlord a nice little investment.

That doesn’t equate to a subsidy.

Depending on the banding of the property, you may well do
Locally there are four bedroom properties that are Band-A because they are ex Council
If they were evaluated now, they would be D as a minimum
But 40% of council and social housing tenants are not paying Council tax at all no matter what band

They are round here. The highest discount is 50% for people on benefits.

Politically I feel like this - but I don't think it can be justified.
Everyone has a right to a home - but not to the same home forever.
I think if you come at this from the position of the others who need/deserve a home (rather than from the POV of homeowners), this is where you land.

I paid a proportion of council tax when I was on a low income. Some people on benefits pay full council tax as their councils don't give discounts just for being on a low income

2015

Everyone has to pay CT where I live.. The max discount is 80% and and that is for people solely on benefits.

Well yes. Landlords getting rent paid by the dwp - in some cases after their mortgage has been fully paid off

'Why do you think they dont pay council tax ? In regard to not paying full market rent you do understand that most social housing is run by not for profit organisations and therefore they erm.. cant make a profit like private landlords.

I thought the demographic of the average mnetter was supposed to be 'more educated ? Judging by some of the ignorant and uneducated comments on this thread its obviously not true

When Cameron first came in, one of the first things he did was send out letters to single people in family council houses telling them they needed to move out. It was very stressful.
The thing is they hadn’t, as usual, thought it through. There was no appropriate housing for single people whose children had moved out. There was a block of rundown bedsits around a run down shopping area and private rentals. Those were the choices.
They hadn’t built some decent two bed flats with access to services, of course not. They hadn’t thought that adult children who had moved out might want to come and stay for the odd weekend. They thought chucking out a bunch of mostly women in their fifties or older to the vagaries of the private market was a good idea.
I stuck it out for 12 months and managed to swap to a two bed property in town close to amenities. Then they dropped the policy.
Previous to getting the council house I had moved five times in seven years with three children in tow which was exhausting and kept us in poverty. Couldn’t imagine doing that as a pensioner.

That's because there's something wrong with the market. That's the problem that needs fixing.

With a severe housing shortage, a COL crisis and a strained budget for carers, multi- generational living should be encouraged.

So I wouldn't be asking social housing tenants to downsize just because children are 18. It's good for them to keep a three bedroomed house if there's a couple and two or more single adults.

The problem is when people have empty bedrooms in social housing, and others are desperate for social housing.

Lifetime tenancies can't easily be changed now (it would be equivalent to what Labour is doing to student loans, which is also unjust).

But financial incentives and disincentives (such as the sensible but unpopular "bedroom tax") should be used to help to ease the pressure on social housing.

Lots of studio flats for singles/couples and two bedroom flats for families need to be built as new social housing. And overcrowding rules should be loosened. They're doing more harm than good.

Better lots of families have a home to live in with crowded bedrooms, bunk beds in bedrooms and a sofa bed for parents in the sitting room, than that some have lots of space and others are in hotel rooms without even proper coming facilities.

Do people not remember Jeremy Corbyn lived in a SH property? On £150k per year MP salary.

My parents had a council house in the 1960s my dad was ex army. It was a badge of honour to save for your own house and move out as my parents did after paying cheap rent. It wasn't ment for a lifetime.
I housed them when they needed care.

Obviously it's morally indefensible. Council housing is a taxpayer-subsidised asset designed specifically for those in need; it isn't a life-long entitlement. Once a tenant’s circumstances improve and they no longer meet the criteria, the subsidy should end. We shouldn't be tying up vital resources while those in genuine crisis remain on a waiting list. I don't care how much they spent on a kitchen. It’s a simple matter of fairness. Hope that helps.

‘Not much profit’ but some. And your costs are higher than councils or other SH for things like maintenance, certification etc due to economies of scale and/or using in-house contractors, which helps keep their costs down. (And thus their rents)

How many 21 year olds are able to move out these days? I still have a 25yo at home who needs a bedroom as the private rental market locally is too high for a single person to afford - even studios.

Would you rather landlords sponged off the state?

Of course they should. There's a housing crisis. But I think the onus is really on the associations/landlords to encourage the move. In Scotland that's not how it works. They won't help you find a suitable property. You have to advertise on local homeswapping sites by yourself. So a lot of older folk, who maybe aren't as savvy with using an app or website are left roaming about these big houses, while families are overcrowded in one or two bedroom homes. With Wheatley in Glasgow I'm not sure what the housing officers actually do any more.. Can never get hold of them, they work about two days per week, never in the office, youve to search and bid for properties on your own. There's about 900 bids on each property that comes up. We will likely be in that position in the next few years, with two kids ready to move out, and hoping we will be able to swap from a 3bed to a 1bed. But from what I've heard from other people's experience it won't be as easy as you would imagine.

I live in a housing association house. Technically, it has 2 bedrooms, however, there's a third room that could be used as a bedroom.

I got it under something called Do It Yourself Shared Ownership. I bought one quarter (£15k), the housing association bought three quarters (£45k). This was over 30 years ago. I rent the 3/4 off the housing association. What I've paid in rent (and continue to pay in rent) has more than covered the initial outlay from the housing association of £45k and they can now use that money for other homes for other people.

^^ This is what housing could look like if everyone wasn't trying to make a buck.

There are 1.33 million households currently on the waiting list for a home. That's family units, not individual people. Only 13% of demand is actually met. Families wait years and years for a home. The house is never yours, you do not own it, it is rented. You were given the house because you were in a specific need at that time. You are no longer in that need. If you want to be a single person living in a 3x bedroomed house - buy it.

It’s not taxpayer subsidised. Where did this weird misconception come from?

No you shouldn't. You get subsidised housing because you cannot afford to buy or rent privately.
Once you no longer have that need yes you should move.
Right to buy was the worst thing ever why on earth should anyone get thousands deducted just cos they were renting the Property. Thankfully the discount has been reduced. It should never have been so generous.

How would doing this enhance your life?