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.

So what? This is my 'home' that I'm sat in right now. If I hadn't paid the mortgage it wouldn't be anymore.

If you rent from a private landlord and pay your rent, you can still get evicted if they sell it or want it back because it IS NOT YOURS!

Where have they to go ?

This is ridiculous!

Imagine yourself telling that to a family squashed in temporary accommodation - hotel room with no cooking facilities.

I have a relative in this situation trying to downsize following the death of their elderly parent who they cared for. The problem is there a lack of one bed properties available in social housing even if you were willing to downsize and some are reserved for disabled persons or those on pension credit (as they should be). My relative would love to downsize he does not want to maintain a house or the large garden as he gets older and would love a one bed flat but can’t find one. The number of one person households in this country has rocketed and historically social housing has not catered too much for people on their own. I don’t think you should feel guilty about it, social housing needs to address our changing society. More people are living longer and alone than ever before, and cannot afford private rents so there needs to be an increase in the number of one beds to meet the demand for downsizers to then free up these houses for families. People will say it’s wrong of you to stay in a 3 bed, but it’s not that easy to find somewhere else to go.

Would if be fair to have an single elderly person living in a three bedroom council house with a large garden just because they'd raised a family there 50 years ago, or should the house be allocated to the family of 5 from a war torn (say Syria or Iraq) country who otherwise have been house in a cramped one bedroom flat in a tower block while they wait for appropriate housing?

Surely it is based on need?

I do think that state assisted benefits need to be reformed and shouldn't be treated as a lifestyle choice but as an emergency stop gap. The whole of the unfair property market needs to be looked at and reformed as well to make housing affordable and accessible to everyone.

Private renters do not move into homes thinking they will be there for life. I think that the UK needs to change the narrative that a council house is for life. If it was acceptable socially for people to have a certain size house for bringing up a family and then be moved to a smaller house when the time came to make way for another family needing the larger house - everyone would be accepting and expecting it. It doesn't make sense that an elderly person is on their own in a large house while families go without. It also doesn't make sense that in the private housing world the government hasn't waived sales tax on elderly people who want to downsize but by the time they have moved and paid sales tax on new property its not worth it.

But if the one-bed is available then they should move.

I know that I won’t be popular for saying this but absolutely they should be made to downsize.

Go on facebook and join a home swappers group, there are tons families in two beds looking for three beds.

I think there's different scenarios that would make a difference.
If you have lived in a 3 bed council house worked and paid your rent and council tax I see no issue in you staying there.
If you have not worked and benefits pay your way, you should downsize to a 1 bed

My parents lived in a 3 bed council house for 40 years. They’d replaced kitchens and bathrooms floors all sorts. They moved out due to mobility issues and were out in a small property with no flooring and a manky old kitchen and bathroom. The rent was exactly the same.

They are under occupying a family home and their rent should go up to a local market rate.
Personally I think rents in council properties should be set by household income - only people on a low income should get very cheap rent, if their income goes up the rent goes up, topping out at market rates.

Because of all the homeless families that councils then have to pay to put into temporary / emergency housing.

But there aren't enough of these.

There are plenty of private renters who work and pay the rent (sometimes three or four times council rent) and can get evicted whenever. Plus people with mortgages lose their job and house gets repossessed, council tenant loses their job and benefits pay the rent.
Not to mention the council fixing every thing for free, one auntie was just the other week bragging about her kitchen being re done for free.
Council renters really have no idea how easy they have it

It's not their home

Fucking stupid.

It means people avoid promotions, avoid raising income to contribute to pensions.

Not really if they have paid there way the how’s it anyone’s fault other than landlords and the government. It’s neither families fault is it.

Agreed.

I'm torn on this one. DH and I live in a 4 bed house (which we own) and I certainly don't want to downsize. We both WFH so need two workspaces/ bedrooms for that. But at some point in the next ten years we will downsize and hopefully a family will buy our house.

With social housing in such short supply it's very different. There are families living in hostels and travelodges, often crammed into one room, who are desperate for housing. Ideally, LAs would have the money to build a range of housing within an area so that people could downsize within the same neighbourhood, but that isn't the case now.

Lifetime tenancies blimey and some passed on to their offspring.

Bonkers.

It's a shame so much council housing stock was sold off isn't it.

It’s cheaper rent (subsidised by the tax-payer) than paying privately and they no longer qualify for this, understandably as it’s a property with 3 bedrooms with single occupancy. It’s a council property and should be given to the next family that needs 3 bedrooms and affordable rent.

This is the cycle of social housing. Unless they buy-it.

They don't own the house but it is their home.

I think everyone should have access to decent housing. But at the moment there are something like 176,000 homeless children living in emergency or temporary housing. I read about 80 child deaths with the cause of death referring to their housing as a contributing factor.

No, people given council housing to raise their families should not get to stay there for the rest of their life without paying much more.