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.

Or how much profiteering there is in the private rental sector.

I think whatever your opinions on it it's not necessarily practical. Say you have 3 kids, one of them moves out, do you then have to downsize as you have one less person? Then another moves out a couple of years later, do you have to downsize again? And then again a couple of years later when the 3rd one moves out?

All the admin of managing how many people live in each house, monitoring changes, finding and assigning new homes especially when there's a shortage of all sizes, it's just not practical or affordable even if in theory you think people should downsize.

What do people think about those who rent a 3 bed house from a private landlord and keep it when their children move out? Why is the fact that the council is the landlord any different?

I wholeheartedly agree with councils offering incentives, but requiring people to move out - absolutely not. Allowing people to stay for life is how strong communities build. Short term tenancies builds intransigence and sink estates.

I will defo downsize to my sons house live in a room pay rent when u can afford it

Councils get money from the government to build and refurbish properties, which comes from taxes. I get that. But there are those that think every social tenant gets their home paid for through benefits, and of course they don’t.

The properties then become capital assets owned by local authorities or other social housing providers, in time they are fully paid for, but the rents keep being paid. The most expensive part of building new homes is often the land, which is very often already in council ownership, therefore the build costs are cheaper than those built by private housebuilders.

I agree with this. My niece is in a two bed flat with a boy and girl. Two doors away a single man is occupying a three bed house. He's had to have a stair lift and access shower. My nieces flat is ground floor. She's been told she'll wait 7 years for a house. One child will be 17 by then.
Her partner left her and pays very little. One child has sen. She works.
The children have a curtain up, where is the privacy in that?
I grew up in a council house but we had 100% mortgages so you bought a flat and traded up. Stamp duty and moving costs limit social mobility as do high rents.
Most expensive local authority properties get sold to landlords so they never return to local stock.
Few bungalows are built and those that exist get bought by developers to make into family 4/5 beds. I know because I've been trying to buy one for two years.

They are not allowed to make a profit but they are allowed to make a surplus, which is the same thing

do they pay a commercial rent for the property that gives the council a profit? I genuinely do not know.

@ImLeavingWalford there is a huge shortage of SH in England as the right to buy still exists, here in Scotland it was abolished and we are steadily building new Social housing. Downsizing isn’t easy as there is a huge lack of 1/2 beds and sadly many are flats and less desirable so not many want to leave their home/area of 30+ years

Sorry, while market rate is very very high, it's still market rate. SH is less half of what rentals around here go for as been such an increase with private landlords.

It doesn’t belong to them. They should move. That’s the downside of renting. The downside of homeownership is unexpected bills, not being able to pay the mortgage, mortgage rates changing.

Maybe it is different though when the taxpayer is funding it?
They live there but it's not theirs.
It's in excess of what they need.

What’s that got to do with subsidy? You do realise you’re arguing with yourself now?

What I’m say is why not raise council rent to fund the council instead of raising council tax every year? We have a two tier system where someone is paying 600 for a house and someone else 1600 for the same thing. And before you assume everyone not in a council house is privileged and being mean to the poor im full time on minimum wage so why am I paying way more rent and also council tax when they refuse to raise council rent. And I have actual young kids unlike these 40/50/60 year olds who’s kids have flown the nest and it would apparently be mean to take away their subsidised house?

if you're paying your own rent, you should stay. If you're reliant on UC to pay your housing, you should downsize as it's not a good use of the public purse.

You can privately rent somewhere for 10 years and consider it your home, doesn't mean you have the right to stay there forever.

Putting in a new kitchen and making a place how you like it is your choice. You can't put a kitchen in a private rental and think it gives you some kind of lifetime claim to it.

The entitled attitudes of people these days is just crazy. It doesn't impact me either way thankfully but i think it's awful that people think they have the right to stay in a 3 bed council home when it's just them. People in private rentals probably wouldn't be able to afford to stay in their 'home'.

It’s not subsidised.

Perhaps housing authorities should change the contracts that when there are less people than bedrooms the
contract on that property ends. They then move to a smaller property.
This means the HA need to build more 1 or 2 bedroom houses/bungalows/flats.

Maybe I'm looking at it in a simplistic way but the list for housing is growing and something needs to change.

It shouldn’t be allowed.

@godmum56
Commercial rent is hugely inflated as we seem on MN regularly, SH that is heading to 100 years old therefore the build cost was covered long ago, rent pays towards maintenance for the house. I’m really shocked at the ignorance and resentment regarding SH here. Some of the arrogant posters maybe need a wee look at themselves and think how easily their life could change and they be in need of a home.

Social housing absolutely is subsidised by the tax payer. It doesn't take into account important factors like the cost of capital. Anyone with a mortgage knows that interest is the killer. This is true for Landlords and homeowners. Social housing has none or very little of this. Often the build cost is entirely or heavily subsidised. The Council don't look at opportunity cost for their capital being tied up in housing which ultimately costs the tax payer a lot of money

The rate of discount has gone down a lot, and not 100% sure on this but I think right to buy will be stopped on all new social housing builds in England for some years.

Glad Scotland getting it slowly but steadily sorted with new builds. But then Scotland is better at quite a lot of things!

They'd be paying the bedroom tax so 🤷.

Also possible they have bought it - didn't think council tenants were able to add a new kitchen themselves.

I don’t think it’s profiteering, landlords have huge mortgages to pay and with interest rates continuing to go up, the rents have to increase to cover them.

Council property are bought or built out-right with tax-payer money, therefore the councils can charge cheaper rents as they are not covering mortgage payments. Anyone living in a council property has and is benefiting from the tax-payer so these properties should be and always be distributed according to need (not wants).

600 a month rent for a theee bed and I know people in two beds on 400 a month. Meanwhile a three bed from an actual landlord is 1600.

And it’s apparently not subsidised? 🤔Why can’t they raise their rent instead of raising council tax on everyone else every single year instead.