Calls for Help Freeing Up Family Homes

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Free Up Family Homes The charity 'The Intergenerational Foundation' is recommending tax breaks to encourage older people to leave oversized homes. They estimate that there are 25 million unused bedrooms in England. Half of over 65's have 2 or more spare rooms in their home. Housing minister Grant Shapps doesn't sound keen on the idea. But what do you think? Should home-owners and tenants be encouraged to trade down for public-spirited reasons? Or should they be able to rattle around in their multiple spare bedrooms and left alone?

Rather obviously there are absolutely no barriers whatsoever .

But older people can feel overwhelmed by it all. Its one hell of an effort to sell/buy a property and move isn't it?

Surely though if the price of the 500K house drops so does the 140K house

I haven't read all of this thread, but I agree that it's pretty scandalous these baby boomers (my parents included) rattling around in their big houses. When one of my parents dies the other one will get a big discount on their council tax! That's one incentive that encourages people to stay in their over sized houses.

I also agree with OPs that if the old/rich were prodded into giving up their big houses the 'value' of such houses would fall as more came onto the market.

Of course housing minister Grant Shaps isn't keen. It's the old and rich who all vote Tory, hence universal benefits like the over 60's bus pass and winter fuel allowances remain while tax credits get frozen.

lol turfing is implied in the news

i know my mil (84) will be sat at home worrying she'll be turfed out due to the mis-reporting

and can we ban 'rattling around' if we're banning 'turfing'? thank you

"Snowdrops" is all about diddling older people into selling up for less than the market value so as to move into a 'more convenient' home and then the younger ones move into the prime property vacated. It is spine chilling.

I do agree that incentivising is the way to go but in some areas that is unworkable.
Where I am there are lots of bungalows. These are twice the price of a normal three bed house.
We have alot of retirement blocks/warden assisited flats. But I wouldn't want to live in one when I am older. Horrible places.
The big houses are all 1million +. No one would be able to afford these house for years.
It would have to be a massive change in our societies mindset about how we view property. Why are the English so obsessed with property?

My grandmother is in the process of downsizing. She is now in a small flat. For all kinds of obscure reasons she thought she may lose her flat a few months ago and have to move back into the large house. She was livid.

You are talking as if these elderly people are all incapable morons!i
If people want to rattle, they jolly well can! My parents adore their house, it gives them immeasurable pleasure at the end of a long and hardworked life.
We will support them to remain in it as long as they wish and the thought of some young family thinking they have a god given communist right to it at knock down price is obscene.

It's shit families have to live in tiny flats. But hey, that's life.

Why is it scandalous Oodles? They've bought it, paid for it, why shouldn't they live in it? It's not costing you anything. This is sounding akin to someone buying a steak for dinner and being told because they are old they should give it to someone else and eat mince instead which they can also pay for having been forced to relinquish their steak.

My Mum who is divorced gets a 25% discount on her council tax as does my recently widowed mil. That's the legislation - it's not something aimed at retired widows and divorcees. If I got divorced I'd get a reduction on my CTAX as well.

Why should your parents be 'prodded'? Even if they did sell their house, could you afford to buy it?

There are things on both sides of the argument that make sense. What doesn't make sense is totally stripping older people of choice. One person's situation will be entirely different from another's. Let's make it easier to sell a house (stamp duty, interest etc) when you are over x years and want to downsize, but let's not penalise those who want to stay in their 2/3/4/5 bedroom houses, are fit enough to do so, are quite possibly having to house younger members of the family (like my parents do with our children on a fairly regular basis, as I work) or HEAVEN FORBID - would actually like to leave the struggling younger generations something in their will. (That would be me and my sister). DON"T EVEN GET ME STARTED on the double-whammy tax that is death-duty. Now that IS something that ought to be looked at. Besides who can really afford the higher-end larger houses??? More likely that incredibly high house prices will prevent anyone from upsizing anyway these days! While we're at it, let's look at greedy developers building ridiculously under-sized professional flats and 'family' homes where you couldn't swing a cat!

The predicted crash in house prices hasn't happened (yet), so the thinking behind this idea must surely be to encourage this in order to improve the situation with the housing market. House prices need to fall by 30-50% to become realistic in relation to incomes once again, but this would not be without problems, as too many people bought at the top of the market around 4-5 years ago. A price crash would leave them and their lenders truly exposed. Prices also don't fall much because sellers wait a year or two (where we are) to sell rather than reduce the price.

The point of this that even if older people do want to move and even if incentives are given, they will want to hold out for most of the value - and the high prices of their large houses will not help young families to be able to actually afford them, even if they sell for a bit less.

A lot of 70s-style 3 bed semis have a really small 3rd bedroom anyway, so those who have lived in them for a long time while raising families have often stayed in them while retired - they see no point in moving, as these houses do not feel too big for a couple even though on paper they appear to have 2 'spare bedrooms'.

Maybe in the 70s the previous generation of older people were more happy to downsize, as they saw their children owning large-enough houses so felt secure to do so, whereas now they see their children as not being able to afford to buy or able to buy small places so they feel the need to hang on to one large family house, just in case. Just my thought, but maybe we shouldn't judge them for this.

So you think one person living in a five bedroom house should be given a discount on their council tax? I don't. I think any c tax discount should be for single people living in one or two bed flats.

As a lone stat my parents in their five bedroom house with 1/4 acre garden aren't scandalous, it's the sheer scale of the issue. There must be thousands upon thousands of household like them, while there are thousands upon thousands of young familes in cramped accommodation with no garden.

At the moment the incentives are stacked up to encourage small/old households to stay in houses that are bigger than they need, eg the council tax discount or universal winter fuel allowances.

But the cramped families cannot afford the large houses. can you not see that? If they could, they'd buy those that are up for sale, no?

And it will be years, if ever, before prices fall enough to be affordable to Mr and Mrs Average for reasons already mentioned.

Build more houses, but in small devleopments on the edge of villages, so little effect on the countryside.

So, on greenbelt then?

According to the CTAX legislation, if there is only one adult in a property, then they get the discount, so yes, they should get it. Personally, I preferred Community Charge, but that is another argument.

What do you class as single? Never marrieds? Widows? Divorced people? My mum lives in a two bed house, which she owns outright, so why shouldn't she get a discount? Why just flats?

If people have bought and paid for their houses, then they are entitled to live in them without harassment or pressure to move. What makes a younger family more entitled to that house than the current owners? Please don't bleat about the children, as it would make sense to have the amount of children for which you can provide accommodation, rather than expecting others to vacate their properties because young families have too many kids.

knickerbocker I do think you have a point about death duties, they are the main reason why people I know cannot afford to live in the parents home because it has to be sold just to pay the death duties. I think death duties should not apply to property that has been a person's main home.

i don't really understand the tax stuff, stamp duty, council tax discounts etc if i'm honest...

all i can do is tell you my situation: i am so, so, so, so, so depressed that me and my two dcs live in a poky rented 2 bed flat while my parents have a lovely 3 bed terraced house in a lovely area that has no mortgage

they are just turning 60 and have every intention of staying in their house another 20 years or however long (God willing)

i have NO HOPE of EVER getting on the property ladder in london, where i live and grew up and where all my friends and family are. even on roughly double the national average salary, i have no hope. to rent a modest 3 bed terraced house is around £2K/month here, and i am a single parent with a take home pay of £2K/month. which has to cover everything. so we are stuck in our flat.

i can't claim any means-tested benefits or anything because i earn a good salary

i am completely trapped in a job i am growing to despise and a flat we outgrew years ago, which i have also grown to despise

sorry that was a bit long winded... basically what i mean is, it's not fair...

Common sense at last scaryteacher.
Don't have more kids than you can accommodate, feed and clothe. Not exactly rocket science, is it?

It seems to be astro physics to some Slacking!

You could argue that in the UK we are overhoused as we are 2 adults and 1 child in a 4 bed house. However, we pay for it, so it is no-one's business as far as I can see, the ratio of bedrooms to occupiers. As our families lived at least 3.5 hours away when we bought it, it was useful to have two guest rooms so that when my mum and my ils stayed at the same time, they didn't have to share, or one of them didn't have to share with ds.

When we retire, we will keep the house until we want to sell; which will be for our own convenience, not anyone else's.

Funny - if a property is left to more than one child, then it will have to be sold anyway, regardless of IHT.

Incentives such as ruling out stamp duty for pensioners might just do the trick in swaying some people, including, hopefully the builders themselves: My widowed Mum has a biggish house and I've been banging on at her for some time that since her health took a serious downturn she should really consider moving somewhere more manageable. However, her issue is that she's waiting for new builds to meet her needs - and they don't. My Mum is after a well-styled garden, near a well serviced bus stop and generous sized cloakroom and bathroom that can fit her special aids. Property developers just have not been churning out the right kind of places to meet her needs. It's a shame because her house would be more affordable to a family as it needs a bit of work and is within walking distance of an outstanding school.

scaryteacher and slacking - when did you buy your homes?

scaryteacher - you have 3 kids and live in a 4 bed house - not sure how many teachers can afford that now. So should teachers now just not be allowed to have 3 kids then, unless they have a rich partner?

Sorry, misread, scaryteacher - you only have 1 child. Rest remains true.

Answer please?

Not build on greenbelt, but in villages and towns in very small developments - saw a lot of that in the scottish borders driving around on holiday in the summer. That is already done on brownfield sites but the nimbys stop any of it in a lot of villages in england - even v small newbuild sites. No way do I want to see the countryside built on at all. Scotland must want their young people to be able to afford to stay, not to all leave for the cities.

There is no easy solution to this. Superfrenchie, I wish there was a way out for you (is shared ownership a possibility? My brother did that in london)