What is wrong with buying an ex council house?

[icepackquestion]

I am looking at houses to buy. When I have mentioned some to a few people they have asked if the are ex council. I don't know the answer so I just move on.

When I viewed a house yesterday the estate agent said "this is ex council but it's one of the few I would happily live in myself"

What is wrong with ex council houses? I literally have no idea, and couldn't tell the difference between them and others.

@icepackquestion

I've viewed it already, it's lovely. It's huge, beautiful Garden, 3 car drive. The people have owned it and lived there for 28 years. Only 1 direct neighbour and it was an older lady.

It's in a lovely area, where I want to live.

My question was not about this property only. I was asking why people ask me this question so much. Not everyone knows everything. Wasn't being goady.

Buy it and to hell with other people.

As said above there is a huge difference between an ex council house in a nice area and an ex council house on a sink estate.

My old flat was ex-council. I’d agree with both the pros (cost, size, build quality) and cons (social stigma, problem neighbours). It’s not “every council tenant is out of Shameless”, it’s that you are more likely to encounter “problem families” whose behaviour impacts on you when you’re nearby, when you’re in an area which is not mixed but genuinely poor.

Someone will come along in a sec and mention Hans Rausing or some other demented billionaire but I’ll stick my neck out and argue for a correlation between amounts of low-level anti-social behaviour and poverty, and the fact that in a lot of the UK at the moment you need to be in significant need to be offered a council house.

We bought a new build on a small development of about 15 houses. An investor bought 10 of the other houses, let 4 privately and leased the other 6 back to the council - so they were in essence "council houses".

We had SO much trouble from some of the tenants - noise, antisocial behaviour, mess, converting the garage into accommodation to sublet then doing a moonlight flit - and the final straw was coming back from picking DS up from nursery to find a drug raid complete with battering ram and sniffer dogs across the street. They found a substantial quantity of Class A, but the tenants blamed each other, the police dropped it and the housing association refused to do anything.

I know there are some amazing housing association tenants. None of my neighbours were amazing. They were not the sort of people I wanted to live next to, or whose kids I wanted my kids playing with. So we moved.

There are council houses and there are council houses, I've lived in two previously on lovely quiet estates with mostly elderly living there but went to view one recently as I'm moving that was rubbish piled high in front gardens, tyres and shopping trolleys and dogs barking non stops.
I'm not investing my life savings on a place I can't sell.

I think the houses themselves are quite solidly built, but yeah there may well be a stigma.

There is an “ex council” estate near me and I think all the houses are almost all owner occupied, nice families, no serious issues at all. That won’t be the case everywhere though and even in this area there is a stigma eg people in the “ex council” area are happy to live there but apparently not to go to the school there. Hence they all try and get their kids in the school in the posher part of town.
As far as I can tell the school there is perfectly fine too.

We used to live in an ex local authority flat. It was uglier than the Victorian flats in the area but half the price. The rooms were a really good size, we had our own small garden and it was really convenient for the tube.

I had similar when I bought mine but like others have said - depends on the area.

I'm in a 1950s semi detached council house in a nice area with a drive for parking, decent sized rooms, large back garden, front garden, and no issues with neighbours (so far anyway).

The street behind us which are all private are at least £100k more. The houses look nicer on the outside (no pebble dashed), but don't appear to be any bigger inside. At the moment any house around here is selling within a week of being on the market.

I've lived in a 1930s semi and a Victorian terrace previously. Just buy whatever you like / meets your needs.

I live in an ex council semi. DH's grandfather was the original council tenant in the late 1940s. He bought the house from the council shortly before his death early 1990s. With support from his father, DH bought out his cousin's share, and we got a joint mortgage when we married.

As others have said, the house is very solid, well built and decent sized rooms. We live in a cul-de-sac, most houses are owner-occupied. As is the case with the rest of this estate; there is no difference between residents in the council-built houses than in the privately built housing in surrounding streets . It's a fairly quiet, low crime area .

There is, however, a further council development of flats closer to the town centre , and I certainly wouldn't buy a property there.

I wouldn’t buy one again. We owned one- semi detached- huge garden, stunning location. Neighbours were still council tenants. They were the worst to live next to. Lack of work meant they were up all night - TV loud, doors banging. Weed smell coming through. Police there frequently. Yes I know you can get dodgy private tenants but in all the years of being attached these tenants were the worst and since then we’ve always bought detached and not on a Council estate.

Never had prejudice previously, but sadly my one experience ruined my view. We moved in September and moved out the May 18 months later it was that bad.

The huge benefit to us has been low living costs due to low mortgage , enabling us to spend more money on things like holidays , meals out, activities for DS when he was younger .

Some estates have been poorly managed and allowed to become “problem” estates with lots of anti social behaviour, but generally it’s snobbery I think.

It doesn't matter if it seems snobby or if you have the best neighbours in the world, there is a stigma and it does impact house prices (hence them being cheaper) so my main concern would be thinking ahead to when you want to sell; how saleable it'll be and price.

All depends on there area we have 4 estates near us 1 lovely 2 of them we have to work in in pairs for saftey .

I’ve got an ex-LA house and my attached neighbours are council.

You can tell which the council owned ones still are cos they have newer roofs and newer front doors! The council must have done them all in one go a couple of years before I moved in.

My house is larger, better layout and on a better plot than I could afford for a period property in the same area.

It isn’t on an estate, it’s a bomb hole infil row. Quite a lot of them about in east London.

I’m not sure I’d have wanted to buy on an estate but on a ‘normal’ road with mixed tenure I didn’t see a problem.

There are negatives to the house as well though - everything has been a bit of a bodge. The council went for easy-construction snd repairs rather than better or more aesthetic work. The sound proofing to next door is shit which is surprising as it’s really solidly built and really hard to drill into the walls! I’m also on a shared electric and water supply - so if next door use their tap my shower looses some pressure.

I’ve had no issues with either of the two sets of council tenants. Hopefully the current family will stay a long time as they are really nice, quiet and friendly.

I live in an ex-council house, and I love it. It's solidly built with three double bedrooms and a garden in an area where similarly priced non-council houses have two bedrooms and a yard. It's the catchment area of one of the best schools in the region and is within walking distance of most places I want to go to. The street has a pretty wide economic mix of people, from people in very difficult circumstances to successful professionals. It hasn't risen in value as much as privately built houses in the same area, but I don't care because I have no desire to move - I get to live in a comfortable family home with a garden in a great area where affordable family houses are rare as hens' teeth, with a strong local community and where I can see myself growing old.

Also, we were mortgage-free in our early forties.

I agree on checking the construction as not all estate agents are upfront about this and there are quite a few (ex)council houses that aren't standard construction.

If it's non-standard, you can still get a mortgage I have one. They do need the paperwork that they went through a refurbishment scheme there were a lot of these back in the '80s and '90s so it may take some time to find the paperwork and it was recommended to me by our mortgage broker that when we found out about the non-standard construction to make the offer reliant on related paperwork being made available to you -- but with the paperwork, the banks and insurance companies are happy.

Another reason for why people are cautious about buying ex-council is sometimes the non-standard construction or, depending on the council, a reputation for corners being cut. When my spouse mentioned to friends that he found the front room wall wasn't straight when he built in a window seat, they asked if it was ex-council house as they live in a council house nearby and many of their walls are like that. This happens with new builds as well, some companies have a reputation for it, but in my experience more people are aware of it with (ex)council houses.

@RaspberryCoulis

We bought a new build on a small development of about 15 houses. An investor bought 10 of the other houses, let 4 privately and leased the other 6 back to the council - so they were in essence "council houses".

We had SO much trouble from some of the tenants - noise, antisocial behaviour, mess, converting the garage into accommodation to sublet then doing a moonlight flit - and the final straw was coming back from picking DS up from nursery to find a drug raid complete with battering ram and sniffer dogs across the street. They found a substantial quantity of Class A, but the tenants blamed each other, the police dropped it and the housing association refused to do anything.

I know there are some amazing housing association tenants. None of my neighbours were amazing. They were not the sort of people I wanted to live next to, or whose kids I wanted my kids playing with. So we moved.

That’s the point. The risk of this kind of thing is much higher with social housing tenants and neighbourhoods. Let’s be honest, if anyone on this thread had a choice between two identical houses at the same price, one with social housing neighbours and one where they were privately owned, you all know which you’d choose. The faux rage doesn’t hide facts.

I live in an ex council house, on an estate where plenty of people own them or rent from a private landlord and plenty are still owned by the council or might be a HA.

We have zero crime. Infact, my dad used to be a police man in this area and said its always been quiet.

1 mile away there is a very posh village that has a really high crime rate.

In the last year there been a couple of drugs raids, a murder, countless break in and car thefts. More recently, dog thefts have shot up.

The only time we have had the police here is because someone dumped a stolen car, outside a house a few doors down. The car had been stolen from the posh village.

Despite having the finances to move to said, village and be closer to my best friend. We are staying where we are, in our ex council house with its small mortgage.

So if people assume 'ex council house' must mean bad estate, its definitely snobbery. If it wasn't it wouldn't be 'yuk ex council house' it would be 'I wouldn't buy on that particular estate because its not great'.

The antisocial resident on my mixed council/privately owned street is the teenage son of a headteacher. The social tenants are mostly lovely, although one has a noisy dog, which I don't really think can be put down to income or social class. The most community minded residents are all council tenants.

There's no denying that there are a statistically higher number of undesirable people living in council estates - looking at the crime map of any council estate compared with some random established suburbs in the same town will instantly tell you that.

But those aspects aside, council houses are on the whole not very well built, particularly the inter-war ones. Plenty have been demolished already.

I think it could be more to location? My sister lives in a lovely road with a mix of council house and ex council house (privately owned) and I know when houses (rarely ) come up the houses are snapped up. All the house have large driveways huge back gardens.
But there are some areas we wouldn’t buy in because of location and /or the area - for example high drug use needles discarded . I was bought up in one of the most deprived council estates in England, I ended up living in a posh surrey town & to be honest regardless of where you are there is rough areas /good areas everywhere. (We still found needles in the park full of bugaboos and parked range rovers)

@FurierTransform

There's no denying that there are a statistically higher number of undesirable people living in council estates - looking at the crime map of any council estate compared with some random established suburbs in the same town will instantly tell you that.

But those aspects aside, council houses are on the whole not very well built, particularly the inter-war ones. Plenty have been demolished already.

Yes you can deny that.

There are tiny village “estates” of six houses that have been in private ownership for decades. Then there are huge, neglected, brutalist monstrosities which are miles from anywhere and full of people who have been poorly educated and left to rot.

At the Putney end of Wandsworth, there are two council estates either side of Roehampton Lane:

The Dover House Cottage Estate looks like this; www.wandsworth.gov.uk/media/1595/dover_house_final.pdf

I’d happily buy one at the silly prices they sell for.

And the Alton Estate looks like this; en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Estate

Guess which one had the higher RTB uptake? Guess which one has the higher rate of social problems? Trends self-perpetuate, but they’re both council estates.

You cannot generalise.

@FurierTransform you have just proved my point.

Some council house are built badly. So are plenty of non council houses.

Some council areas have higher crimes rates Some don't.

So, if someone thinks 'oh you shouldn't ever buy a council house' it's snobbery. Because council houses are different everywhere. Just like non council houses.
If it wasn't just snobbery, it would be a case of what area is the house in and other factors.

Because more than likely it will still be in a street that still has council houses
This. Nothing wrong with council houses per se, it’s just the fact that some of the neighbours might still be council owned and thus the likelihood of antisocial behaviour is increased.