Family wants me to give up my social house and I'm not - wwyd?

[spicy2001]

I currently rent a three bedroom social housing property and I live on my own. Most of the rent is paid for by universal credit and I have to pay 25% bedroom tax which is very affordable to me which is for two rooms and a shortfall of £30.55p.

I did speak to a housing officer and they said I am legally allowed to occupy it, and as long as I pay the rent on time, tax and shortfall, then everything is fine. I don't feel guilty for occupying this three bedroom house, it's been my home since I was born.

Recently, I noticed that my family were talking a lot about me downsizing. I asked why are they talking about me downsizing? They said because I don't need this property and have to downsize.

I explained I'm legally allowed to stay here, this is my property and not yours. I get that I don't need this property but I'm staying here because I'm allowed too. I found out that they actually joined a site called "home swapper" and a site called "glass bob" my sibling set up an account using her email address to advertise my property. If I'm correct, I've never joined these so I don't know 100% but they're platforms where you can do mutual exchange and advertise your property.

I phoned my housing association and explained the situation, they've started an investigation and they are speaking to various departments to see if they can do it from the end to see if they can do anything as they approved it but they don't know if they can disapprove it.

The other day a tenant from another part of my cul-de-sac came round and told me she knows I'm downsizing and she has a friend whose currently living in a one bedroom flat with his wife and they've got a one year old daughter and another baby on the way. I explained to this person my family have been trying to get me to downsize to a one bedroom flat and I'm not actually looking to downsize so I won't swap with them but told her I do sympathize with their situation.

She told all my neighbours about her friend and now all the neighbours are peed off at me because I'm not downsizing. My family are also peed of that I'm not downsizing. As far as I'm concerned I don't care as I have the legal right to stay here for as long as I like or want.

I just wanted to know though what would you do if you was in my situation?

I disagree. Many people might have to sell their family home for whatever reasons when they also might want to keep it for sentimental reasons. The point is, it's not a private house but funded by the taxpayer and she's depriving other people of that home that's she's been lucky to have. It's a very entitled attitude.

It isn't funded by the taxpayer. Why do people repeat this falsehood? It sounds like a Daily Mail mantra.

Well said 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Oh well then I apologise, sorry. I thought it was funded by taxpayers or something similar. My mistake.

Good comment. I can’t get over the people who have no sympathy for a very young adult who has lost her parents. She will have no support from her parents, either emotional or financial. She has to take what she can.

Certainly not funded by the tax payer plus it’s not social housing tenants vs the tax payer. Most people in social housing ARE taxpayers.

Oh god here we go with the jealousy comments again.

Saying something is unethical doesn't automatically mean that we are jealous. I can't be jealous of a person like the OP with questionable morals. Also I don't need help with housing...why would I be jealous?

Honestly if the OP had a better attitude then I wouldn't be so bothered - but she's very 'got mine, stuff the lot of you' in her posts.

Enjoy your house OP.

Not at all. Tenants pay rent for their homes and the rent goes towards maintenance, building new homes, or, if it's council housing, to the treasury. In effect, social housing tenants pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes as their rent is returned to public use. It's the opposite of being funded by taxpayers.
Some might claim housing benefits at some point, but this will be far less than those renting privately (private landlords often have their debts paid by taxpayers in the form of housing benefits because they charge too much for tenants to pay wholly themselves).

Don't know why your family would try to move you. Maybe they thought when the house got moved to you the HA/council would move you on and now they are jealous they did not get the same opportunity. Anyway, it is none of their business and I would tell them where to go.

Re whether it is moral for you to stay in your place, it's the governments job to ensure there is enough housing for everyone. If they can't do basic things like this, what is the point of having them ?

If they fail then it is not right to make individuals scapegoats. Successive governments in this country - both Tory and Labour have fundamentally failed to build enough social housing for everyone. This is not your fault. To anyone who thinks it is, I suggest hating the game, not the players.

Regarding whether it is better to stay in your place, if you are happy there then the security of being a social renter is probably worth a lot more than being a private renter. Also you may have the opportunity to right to buy, which if you did could be worth a lot in the future. It's not something I would give up on a whim.

Perhaps if more individuals were nicer and had better morals, there wouldn't be as many social issues. Unfortunately so many people are plain selfish. Also government doesn't care, no matter who the government is. Is trying to be a good person at an individual level not worth it then? I guess that's another thread.

The thing that keeps private house prices and private rents high is the lack of houses in general esp affordable houses.

That's entirely the government's fault allowing the country to become over populated with not enough houses.

Well for me better morals would be not having loads of kids before we know we can sensibly house them. Or maybe not expecting to turf someone else out of a house they have lived in all their life just because we've decided to procreate more. Both of those actions sound pretty selfish and entitled to me.

We get the governments of our choosing. If we don't like them, then it's up to us to do something about it.

Well, this is silly too, because it isn't actually ok to say some people should not have children because other people voted for governments who sold off our housing.

The immoral thing here is voting for governments who sell off our housing and allow impossibly high rents to be charged.

Truth be told the government don’t want new house-building because a shortage keeps the prices high, they then support low rates of interest (which is set by the Bank of England) to subsidise mortgages, without which help, lots of houses would have been repossessed. If you’re looking for who is subsidised there’s your answer. Fuck savers, let’s subsidise wankers who were allowed to self certify for mortgages (yes you were allowed to until quite recently) and falsified earnings out of greed then had no way of repaying the loans.

I do agree with parts of your post. I agree also with what you are saying i regards to selfishness. But if you say that on here about kids people come out with the 'but having kids is my right'. Yes, if you can house them.

So some people should not be allowed the human right of a family life, because other people voted to have the UK's public housing sold to wealthy people?

Very bizarre ethics!

The UK has less houses than it needs.
Children didn't choose to be born to parents in inadequate houses, any more than children choose to be born in war zones or into Royalty.
Doesn't mean to say its acceptable.

To many houses are used as holiday homes. Houses that should be lived in full time

It's a bit screwed up when families are living in B&Bs yet permanent houses are used as holiday homes.

Lots of big family sized houses are in the hands the hands of pensioners, in both the private and social sector.

So my view if you've ever rented a holiday home you are contributing to the housing shortage and have no right to comment on the Op

So my view if you've ever rented a holiday home you are contributing to the housing shortage and have no right to comment on the Op

Riiiiight, well that would certainly reduce a 24-page thread down to about eight posts, including the OPs!

That's a reach. I didn't say this at all.

But yes, I do think that people need to think a bit more before they have children. Especially multiple children. No-one needs 4 kids.

Where does the human right come into it if someone can't feed their child? Where are the human rights for the child? They don't ask to be born into that mess.

Well it's true, it's dead easy for folk on here to bump their gums about the moral high ground. When really the number of houses and flats that should be permanent homes that are used as holiday lets are a far bigger cause of lack of family homes available for people to live in.
The number of young adults who inherit a tenancy from their parents must be fairly low.

This

"Oh god here we go with the jealousy comments again.

Saying something is unethical doesn't automatically mean that we are jealous. I can't be jealous of a person like the OP with questionable morals. Also I don't need help with housing...why would I be jealous?

Honestly if the OP had a better attitude then I wouldn't be so bothered - but she's very 'got mine, stuff the lot of you' in her posts."

Yes, it isn't jealously to hope that people who have had the benefit of social housing might consider others who really need it for children to move to a smaller social housing property. It's just being considerate and thinking of others. However, many don't.

Very bazaar you think the generation who bought their councils houses were wealthy.
Many could only buy because of the massive discounts given by the government at the time for being long term tenants.

People who'd paid council rent for 20 years when they bought were paying the same for the mortgage as they had been for their rent.
It was a no brainer for anyone who wasn't receiving any sort of housing benefit at the time. But who couldn't afford to buy privately

How is having more kids than you can properly house being considerate of others ?

It's more "I'm going to do what the hell I want and I expect the rest of the world to pony up to deal with the consequences."

If you call one side selfish for putting their own requirements first, you have to call the other side selfish too. Unless you are a hypocrite.

Obviously we need, as a society, to ensure that we provide adequate housing for everyone who wants to have a family. The right to family life is, after all, a universal human right, so we are required to do so.

Wealth is relative.
I was thinking also of the government selling social housing to MPs and others with property portfolios, which has happened a lot in my area.