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?

@OriginalUsername2 Not all systems are remotely broken for the op. She has a nice 3 bed house designed for a family to herself. Great for her! If too many do this, the lack of family housing gets worse.

If the system wasn’t broken she wouldn’t be being told “you’d be mad to let it go” or “other people need it”. She wouldn’t have to post this thread.

Over decades it has been seen as a luxury for one person to be in a 3 bed house. State housing was never intended to be this generous. It’s not entirely in a mess or a lease would require giving up the tenancy when one person occupies a family house. We do not have enough land available to be this generous. It’s obviously something the country cannot afford. So
its not broken, it’s kind. Where would you like the 3 bed homes to be built for single people? In green fields? Maybe the green belt? It’s easy to bang on about perceived wrongs without any ideas for realistic costed improvements.

@Nicecow you would do the same though wouldn't you? Why should she move into a 1bed, then get married and want children only to start at the bottom again. Makes no sense. You sound well jel

This sort of thing is to blame for the housing crisis as well. Why on earth are properties like this allowed to be built for non-primary residence use? They are proper houses, not like static caravans. I can't see if it's a council planning requirement or whether the builders have just decided to make them holiday homes. Either way, I don't understand.

https://silverlakedorset.com/

@lieselotte

From an older thread. four years ago

The Elephant and Castle neighbourhood is being physically, socially and ethnically transformed. This started with the demolition of the Heygate estate, a classic for stigmatised perceptions of council housing and the people who live in it. As the local 35% Campaign has meticulously documented, a succession of promises to Heygate residents were broken to arrive at a situation where 1,214 council homes were demolished, to be replaced with 2,704 new homes, of which only 82 (3%) are for social rent. The HA partner was London and Quadrant. To be eligible for the cheapest one-bedroom home built by them on the Heygate site, people needed a minimum household income of £57,500. The average household income in that part of Southwark is £24,324

That’s poor behaviour from family. Legally you can stay, but morally you should really swap.

It is not the fault of tenants. Its the fault of those demolishing social housing and building less of it in its place.

You have the legal right, but not the moral one when so many families are homeless or in very cramped accommodation. I would downsize if at all possible to find somewhere suitable. I would certainly be looking.

Your family are assholes though, it should be your decision

What about the moral right of the developers. Can people here not do basic maths? This is not down to tenants not moving.

1,214 council homes were demolished, to be replaced with 2,704 new homes, of which only 82 (3%) are for social rent

So just to be clear your living in what would have been your family home, previously your parents and siblings? UC therefore taxpayers are paying for the majority of your rent and you don’t see anything wrong with that?
Maybe your siblings are trying to tell you exactly that! Completely morally wrong when you don’t need that space, you must be aware of the housing situation in the country.

I wonder how many owner occupiers with spare rooms are similarly berated as OP has been on here.

This isn't a simple question of living space - there are more than enough dwellings to house every household in the country and then some - but of expecting a certain class of household to rearrange themselves into the tiniest footprint possible in order to make room for those dispossessed by the twenty year property acquisition drive that's been a feature of many western economies, even though that same class of household is vanishingly unlikely to have benefited from this asset race. Meanwhile there are entire palaces, manor houses, stately homes etc intermittently occupied or occupied by one person, entire city developments bought off plan and left unoccupied as they bounce from one owner to another, for years.

Maybe tackle all of that, before losing your shit at a woman orphaned in early adulthood, who is actually paying rent, but who has two spare rooms in the kind of house that most mumsnetters wouldn't wish to live in anyway.

The taxpayer subsidises the social housing system. They taxpayer pays for the families in b and bs because they are homeless.

In am ideal world, everyone could access social housing. Very few actually can. It should be those most in need.

Just a thought

The OP is living in her family HOME not a house her HOME, is doing nothing illegal and has every right to be there but is told it's not morally right.

There are a lot of people banging on about the taxpayer paying for the OP.

On other threads where posters have queried whether they should report people who are claiming SPD, UC and other benefits but failing to advise that their partner is living with them people are quite happy for their taxes to go to those people - they even state it - but it's fraud.

PP are telling the OP it's immoral but why isn't it immoral to claim SPD, UC and other benefits when they are not rightly yours - well not on MN obviously

The sexism. In 1991 (back in the mists of time before i met DH when i was 18 and still living with my parents) i went with a friend to the local council office who needed to find a flat. She was single. I still remember what was said to her all these years later. "Im sorry but there arent many available at the moment if you had a baby things would be different but we cant help you at the moment.

I met DH in 1992 and we moved into a small bedsit and lived there for two years and 3 months before we moved to where we are now.....

Single men WERE more likely to be housed than single women or couples (all this is without children) It was assumed that women would meet a man and move in with him. (this obvs meant a higher risk of abuse.

The final straw was when my best friends ex beat her yet again She finally gave him the boot and this violent druggie was rehoused within THREE DAYS. While women were being told Sorry we cant help unless you have a child.

We had an interview for a flat and we attended and towards the end of the interview i asked how likely it was we would get allocated a flat She said it could be a while. I brought up my friends ex and she said it was sooner for him because he was "vulnerable" Yep so vulnerable that he beat up a subsequent partner so badly she lost their baby. She had moved in with him because she had no other choice.

Anyway we did get offered a flat which is still the same one bedroom flat we are in now 29 years later.

Why? Because im childfree by choice and we have always been low income.

So we are still where we are because i havent reproduced. Im not moaning about it Just stating a fact.

I will point out though that if more lower income couples made the same choice as us there would be even less one bedroom places becoming available

Since the late 90s the one bedroom flat underneath me has been occupied by three different single men. First one was a lovely man. Second a violent druggie The current one a raging alchoholic. The last time it was occupied by a woman was a pensioner who was moved to a nursing home in 1998. In fact when we first moved here in 1994 a few of the ground floor flats were occupied by elderly people. Which seems sensible to me but doesnt seem to happen anymore. Where are all the single women?

So a single man would be housed before the OP if she did try to move.

That's nonsense. A single man is very unlikely to ever get housed by the council unless he has significant vulnerabilities.

@nebulae Im getting a bit sick of the middle classes citing violent drug dealers and alchoholics as vulnerable when an SH tenant points out they are causing problems in their block Telling us other tenants that they are vulnerable and we need to make allowances and then getting their NIMBY placards out the minute someone wants to build social housing near them

You're rambling @JenniferBooth . I'm not sure what relevance any of your posts has to OP's situation.

It demonstrates what she would have to put up with if she downsized to a one bedroom flat, Im not rambling Its obvious i hit a nerve.

@JenniferBooth hit a nerve with who? Me? Nope, I have no skin in this game.

It’s clearly difficult to rehouse anyone. Often one bed flats are used for anti social people. However we do not have a perfect system and do not build enough homes - social housing or not! We have far too many families needing two houses because they split up. We have many people new to this country requiring housing.

I think single people do have a problem because they only have one income. There possibly needs to be more done for shared ownership where the HA owns a portion. The example of E&C is not actually a bad one. The incomes there are rising as it has great links to the city. It has lots of upwardly mobile people. DD used to live there so I know it a bit. The minimum income required by two people is achievable. In this day and age, buying as a single person in London is very difficult.

Back to topic: we need far more HA homes. That’s the only solution. But where? We are a nation of nimbys.

Just to be clear about those saying op are “banging in” about taxpayers lying the rent. I answered in response to the op clearly stating that “most of the rent is paid by UC “ with her paying the remaining 25% bedroom tax herself.
Id love to know the stats from a PP about the social housing freely bailable throughout the UK as they state. Enough housing for all and some of the quote I think?
To the poster equating it to a mortgaged property that is just plan daft. I have a mortgage so key because I was on a LA list for 20 years with no offer in sight, so I bought a property.

@giggly Where does UC come from? Taxpayers. That is the link.

And the OP is a tax payer herself. She works. The problem is the employers who are relying on the tax payer to top up wages on which people can’t make ends meet.