NOW CLOSED: Is it still a home if you don't own it? Make your voice heard and discuss this topic with Barclays - £150 John Lewis voucher up for grabs

[AnnMumsnet]

Hello - you may have seen that this week Barclays have a big campaign to get people talking about home buying and money topics.

Yesterday we discussed "When are you too old to ask your parents for financial help?".

As stated before - the team at Barclays say "We want to know what Mumsnetters think about home buying and money dilemmas.

So our second question is "Is it still a home if you don't own it?""

Please share your thoughts on this thread - there are no right or wrong answers and the question will mean different things to different MNers.

Add your thoughts below and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £150 John Lewis voucher.

Look out for one final thread on Thursday where we'll be asking one more question.

Thanks MNHQ

PS Please note your comments along with your MN name may be used on the Barclays pages on Mumsnet and elsewhere.

I live in a house I rent from the council and have never thought its not my home - we have decorated and did the garden the way we want and its where we are raising our kids so of course its our home. I think it would be different if it was a private let, which I have never stayed in as it might feel less then because of the conditions of tenancy. Its never been important to me to own my home, I think this country can become a bit obsessed with it really. Great if you can afford it, but Im not likely to.

we live in a housing association house. its our home. we have decorated it, we take care of it, we clean it, we pay the bills for it... my son is growing up here.

'If you rent you can't decorate. I could not rent long term for this reason.'

No, buggy, you could rent long term, but you chose not to since you've got the choice open to you.

Let's be honest here.

I know I will feel uprooted when I move away from where I live now. It's the place I've lived in longest except my parents' house, and that's so different now from the house I grew up in that it certainly wouldn't feel like home to me (not in a bad way - that's as it should be IMO).

Hully - I agree.

We have a mortgaged home, and it really does feel like home. I can't ever see us moving as we really could not afford to, so, as long as we continue to be able to pay the mortgage we will live here forever!

We did have a small flat (that we owned prior to having DC) that we let out after we moved to our family home. It was a nightmare - the rent only just covered the mortgage, and so with repairs, tax, periods when it was empty etc, we were constantly sinking good money after bad. I felt a sense of relief when we sold it, despite not making any money.

I lived, many years ago, in Australia for a while and the norm at that time was to rent, not buy. The difference was, you were secure in your tenancy, knowing that as long as the rent was paid, you would be able to live in the house forever. If landlords sold the property, the new landlords took the house, with you as tenant. Rights were protected and so people did not reel the pressure to buy.

Yes are rented house is our home. As others have said a home is where your family are. We would love to own our own home but that just isn't going to be a possibility in the near future. We have a very understanding landlord though who allows us to decorate as we please on the agreement that we will put it back when we leave. We've been there for 7 years and class it as our home.

Totally. Wherever I lay my hat, etc.
I've moved house at least 20 times in my life. (I'm 29) My parents were constantly moving, and got bored of wherever we were living quite quickly. I've done the same as an adult, moving house and changing countries constantly. I live in the uk now, and, with a little pressure and an offer of financial help if we want it, me and DH are planning on buying in the next 2 years. Not because we feel like we need to own a house for it to be a home, but because we feel it's good security for when we're older.

I would say that a rented home should be a proper home, and feel like one - but whether it does or not will depend on a number of factors - how long you are going to be staying there, whether or not you are allowed to change the decor at all, whether it is a furnished or unfurnished let (it is easier to feel as if you are at home when you have your own choice of furniture and decor, not that which your landlord has chosen), whether the house is kept in good repair by your landlord, and how your landlord treats you and his/her attitude towards you and the house.

I rented a lot when I was a student nurse and a qualified nurse, and again when I was a university student, and when dh and I moved the family up to scotland a few years ago, we rented for 6 months whilst househunting. I have rented some pretty basic houses (when I was a student), but have never had any major troubles with my landlords - and the places have always felt like my 'home'.

The most recent rental did feel reasonably home-like, despite us knowing that it was short-term only, mainly because it was an unfurnished let, and we had our own furniture in it.

When i lived in a rented house, although it felt like a home there was always an insecurity there.
The landlord said he wanted to sell it and we had a month to find somewhere else - these kind of things often happened.

Now that we own it feels much more secure and also homely. I like the fact that we can do whatever we like to the decor, structure of the house etc.
Also having all our own stuff in it makes it feel like it's ours and ours alone. Who else would have such hideous antique furniture?!

I have lived in many rented properties before finally getting onto the property ladder. Some were verging on squalid (student days) whilst others fairly comfortably furnished (finally started work). The common thing with them all was that once I had moved in my own possessions and lived there for a few weeks it felt like mine regrdless of whose name was on the deeds. I was sad to leave all of my lodgings as I had had many happy times there with friends and family. I love my "home" now; yes it is truly mine because I have bought it with my husband but the thing that makes it home is my family living in it with me- so long as I have my kids and husband I could live in a cardboard box and still feel blessed!

Well, I'd define 'home', as opposed to 'house', as a place where you feel comfortable and... well... at home.
It could be a house, flat, mansion or trailer.
Similarly, it could be owned or rented.
I've lived in a rented flat for a couple of years and it feels very 'homey' (but then, we have a pretty good landlady who has never tried turning up out of the blue, kicking us out or stopping us painting the walls).
Hypothetically, I could inherit a spooky haunted mansion over night and it not feel like my home.

As others have said, I think it's much harder to feel at home in a rented house in the UK than in countries with stronger tenancy laws. I've rented, and owned, and been a LL (live-in with lodgers), and rented again, and owned again, and the rental times have been characterised by not really being able to do what we want, having to worry about decor, spillages, not having control over safety issues such as quality of window locks, burglar alarms, cooker quality. So it's harder, unless you have a really good landlord perhaps.

MY dsis tried to rent rather than own on principle (socialist ideals of not relying on privately owned property, but they got evicted with their dc at short notice twice in a year (landlady wanted house back, housing body didn't want tenants any more) and they gave up and bought a house, they were lucky that they had the money but it did remind me how much you're at the mercy of the landlord's whims.

Well said, PR.

Yes of course a rented property feels like home.

I used to be a debt recovery lawyer and discovering how easy it was to repossess property convinced me of the fallacy of the "I own my own home and nobody can kick me out" line of thinking!

A home is where you feel comfortable and safe :)

'Home' is a feeling. A house is a thing. You can't 'own' a feeling.

I have been a homeowner and I now rent. My rented house is no less of a home than the one I bought because at no point did I actually own it - the bank did. I often see repossessed houses up for auction and hear people on mn and in rl talking about redundancy worries and think that the times of home owning meaning security are long gone. I also know many people currently with negative equity which is a huge worry for them.

I'm lucky in that I have a great landlord who assures me that this is my home. I can decorate, have pets etc. The only requirement is that if I move out I paint everything magnolia before I do. In return for paying my rent on time and looking after basic repairs and maintenance myself I'm left to enjoy my home without constant inspections and demands.

I doubt I will buy again. I'm in my late 30's now and don't have enough confidence in either the housing market or the job market to commit myself to £150k worth of debt. At least as a tennant I don't have to worry about the boiler breaking, or the roof needing fixing and so on.

My house is my home, I don't own it the last recession and DH's business failing put paid to home ownership for us but this place is home. Not owning it does not make us lesser people but that does seem to be an opinion held by some members of society.

I'm puzzled by the "not worrying about the boiler breaking" argument for renting. This is one of the many things I worry more about in rented accommodation, because landlords and letting agents are so generally useless at getting repairs done. If I owned the place I wouldn't mind paying for an emergency repair. And I wouldn't have a shit boiler in the first place.

I've never found landlords bad at replacing boilers etc. in twenty years of renting from various people...both privately and through agencies. If your boiler breaks down, it costs thousands to replace....many people literally don't have that money....nor a means of getting it.

A landlord is expected to fix these things by law. I did once have a moldy flat and a lazy landlord...a call to the council fixed it as they said that they would call him and tell him if he failed to get rid of the mold, then they would serve him with legal papers of some sort. He dealt with the mold the next day.

EnglishGirl quite. Owning a home is not an investment anymore (unless you're very fortunate) it's a millstone. My sister told me she is always in fear of losing her home to the bank. She had none of that fear when she rented it.

madbuslady I think it depends on the landlord. As I said in my post I have been very lucky. I've rented from 3 people and 1 was ok, 2 excellent. My current landlord lives 6 months of the year overseas and has a contract with plumber, electrician, builder etc. and if anything breaks I contact the tradesperson directly and the repair gets done and billed to my landlord, no questions asked. I appreciate that this isn't the case for everyone. Tbh though, even if my landlord was a bit crap it would probably be quicker to go down the road of forcing him to do a repair than it would be to get the money together for a new boiler.

EnglishGirl Sounds brilliant. I do wonder if a lot of the difference is London/Not-London? I've always rented in London (except as a student, but then student houses are supposed to be scuzzy) and never heard of anyone IRL with a landlord like some of the diamonds in this thread.

Eg just off the top of my head, the last place we were in the landlord didn't replace the broken washing machine for three months so we had to spend ages and £££ schlepping to the laundrette. And around the same time my friend finally got her letting agency to fix the damp in the second bedroom at her flat - after a year of asking them to do it. This is with all the usual phone call/email/letter escalation etc. I probably tend to assume that everyone's renting experiences are like this because I've never known any different.

I think a lot depends on the landlord's attitude tbh. I'm currently in the situation where my landlord has a deep emotional attachment to the house and although she is lovely she is consequently a little bit precious about things. Our house doesn't feel like ours as the landlords fingerprint is deeply engraved on it.

I think it is a home if it is somewhere you live with people you love. My first house as a married woman was rented and that was the best nesting I've done and most homely place I could ever have imagined!

A home is where you have invested emotion - usually a combination of personal belongings, family members and memories.