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.

We have bought our house this last summer. It is the first time we have owned our own home in 5 years.

I have never thought of any of the 3 homes we lived in, during that time, as anything other than home. Our first rental was for 3 years, and I was gutted when the owners wanted it back, so happy were we there. That said, we had a huge sigh of relief the day we moved in here. It was ours and that was that. I could paint it, I could move things around and knock things down. I haven't actually done any of those things yet, but my heart sings a little every morning knowing this is our forever (for now) home.

Can anyone do the maths of what a home actually costs you?

purchase price + mortgage interest (25 years) + buildings insurance + repair costs + surveys + legal fees =

(plus anything I may have forgotten)

and that's without the cost of moving, if you decide to. surveys. changing mortgage, etc

If we assume that you move once in your life, to a bigger home. What then?

against the cost of renting at £x per month. (round here average private rental is about £800 a month for a family home)

How much have you actually paid for that house that is, when your mortgage is paid, actually worth £200,000??

does anyone know?

I guess I won't be winning that voucher

Having been a tenant for years and likely to stay that way for years yet, I have had many rentals and so no living in a rental is not a home to me. Knowing that at any time the landlord may ask you to leave means its not a home. A home to me is long term, there are no guarantees with rental, certainly much less than with mortgages.

My parents have been renting the same house for twenty two years, as a part of my fathers job. I am sure it's very much home to them but they are reaching retirement age and once the job is done, so is the home.

I currently rent from my cousin which makes it a bit more secure for me than a landlord I have no connection with but he will want to sell eventually.

I have four children, the eldest of which is seven and have moved seven times in her life. I doubt she sees this current place as home either. A home to her is a place where we are all together, not a building.

Home is where the heart is.

Cliched but true.

I lived in rented accommodation a,lot of my childhood as we moved every two years. And home is where you make it. With your own things even if not your own choice of decoration. Familiar rugs, lamps, pictures, books and toys make your home, with the core being your family.

But, there is a sense of extra well-being if you own the property, and even better if you own outright with no debt and noone can take it away from you.

We all need a familiar roosting place. Especially most small children. Look how they like to go to familiar places. Our homes express safety and warmth and cuddles.

It doesn't actually make any sense that houses cost what they do, of course, because unless it's brand new the cost of the house itself has been absorbed decades ago. What you're really paying for is the land with all its amenities.

I don't suppose a post about Land Value Tax is going to be a surefire winner on a thread sponsored by a bank either, is it.

Good post, arbitraryusername. Totally agree. Whole thing is arse backwards.

We rent and I do consider this our home, it's not very nice to think that our landlord could decide to sell up at any point but if that were to happen we would just move to a new home.

wherever DD and Dp are - that's home

Actually JugglingWithPossibilities you are completely wrong.

I have been homeless twice. A few years back we moved from one county to another, had nowhere to live and sofa surfed amongst family members for a month with a 5 month old dd.

When I was 17, I couldn't stand the idea of living at home with abusive dm for any longer, stayed at friends house a couple of times over 6 months, but once their parents had enough of my dm causing them trouble, I was street homeless on and off for a month. Was a very scary time being a 17 y/o girl alone at night in winter. Kept seeing the local council and social services who didn't want to know as my dm presented as some poor mother with a trouble making, tearaway teen daughter- she kept telling them that I was not homeless as I could come home whenever I wanted. It was major BS, as she'd changed the locks and was laughing at me out the window. I was not a teen tearaway, I was an A student, and due to her not being physically abusive to me, there were no marks, so it was easy for authorities to turn a blind eye and suggest I was lying. One of my tutors tried to offer a solution where I'd live with her and complete my a'levels, but my dm wouldn't agree to it- she'd preferred me to be homeless as it continued the emotional abuse, frankly.

So, apologies, but you know nothing about other people's experiences. And to make out like what I said is BS is rude. I had that house with my dm, that was a roof, bricks etc, it wasn't home as it was full of unhappiness, resentment and anger, constantly.

My situation now is different. I have a dp who loves me a lot, two dcs who are my absolute day to day reason for being, and no amount of bricks and a roof make a difference as long as we are all together.

'To be honest, I keep seeing the thread title as I check active convos, and each time I feel a little more insulted.

Of course a rented house can be a home, too. What a bloody ridiculous question. Some people never own their house. Some people spend decades in a council house. 'Home' isn't about owning the place. It's a state of mind which can be brought about through e. g. planting things, time passing, significant life events occurring, and people.'

Well said UP. You and me both.

It's one more thing to put me off Barclays.

I'm a landlord who has also rented.

DH was in the army so we'd move frequently and in one case only lived in a house for 10 months between moves. These places were our homes though we had our stuff, our hobbies, the cats. They were a sanctuary where I could shut the world out of when I needed and invite guests and entertain when I liked.

I like to think that my tenants are living in a 'home'. I bought the house before I met DH and initially kept it in case things didn't work out. I've had difficult tenants, the ones who left the house in such a state it took 12 working days to clear out their rubbish, clean and redecorate; or the 2 friends who I let out of a 6 month agreement when it didn't work out sharing after a month.

I've had the same family in now for 4 years and if they squeak that they want something fixed I get it done ASAP. I've refused to allow the agent to put their rent up twice as they're such good tenants. I'm currently annoyed as the kitchen needs replacing and there's someone at the agency who doesn't pass along messages, I want a quote for a new kitchen so I can get it done for them.

I hope they consider it their home

I do feel like my rented house is home, however I don't feel secure here at all. I've had landlords let themselves I. With a spare key whilst I was out, one landlord sold our house and didn't tell us until the board went up outside, and another removed the curtains and hid the keys to lock the windows on the day we moved in. Surprise surprise we were burgled within the first week.
Our landlord in this house seems lovely but I still don't feel secure. I know that I could get settled only for him to sell the house and turf us out or similar.
I'd love to own but unfortunately it is the deposit problem again. We could easily pay a mortgage and other house fees, but we just can't make that first step and new builds are rarely big enough for families.

IMHO its only YOUR home if you own it as you get the security in that. If you rent you csant decorate. I could not rent long term for this reason

I'm sorry to hear of your experiences FFF and am glad to hear things are much better for you now.
I don't really think I made out that anything in your posts was BS. I was just expressing an opinion that took as a starting point your mention of "bricks and mortar" Clearly bricks and mortar isn't enough to make a home - but it is a start ?

What a frigging stupid question!!! Of course it's your home even if you don't own it. Surprised Mumsnet even posted such crap!!

The house we live in was bought with a mortgage with still just over half owed on it (so I am not sure whether you could actually say we own the house as yet) but we do feel like it is our home and have spent quite a bit decorating and customising the rooms to suit our lifestyle. When I lived in rented accommodation (for approx. 10 years before I bought a house) I still did feel like it was my home and did buy things to make it personal to me although these would be things I could take with me if I moved. Most of the properties I rented though were pretty much to my taste before I moved in though. Those that

Me and my DH also rent two properties (that we bought before we met each other and kept on as rental properties) and I would hope and allow the tenants to treat it as their own home and would allow them to make any amends that were not too drastic as I would want them to feel settled and like it was their home and I am sure the longer you spend in a property and the more personalised you can make it the more of a home it becomes to you. If the tennats are happy they will stay longer and that makes life easier for me as a long term tennats that treats the property like their own is surely the best for everyone.

I am pretty shocked that in the UK you can be evicted / the lease cancelled so easily and at such short notice. I thought the law had been changed to improvetenants' rights years ago.

In France it is much more in tune with the tenants. Mst rentals are non furnished you can decorate it in the way you like, can have pets, and it is hard to evict someone , and illegal during winter months. In non furnished houses the tenancy agreement is set at three years minimum - tenants can give notice in that time, but landlords can't. When the lease is up the owner has to give three months' notice, otherwise it is automatically renewed for another three years, I think.

Rent can be increased but by no more than a set annual % which is indexed depending on cost of living.

Tenants are not seen as second class citizens here, which, judging from these boards and the British obsession with owning their homes and getting on the property ladder, is far too often the case in the UK.

An attitude encouraged by banks such as Barclays, and an attitude whichhas massively contributed to the recession. Because banks are lovely when persuading you to borrow too much money, but ruthless when it comes to aking that property off you when you hit hard times.

Well said PR

I've been a tenant for great landlords in the past who have let us redecorate (so long as with reasonable skill) and generally treat the flat as a home, although you always know it CAN be removed at any time, it can still be your home during that time, and feel like one.
Now we have a home we are buying on a mortgage and another that we let out, and I try to be as friendly as possible towards the tenants, address issues as soon as possible.

I'd also point out that from my point of view, and to answer the Barclays question, I dont feel like we truy 'own' the house we live in now, although it does feel like a home, as we are buying it on a mortgage, and I won't feel that we truly own it until there is no mortgage, which could be decades from now. The last few years have shown us more than anything else that borrowing on a vast mortgage to buy a home is no guarantee it can't be taken away from you when circumstances change.

In fact, this thread illustrates clearly WHY tenants' rights haven't been improved. It's hardly in the interests of the status quo to make renting more attractive is it? Far better to make private renting as insecure as possible, so that people will do anything to put themselves into debt with Barclays for hundreds of thousands of pounds.Nice little earner.

Shame about the widespread misery this state of affairs causes though

Also, making private renting insecure means that more people are happy to speculate on 'the property market' (loathsome phrase) ie buy up houses and charge other people to live in them as opposed to doing an honest day's graft, which makes housing even more expensive for everyone, and the banks are quids in.

I live in a rented house and it is our home but I do wish it was more secure, we are on a yearly rolling contract and there is always that fear when it comes to renewal, also would love to have the power to make landlords repair/replace things within a reasonable timeframe.

Perhaps Mumsnet should start a campaign for better tenants' rights?

...or perhaps not. I wonder how much Barclays paid them to "sponsor" this thread?

(whistles innocently).

I hated, hated renting and we are now million times happier in our mortgaged home. We own 2/3 of the house.

Yes, its worrying with a mortgage that until you have paid it off it could go wrong (but now days the goverement pays up to two years mortgage if you fall into crisis so some breathing space) but that one negative far outweighs the negatives I experienced with renting.

However-
I think its dreadful how hard it is to get onto the property ladder now.
I think its dreadful that when you do, its appalling how much you have to pay for the shoebox sizes the houses are. My parents paid less then we did for a house triple the size in the same area 20 years ago.

What expat said ages ago.

Also, I am a LL and I regard tenants' homes as their homes, they have only to return them to the original condition (ie not purple walls) when they leave, which is what most people selling a house would do to sell anyway. Not that they ever do...

But it is a crap system for both LLs and tenants. I'd rather have five year tenancies than replace carpets every six months.