Quarter Entitlements

themaccas

Found this very interesting........my OH is RAF we have 3 children and were posted earlier this year boy (17), girl (10) boy (4). We wanted a 4 bed and DHE said NO, we were only entitled to 3 bed. OH took this all the way to DHE HQ, Personnel HQ, Station officer and I even spoke to our MP!!!! It was a complete no-go we were not entitled and there were no 4 beds available anyway and we did not qualify for a 4-bed hiring. OH is officer and if he was just one rank higher we would have been entitled. It absolutely stinks the whole allocation system is disgraceful, you have single or childless couples in 4 bed quarters just because of their rank.

Anyhow in the end we sold our house we had and bought a 4-bed house so now we are out of their corrupt system and I will never go back.

BTW 2 of our children have been at boarding school (oldest now 18 and going to uni in sept) and it has been fantastic I've never felt someone else has bought up our children.

Another thing, don't worry about the age of your 16 year old, they are classed as dependents until they are 19. I really hope you get what you need and don't have to fight too hard but if you do have to get as many people involved in your fight as possible.

martinbuckley

themaccas wrote: »

you have single or childless couples in 4 bed quarters just because of their rank.

Apartheid is alive and kicking in the Forces!

Classless society - not!

Bargainbabe_2

Cat695 wrote: »

boarding school? not the best option as kids away etc but certainly stable for their education

and you can get payments off the MOD to help you pay for boarding school

Yes, it is an option. I am well aware that the armed forces heavily subsidises boarding school, but I am talking about children of infant and primary age....I couldn't even think about, let alone consider putting my young children in fulltime school.

And as someone else has pointed out earlier, I didn't have children to send them away..they miss their dad when he goes away, never mind being away from me and home. I'm afraid it's not an avenue we will explore unless my children truly wanted to (very doubtful though)

Sparky29

EmmEve wrote: »

Official rules and regulations don't seem to be forthcoming in the forces environment do they? :rotfl:

I just like to know the official rules and regulations so that I can bend them to suit me and then quote them if I don't get what I want.

One of the first things I learnt when I joined was look after number one because no one else will.

martinbuckley

Bargainbabe wrote: »

This comment of yours caught my attention. We have moved as regular as the poster. It's not through choice, but because of postings or career moves. My husband is in the PT Corps and our postings are only for 2-3 years each time. I agree it's not good for the kids education, but what can you do?

Its the difference between the Army and the RAF really. The RAF offers longer time in location (around 5yrs and more if you want), but the trade-off is that promotion is much slower. That said, my kids' happiness, stability and education will always come before the desire to have an extra stripe - its not even that the pay is much better these days!

Bargainbabe_2

A lot of regiments and corps in the army are posted to locations for long periods of time too. My husband's ex regiment have been in place for nearly 9 years now.
However, the PT Corps don't move around as a whole...each member is posted indvidually or attached to other Regiments and Corps. Hence the reason for short postings.

There are pluses and minuses to this of course..I guess it's a situation we will have to reconsider when our children get to secondary school.

BettiePage

themaccas wrote: »

Found this very interesting........my OH is RAF we have 3 children and were posted earlier this year boy (17), girl (10) boy (4). We wanted a 4 bed and DHE said NO, we were only entitled to 3 bed. OH took this all the way to DHE HQ, Personnel HQ, Station officer and I even spoke to our MP!!!! It was a complete no-go we were not entitled and there were no 4 beds available anyway and we did not qualify for a 4-bed hiring. OH is officer and if he was just one rank higher we would have been entitled. It absolutely stinks the whole allocation system is disgraceful, you have single or childless couples in 4 bed quarters just because of their rank.

Anyhow in the end we sold our house we had and bought a 4-bed house so now we are out of their corrupt system and I will never go back.

BTW 2 of our children have been at boarding school (oldest now 18 and going to uni in sept) and it has been fantastic I've never felt someone else has bought up our children.

Another thing, don't worry about the age of your 16 year old, they are classed as dependents until they are 19. I really hope you get what you need and don't have to fight too hard but if you do have to get as many people involved in your fight as possible.

We only have one child and have previously requested a 3 bed as our 2 bed was tiny (had no room for even a pet hamster, couldn't have people to stay, had previous 2 beds that were a lot bigger and far better designed previously) and there were loads and loads of empty mq's. Obviously we knew it would cost more. They declined saying we weren't entitled and rank had nothing to do with it. Fair enough.


Cue 1 year later and promotion to Sgt. Admittedly it was a different camp but we had no problems getting a 3 bed this time. Been here for 5 1/2 years now so if we had to go back to a 2 bed, I doubt all our stuff would even fit,lol.

However, next move will hopefully be to our own house in a year or so, when I qualify and get a job. He's on his own after that, lol. (even though that annoys my m-i-l who told me his career had to come first. Told her what did she think I'd been doing for the last 18 years? He didn't get to sgt on his own, I'm mentioned on all his appraisals for stuff I've done for the community too. Told her it was my turn now to be supported by him. Old bat! Grrrrrr)


Anyway, back on topic.......

nutothis

Hi The document you need is in JSP 464 Chapter 3 Annex B. Sometimes DE can give you a quarter that is bigger than entitlement as long as you agree to the extra charges. Additionally there is a letter that I have a copy of that gives details of room sizes etc for children sharing if you want to email my private address. I am a civil servant as well as a wife of and used to work for DE which i keep quiet!

Hope this helps

Madmummy_3

My experiences with DE has not been all that good at all, to cut a very long story short not had much luck with them moving my family into a larger quarter even with support from social worker and wanting to pay the extra charge . I also was told this by a answer phone message saying no !! . ( Currently Live in 2 bed flat just wanted a house / 3 bedroom house )

Good Luck