Council house? Not if you are on over £100k pa

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I wouldn't be keen. I don't think anybody would.

I also accept that the emotional argument will always be a much larger concern than the fact that houses are needed and there is massive underoccupancy going on.

I asked because I actually have experience of two people being asked to downsize. They are not family, but know them very well.

One is a single man living in a 4 bed house. Children have left the house, and have been gone now for approx 6 years. Has been asked to downsize to a 2 bed, but refuses. He will move and has no objections, but basically he believes he can get a significant cash sum to move. I doubt he will ever move though unless forced, and I doubt he will get the cash sum.

The other is his mother. Lives roughly half a mile down the road. 3 bed house, has been there on her own, must be about 15 or so years. Remember the unfortunate death of her husband when I was at school. Has been asked to downsize (don't know what to, but based on above, I'd guess 2 bed), refuses. I doubt she would move regardless of any cash sum, regardless of any other accomodation, she simply does not want to.

Thats 7 bedrooms and 2 houses between 2 people.

Now, the best bit. One of their children...my friend, lives in a tiny 2 bed, with 2 children and his wife. I struggle in mine for room. His is even smaller. They are on the council waiting list, but don't have a chance, and this is private rental, with a slight (though don't know the amount) bit of government help. He'd happily do a swap with his parent / grandparent....they won't.

How does this make any sense? Even forgetting the fact we are subsidising these people to live in these homes they would never be able to afford for a minute, can anyone state it makes any sense?

My mum’s place is a one-bed maisonette with a small garden the estate consists of a large block of 1 and 2 bed flats several smaller blocks of maisonettes and a couple of houses and is near to the shopping centre and day centre. There is never a shortage of people wanting to downsize from their houses as they find it a pleasant to live.

Of course there will always be people who do not want to move and I suspect it would be harder to persuade the man above to move voluntary.

t0rt0ise

Everyone seems to want to go backwards.. instead of looking at how *everyone* can have secure accommodation for life, you guys want to make it so that *nobody* has security. Why would you do that? It's bad enough that people in privately rented accommodation have little security and are expected to move on regularly. Living like that is inhumane and is not something we should be striving to copy for the rest of the rented sector.

sjaypink

lemonjelly wrote: »

I'd prefer to see under occupation addressed (as I feel this would have a knock on effect on the percieved tenancy for life). I feel that building more properties is essential after years of under investment/money & stock being taken out of the system.

I haven't read all this thread, so sorry if repeating.

What we need, here anyway, is to look at who could move on & out, and why they're not.

Most elderly here I know of will not move because there are only a handful of specially built 'old people' developments (social I mean, theres loads of private to buy!), the sized homes they would be looking to downgrade to are not appropriate or desirable.

Perhaps instead of looking short term and putting up loads of 1 & 2 bed flats (which, within no time at all the newly housed occupants are over-crowding) they should be building nice supported housing developments, which then provide both homes, and also reduced spend in social care if you have 100 needy tenants in one place instead of dotted all over town. Anyway, couple the availability along with increased - can't think of a better word than - pressure, and you can clear out quite a few of the eldest.

But as people have said its not just frail 80-somethings. Younger people have homes where the kids have now left. They don't 'need' the space but can certainly utilise it whilst they've got it.

And then theres younger people with the kids still around (or child free) whos circumstances have changed for the better too.

Both of these types of people should in an ideal world be free to move into home ownership at this point. I know loads and loads of working social housing tenants (and myself included) who would prefer to own if prices dropped a little. A lot of the SH problem would be solved by lower HP. And not by overpriced shared ownership and restrictive rent to own schemes either.

lostinrates

t0rt0ise wrote: »

Everyone seems to want to go backwards.. instead of looking at how *everyone* can have secure accommodation for life, you guys want to make it so that *nobody* has security. Why would you do that? It's bad enough that people in privately rented accommodation have little security and are expected to move on regularly. Living like that is inhumane and is not something we should be striving to copy for the rest of the rented sector.

why not look at it the other way and consider adding security to private lets?

I don't think any option we have atm is particularly ''inhumane''. Not ideal, sad, wasteful, frustrating and unfair I could agree with, but ''inhumane'' to me are not the housing options suggested but the people falling through cracks to have nowhere to live and the examples of people with somewhere to live but a lack of resources (not really financial I'm thinking atm) to make that home safe and decent.

lemonjelly

t0rt0ise wrote: »

Everyone seems to want to go backwards.. instead of looking at how *everyone* can have secure accommodation for life, you guys want to make it so that *nobody* has security. Why would you do that? It's bad enough that people in privately rented accommodation have little security and are expected to move on regularly. Living like that is inhumane and is not something we should be striving to copy for the rest of the rented sector.

I'm definitely ot saying that. I'm all for the security of tenure. If you read my posts I'm arguing that this security does not have to be tied to one specific address. Once that property becomes under occupied, why cannot the duty to house the household be transferred to an alternative property which meets their housing need?

Is it reasonable for a household of 1 person to occupy a 3 or 4 bed house for years, even decades when you have families being overcrowded in flats or similar?

donnajunkie

vivatifosi wrote: »

Then they should look at the length of tenancies, so the expectation is not to have a house for life, less still the same house for life.

why do people have an issue with this? people need a house for life right? so why limit them to a few years? should people spend the rest of their lives on the streets? secure tenancies not existing for private tenants isnt an argument against it existing for tenants in social housing.

leveller2911

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I wouldn't be keen. I don't think anybody would.

How does this make any sense? Even forgetting the fact we are subsidising these people to live in these homes they would never be able to afford for a minute, can anyone state it makes any sense?

We are lucky enough to live in Social Housing, it was built 20 years ago.The land on which the houses stand belonged to the village.The build cost of the homes was in the region of £35k, so far we have paid around £70K in rent.Even for allowing for inflation not all Social Housing is subsidised forever, there comes a day when the rent they pay is subsidising the newly built Social Housing.

How exactly are you (and me as I'm a tax payer) subsidising me and the many thousands like me?.

Just another example is my parents, they lived in a terraced Council house for 45 years, always paid their rent on time and bought the house about 7yrs ago under the RTB .They have probably paid for the house 10x over during their tenancy.

Selling off Social Housing did have some advantages such as Councils not having to renovate older properties that needed thousands spent on them to bring them up to standard.It also gave people the chance to stamp their identity on their homes and a sense of belonging.

The downside was that Councils were not allowed to use the money they made from RTB to build modern homes, they were able to use the money to renovate existing housing stock but its not the same.

The crux of the problem is we have an increasing population,an ageing population and rediculously high house prices.Personally I will buy if house prices fall to what I see as affordable but if they don't I will be quite happy staying put.One of the reasons that interest rates have been kept low is because Government know that if they rose by 2-3% many,many people would lose their homes.So in fact we are all subsidising these people too.....

Would just also mention the fact that RTB stopped/ceased a few years ago.All existing tenants at the time keep the RTB.Housing Association tenants who's homes were built between 1989-97 don't have the RTB but tenants who's homes were built after 1997 have the "Right to Aquire" at full market rate.....

donnajunkie

vivatifosi wrote: »

Then they should look at under occupation and getting people into the right accommodation, starting with those who have been in properties for the shortest period of time. Certainly where I live, they would actually need to build more stock or convert stock to enable this as there are more 3 bed properties than 1 or 2.

i guess you do realise there isnt exactly a glut of one bed accomodation to move people to. however converting houses so they have less bedrooms to justify 1 person living there is one of the stupidest ideas i have read here.

lostinrates

donnajunkie wrote: »

why do people have an issue with this? people need a house for life right? so why limit them to a few years? should people spend the rest of their lives on the streets? secure tenancies not existing for private tenants isnt an argument against it existing for tenants in social housing.

I'm actually pro increased tenant rights, but even I can think of reasons that totally secure tenancies aren't ideal. If some one with antisocial behaviour, for example, believes they can get away with any behaviour in their home towards neighbours....why should neighbours have no remit for complaint. Tenants who habitually cause damage, through slovenliness or wilfulness....why should any landlords....social or otherwise, contend with that and incur costs for it?

donnajunkie

t0rt0ise wrote: »

Everyone seems to want to go backwards.. instead of looking at how *everyone* can have secure accommodation for life, you guys want to make it so that *nobody* has security. Why would you do that? It's bad enough that people in privately rented accommodation have little security and are expected to move on regularly. Living like that is inhumane and is not something we should be striving to copy for the rest of the rented sector.

common sense alert! common sense alert!