My sister has finally got a job but it's in London...

BoredPerson

For ages, she wasn't able to find a job due to her disability. She managed to find a job suitable for her but it's in London. Our mother has said she'd go with her to live in London. Mother works as a traffic warden, I'm sure she'll be able to find one in London with little issues.

My sister's new job pays around £30k a year. She has additional living expenses due to her disability in which PIP doesn't really cover enough. Mother probably earns less than £10k working as a traffic warden.

I've researched housing options for her. I came up with three options:

1. Intermediate rent: My sister finds a house and go joint tenancy with our mother to claim the shared bedroom LHA rate. She will be a key worker.

2. Get on the housing register. I've no idea how long it takes for her to be offered a housing. I'm not even sure if she'll be allowed to be on the register as she has no 'local connection' that councils seem like to bang on about. She needs to have somebody looking after her but she has no immediate health need nor is in serious risk if left alone for a short time. So, she's probably classified as moderate priority for housing allocation right?

3. Homeswapper. We currently live out here in Birmingham. Our housing is social one and is 3 bedroom. Is it easy to swap with somebody who has 2 bedroom somewhere in London? Me and other family members are happy move out of this house and live somewhere in Birmingham renting a house privately.

Which of those is best for her? Are there better alternatives?

teddysmum

LA or housing association queues are huge in most places , but London is much worse.

Disabled people may be given priority by authorities, but there are many in need and priority certainly goes to those who already live in the area.

As the ladies are not homeless, homeless people, those with young families and local people with special needs will come first, so the wait could be several years. LAs are not obliged to rehome them, above others, just because one is disabled and they have low income.


As has been said elsewhere, home swapping is not easy; especially out of area. My own son has had to wait two years for a 3 bed council house ,even though they are overcrowded in a tiny 2 bedroomed house and have 3 children, meaning the little girl has had to sleeping her parents' room.


A number of years ago, my husbands gran, who had health problems and was quite old, could not get a swap from Yorkshire to Staffordshire, to be near her daughter and the housing situation was not as tight as it is now.

cattie

The fact that your sister is a keyworker could be to her benefit with some housing associations as they sometimes do have accomodation & tenancies intended soley for keyworkers. I don't know how you'd go about finding any housing associations that do offer these kind of tenancies though.

It is incredibly difficult to secure council or HA in london & it's suburbs & there was a recent tv programme that showed somebody in need being offered, by the local council, a take it or leave it private let in Birmingham! If she turned it down they would offer no more help in finding accomodation for her & her child.

You might find it possible to get an exchange as you want to move from a 3 bed into a 2 bed & there probably are people who would be willing to move out of London to get a larger property. The only barrier would be if the swapping family for your 3 bed did not have the right mix of children at the desired ages. This happened to a friend of mine, living on her own now in a very spacious 4 bed property & found a (local) possible exchange to a 1 bed ground floor flat with a couple who had 2 children. The council refused to allow the exchange due to there not being enough children for the larger flat & stipulated that one child would need to be at least 15 in any family that wished to swap to this larger property.

Private lets in London are very expensive. A 2 bed flat in a London suburb could be in the region of £1500-£2500 per month, so a £30k salary doesn't go too far when you consider all the other outgoings to be met.

BoredPerson

teddysmum wrote: »

LA or housing association queues are huge in most places , but London is much worse.

Disabled people may be given priority by authorities, but there are many in need and priority certainly goes to those who already live in the area.

As the ladies are not homeless, homeless people, those with young families and local people with special needs will come first, so the wait could be several years. LAs are not obliged to rehome them, above others, just because one is disabled and they have low income.


As has been said elsewhere, home swapping is not easy; especially out of area. My own son has had to wait two years for a 3 bed council house ,even though they are overcrowded in a tiny 2 bedroomed house and have 3 children, meaning the little girl has had to sleeping her parents' room.


A number of years ago, my husbands gran, who had health problems and was quite old, could not get a swap from Yorkshire to Staffordshire, to be near her daughter and the housing situation was not as tight as it is now.

I guess option #2 are out Thanks

cattie wrote: »

The fact that your sister is a keyworker could be to her benefit with some housing associations as they sometimes do have accomodation & tenancies intended soley for keyworkers. I don't know how you'd go about finding any housing associations that do offer these kind of tenancies though.

It is incredibly difficult to secure council or HA in london & it's suburbs & there was a recent tv programme that showed somebody in need being offered, by the local council, a take it or leave it private let in Birmingham! If she turned it down they would offer no more help in finding accomodation for her & her child.

You might find it possible to get an exchange as you want to move from a 3 bed into a 2 bed & there probably are people who would be willing to move out of London to get a larger property. The only barrier would be if the swapping family for your 3 bed did not have the right mix of children at the desired ages. This happened to a friend of mine, living on her own now in a very spacious 4 bed property & found a (local) possible exchange to a 1 bed ground floor flat with a couple who had 2 children. The council refused to allow the exchange due to there not being enough children for the larger flat & stipulated that one child would need to be at least 15 in any family that wished to swap to this larger property.

Private lets in London are very expensive. A 2 bed flat in a London suburb could be in the region of £1500-£2500 per month, so a £30k salary doesn't go too far when you consider all the other outgoings to be met.

Thanks for informative reply. I was wondering if there is any demand for Londoners with 2 bedroom property wanting to swap with 3 bedroom property in Birmingham?

I researched little more and found fourth option: My sister could go joint tenancy with our mother to take advantage of shared bedroom LHA rate in private rental property market, however it'll be higher than intermediate rent. I think it's also possible that mother could sign a sole tenancy contract and claim my sister as a non-dependant, although most rental properties forbid council tenants for some reason.

elisebutt65

Or get a London Midland season ticket for around £750/month and go in by train. Takes about 1.5 hours. Possibly get a discount with disabled railcard? Got to be cheaper than a 2 bed London flat.

Tabbytabbitha

Is there a partcular reason why your mother is thinking of moving with her?

BoredPerson

Tabbytabbitha wrote: »

Is there a partcular reason why your mother is thinking of moving with her?

She needs to have somebody to look after her. Our mother is only one who can do this.

It's really disappointing that for rest of her life, she has never found a job suitable for her disability and yet this perfect job comes up and she can't afford to do it

elisebutt65 wrote: »

Or get a London Midland season ticket for around £750/month and go in by train. Takes about 1.5 hours. Possibly get a discount with disabled railcard? Got to be cheaper than a 2 bed London flat.

It would be too much of a burden on her. We don't live near New St. to Euston line anyway.

Savvy_Sue

As far as traveling from Birmingham goes ...

elisebutt65 wrote: »

Or get a London Midland season ticket for around £750/month and go in by train. Takes about 1.5 hours. Possibly get a discount with disabled railcard? Got to be cheaper than a 2 bed London flat.

You can't get a season ticket with a disabled railcard, only buy individual journeys (single or return). You can get a discount for someone with you, but unlikely both sets of shifts would match (and the person without a railcard can't use the return if they're then traveling on their own.)

BoredPerson wrote: »

It would be too much of a burden on her. We don't live near New St. to Euston line anyway.

Be aware that travelling across London can easily take an hour, so if your sister goes ahead with this then it's really important that she looks for accommodation which is convenient for getting to work. That's both because of the time it can take, and also because if travelling from Birmingham would be too much of a burden, getting across London in the rush hour is no picnic! Not having attempted to commute from Birmingham, I have no idea how crowded the trains are, and my London experience is well out of date now, but I used to travel to Islington from SE London and rarely got a seat: when I moved out to Guildford it was rare not to get a seat - at least on the train.

Moving on to other matters ...

BoredPerson wrote: »

She needs to have somebody to look after her. Our mother is only one who can do this.

I find that really hard to believe, and hope that someone's given some thought to what happens when your mother is no longer able to look after your sister.

BoredPerson wrote: »

It's really disappointing that for rest of her life, she has never found a job suitable for her disability and yet this perfect job comes up and she can't afford to do it

If there's been one perfect job, it's likely there's another too, especially if she would be considered a keyworker.

But private rented accommodation is likely to be the way to go - although the keyworker thing may help. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be cheap.

Having a local connection isn't some arbitrary requirement of councils, btw. I live in a large city with a big homelessness problem, and at the end of the summer the lead organisation working with homeless people asked all the agencies and charities to put out a message to those who'd drifted in our direction over the festival season: if you have accommodation elsewhere, go back to it, and if you do not have a local connection here do not stick around as there is no duty to offer accommodation. Sure, it's a great place to live, as is London, and lots of people want to live here, but the local authority cannot house them all.

seashore22

What's happening about your own house move op? I assume you aren't going ahead with that if your immediate family are moving away.

BoredPerson

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

As far as traveling from Birmingham goes ...You can't get a season ticket with a disabled railcard, only buy individual journeys (single or return). You can get a discount for someone with you, but unlikely both sets of shifts would match (and the person without a railcard can't use the return if they're then traveling on their own.)

Be aware that travelling across London can easily take an hour, so if your sister goes ahead with this then it's really important that she looks for accommodation which is convenient for getting to work. That's both because of the time it can take, and also because if travelling from Birmingham would be too much of a burden, getting across London in the rush hour is no picnic! Not having attempted to commute from Birmingham, I have no idea how crowded the trains are, and my London experience is well out of date now, but I used to travel to Islington from SE London and rarely got a seat: when I moved out to Guildford it was rare not to get a seat - at least on the train.

Moving on to other matters ...

I find that really hard to believe, and hope that someone's given some thought to what happens when your mother is no longer able to look after your sister.

If there's been one perfect job, it's likely there's another too, especially if she would be considered a keyworker.

But private rented accommodation is likely to be the way to go - although the keyworker thing may help. It's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be cheap.

Having a local connection isn't some arbitrary requirement of councils, btw. I live in a large city with a big homelessness problem, and at the end of the summer the lead organisation working with homeless people asked all the agencies and charities to put out a message to those who'd drifted in our direction over the festival season: if you have accommodation elsewhere, go back to it, and if you do not have a local connection here do not stick around as there is no duty to offer accommodation. Sure, it's a great place to live, as is London, and lots of people want to live here, but the local authority cannot house them all.

To clarify, anyone can look after her. It's just that our mother is best suited to look after her because we all have commitments that ties us to Birmingham. We would be quite happily come over and look after her if something happened (God forbid that!)

The thing about this job is, it's by an organisation that looks after people with the same disabilities as her. The organisation has to make adjustments to accept their clients and coincidentally, the same adjustments can be also used for their own employees. It's not cheap and isn't covered by Equality Act due to the cost.

Even though it is possible that the 'perfect' job exists somewhere, it has taken her more than a decade to find this job and she's not passing up big opportunity like that easily.

seashore22 wrote: »

What's happening about your own house move op? I assume you aren't going ahead with that if your immediate family are moving away.

I'll be staying in Birmingham, privately renting a house with my family (minus mother and sister).

Some more questions:

1) If they go with intermediate rent, will social landlords be happy with joint tenancy? If so, can the housing benefit be used on mothers behalf to cover half of the rent using shared accommodation housing allowance?

2) Will 'No DSS' landlords be happy with DSS tenant with a guarantor (Either me or my sister)?

Ames

Has she spoken to the charity? They might have some ideas about how to get care and support, if they arrange it for service users.