Home sweet home

I think private ownership of property is still much more common in the UK than in the rest of Europe. However, rent in most cases is more than would be paid on a mortgage for a comparable property.
I live in a flat in a block of 24, on four floors, and there are three other similar blocks. We have one concierge (well, it is in France!) and we pay charges to a management company. My flat is very small - 24 sq. metres, with one living room with a 'coin cuisine' ( a bit like a galley on a small boat), one double bedroom and a bathroom. There is a platform bed in the hall, with wardrobe space underneath.
I never feel claustrophobic, because I have French windows opening onto a balcony with a lovely view down the valley.
I am away from home a good deal, about three months a year, so it suits me to have no garden to worry about. I can just turn off my water and electricity and pop over to New Zealand for seven weeks at a time.
Not everybody wants or needs a garden - my first house in France had one and also an above-ground pool, and I found they both needed constant maintenance. I would have liked, ideally, to buy a flat on a complex with a shared pool, but they were much more expensive. We just have a tennis court!

When Salford tenants first moved to the 'overspill' estate near Bolton, there was a lot of house exchanging as some families could not bear to be 10 miles away from their families, their local pubs, and employment. What happened was that 'aspirational' working class families exchanged with those who wanted to return to Salford, so the estate ended up being very respectable! I have to give a wry smile when people talk about council estates as if they were all awful - we thought we had struck gold when my father's health finally entitled us to a council house with a garden, two toilets and a lovely fitted kitchen, in instead of the rodent and cockroach infested house in Salford.
I wonder if it would be possible for councils or housing associations to draw up a list of people who wanted smaller properties, and families looking for more space, and to marry them up for exchanges?

That made me laugh vegasmags

vegas it would have been funny if the police had turned up thinking they were breaking up a teenage rave! One of those times when I would love to have been 'a fly on the wall'.

It is possible that councils do keep a list of people who want an exchange - when my parents were still in a council house (in a different town - different country even, they had a nice one, new built on the edge of Dunfermline, with good immediate neighbours and many friends in various typed of housing. They would not have wanted to move. After I had married and moved out they bought a little bungalow - and then my father was made redundant and had to go down near London to find work , so the bungalow was sold and they were off the property ladder again.

Moving from Portsmouth up to Kirkcaldy was a different story. Someone with a Kirkcaldy council house but working in Portsmouth got in touch with them, having found out they would be moving up there, and an exchange was arranged to his house which he said was "just like this one you are in" - fairly new semi, 3 bedrooms, separate dining area with sliding doors, downstairs loo as well as the upstairs bathroom, garage (though they'd no car) and a very nice garden.

They took his word for it and did not travel up to see it. Arrived by train on 2nd January to a decrepit upper flat in a block of four. One proper bedroom and one small bedroom/dining room off the living room (for a mixed family) ancient bathroom, similar kitchen, half a tiny garden. all in filthy condition, despite him seeing my mother on her knees scrubbing a floor and saying "I left my wife doing that" Overhead clothes pulley in the kitchen with a quarter-inch of grease and dirt on the bars, so many cobwebs on the kitchen window we thought that it was obscured glass.

The moral of this long and boring story is that exchanges need to be carefully monitored so that both parties gain from them. If one party gets a raw deal, they will tell all their friends about it - bad news travels fast.

In my area at least, council tenants can do private deals as regards house-swapping - i.e. they keep feelers out etc. and obviously the council has to be informed, but there's usually no problem.

There has apparently been a small flurry of such exchanges in the wake of the 'bedroom tax' which has worked out well for at least two couples I know of - one with only one child still at home wanted a smaller flat, and swapped her three-bedroomed house with a couple who had three young children and were living in cramped accomodation.

So it works informally. If the councils were to publicise that they are behind it, and will facilitate swaps, keeping a record of those who want a move and refereeing the proceudre, it could be done more often.

Glad I was able to contribute something useful to the discussion. This is a good short term solution but if there is a shortage of smaller houses it will soon stall.

Nanej - communes were very popular in the 1960s and seemed to work well until children came along. Then everybody wanted the best room, etc. for their own family!
I was married at 18 and we were able to buy a 3-bedroomed semi, so I never did any house or flat sharing. I would not have been comfortable living with people other than my family - I am always amazed at how easily young people 'crash out' on a friend's sofa.
Even now I don't plan to live in the same house as my daughter in NZ, unless we can find one that has quite independent 'granny' accommodation. I like living alone and would hate to be forced to share my living space with anyone else.

There are some excellent suggestions on this thread- if only any government would try looking at them.

Everything except more small houses is short-term. but then short-termism is standard procedure.

There is an acknowledgment that one person starter homes are needed for all the young people who are leaving home and setting up their own place, but they are mostly put into one-bed flats or bedsits. A 40- 60 year-old couple will not be happy in a bedsit surrounded by singles in their party phase. They are not likely to agree to break their contract to move there.

It is a shame if young people are not prepared to share, it can be great fun. Perhaps if expectations were a little lower it would go some way to ease the problem. I lived in a hostel when I first left home and we had a great time. Then a shared bedsit, so did many of my friends. I am sure it goes a long way to teach understanding of other people and their feelings. It makes us less self centred and more tolerant.

Quite a few people live on narrow boats in Cambridgeshire. The family home has usually been sold as a result of divorce so it's an affordable solution for some who don't want to go down the social housing route.

Now that would be a step too far for me merlot I can feel sick on a child's swing let alone a boat!

In some areas house exchange works informally, in other areas there's still a formal system. Don't want to introduce any negativity into this positive discussion but the problem now is not enough council/social housing in enough variety in most places. I think compulsory purchase of vacant properties might help. There was a rather nice bungalow locally which stood empty for years because of a family row over the will (are you there, Frank?) until the neighbours started a fairly aggressive campaign and it was finally sold after the council intervened, as apparently they can. People have mentioned the 'developers' habit of buying land or property and just leaving it until the price reaches what they want. Empty office blocks could be converted into flats, disused shops (quite often formerly houses in suburbs) can become houses again. But it's easier to throw up a 'development' on a nice green field - and no VAT on new build.

The negativity of not enough small homes has already raised its head a few times, Lilygran so yoy don't need to feel guilty about introducing it. It seems the factor which has most influence on housing problems, and it hs been escalating for a long time, but councils do not seem to be biting the bullet and tackling it.

Swaps and vacancies for social housing are on screen outside our library in Durham . We have rather nice very central council offices for housing and its quite easy to discover what is on offer.

You are probably right about sharing, Movedalot. I found sharing a two bedroomed house with my parents and three siblings made me less self-centred and more tolerant! It also gave me a strong desire to have a room of my own and privacy, which I now have, but of course I didn't have during my marriage.

I have lived in house shares/student digs with a few hugely selfish people! They were only too happy to let others clean up after them, use the last bit of milk, 'borrow' things from others etc so 'sharing' is not always a route to co-operation, selflessness and harmony!

Equally my OH, who never lived in digs, is thoughtful, not self-centred and always does his fair share around our home!

Nanaej, my experience, precisely!

My area of south Oxfordshire is falling prey to developers. They get planning consents without problem and usually build within the year. All developments have to be 40% social housing, that usual means Housing Association who let or do shared ownership. The 40% must be spread around the development not hived off into a cul de sac separate from the rest of the houses.

A developer has finally got permission to build behind some houses opposite our house. The development is divided into two with one half of the estate using one exit and the other half another with only a footpath between them. Initially all the private houses were in one half of the development that exits onto a beautiful leafy avenue while all the social housing would have an exit into a small close of 1960 small semis. That was turned down and the approved development has both types of houses in both halves. Planning consents have been given for 150 houses in our village and at least 50 will be housing association properties.

That sounds like real progress, Flickety. I think the idea of a heavy tax on developers who just sit on unused sites is another possibility.

Councils have the right to compulsory purchase properties which have been empty for a long time but don't use this power very often. Perhaps each of us could make a point of informing our local councillor if we know of such properties and put pressure on them to do so.

In the road where my parents used to live a house was left empty and abandoned when an elderly man died and left the property to his second wife and children of his first marriage and one of those involved refused to sell because they wanted a bigger share of the proceeds.

The house was on a private estate, all estate maintenance payments were made and when the managing agents sent contractors in once a year to cut the hedge facing the road so that the footpath was useable the bill was always paid.

The stand-off lasted thirty years during which time no member of the family was ever known to visit the property. The second wife then died. By which time the house was utterly ruinous and had to be demolished and the site sold at land value only.

I believe family feuds and the mad inheritance laws mean the same thing happens in France. There are so many houses in the rural areas that could be really lovely, but they are left to rot. The British immigrants, or second home owners, renovated a lot of them, but that source has dried up now.

I agree with MiceElf about preventing speculators from hanging on to land in the hope that prices will rise - thus creating a shortage of land and forcing prices up. Legislation is definitely needed to stop this.

Also, I think that houses that have been left empty for a period of time (say 3 years) and that are falling into significant disrepair should be compulsorily purchased, partly to create more housing and partly because it's not fair on the neighbours on either side of a shabby property.

When we moved to Horsham, West Sussex in the 1970's, my husband was employed by the NHS and, before buying our own home, we rented a hospital house. It was a really lovely prefabricated bungalow that had, apparently, been erected in a day. It had good sized rooms, a lovely square modern kitchen and a large lounge with patio doors. Given that this sort of construction is much cheaper, I feel that more of this type of housing should be built.

As to part-rent, part-buy homes, I would be wary, particularly if they are brand new. Much new housing is over priced to start with and can fall in value by up to 25%. If someone needs to move home (perhaps to take up a new job) but finds they are in negative equity, they are not allowed to rent under these shared ownership schemes and they are thus prevented from covering their mortgage/rent through renting and have to stay put.

It would be interesting to know how many families have been rehoused as a result of the 'bedroom tax'. Was this just another 'back of an envelope' idea by a government desperate to look as if they are doing something?