Telling OAP's to sell their home.

My mother moved 240 miles south two years after my father’s death, to live in a sheltered apartment near to us. It was a MAMOUTH task. Clearing her house of the now not required furniture and possessions, bringing her south, finding an apartment she liked at the right price, and getting it ready for her to live in with decorating and new carpets and so on. My sister declined to lift a finger as usual, even though she lives only 20 miles away from where mum lived then. However, it was the best thing she could have done. She was close by so we could visit regularly and take her to medical appointments and so on, and bring her here for meals, and include her in family events, birthdays and so on. I feel so guilty that she ended up in a care home for her last year, but I did visit most days.

Anyway, definitely the best thing for mum, but no one should underestimate the effort when people are very elderly. My mum was 90 when she moved south. I think she was brave to do it.

madalene

You’re right Witzend. The state pension in Australia is means tested. Is that the way you think the UK should go? Or should we aim to improve the situation for pensioners in Britain?

I'd imagine that's on the cards for the future, here in the UK, regardless of which government is in power.

You’re right Witzend. The state pension in Australia is means tested. Is that the way you think the UK should go? Or should we aim to improve the situation for pensioners in Britain?

Nobody us trying to make anyone downsize, though.
Living somewhere larger, as a rule, will cost more in terms of upkeep, heating, and such.

We all have reasons why we "need" more room, or a garden, or storage space.

It's fair that if we have it, and it costs more, we need to pay it.

There are going to be people who are just over the limit, as well as people who feel demeaned by claiming, jus as there are people who donate their fuel allowance to charity, or family.

Is that for others to subsidise?

Doodledog

I agree, Dickens. I don't want to move either. I'd like to stay here for a number of reasons. Apart from loving the house it is near doctors, shops, transport etc, and unless I moved to a different town I would be going somewhere less convenient.

But what's the alternative if we can no longer afford to live where we do? Nobody is saying people should move for the sake of it, just that it is something worth considering if we can't pay the bills.

But what's the alternative if we can no longer afford to live where we do? Nobody is saying people should move for the sake of it, just that it is something worth considering if we can't pay the bills.

Well, perhaps we should be asking why the 'Big Six' energy suppliers are allowed to make their enormous profits, and why the costs of the collapse of smaller suppliers, amounting to over £2 billion, were passed on to households?

I realise it's not an answer to the principle of one demographic being subsidised by another. But, if we are looking at the contribution that people make to society, then it's clear that this kind of shifting of the economic burden isn't solely applied to pensioners living in large houses that they can't afford to heat.

Who is subsidising those in receipt of Working Tax Credit who may be working only the required minimum hours?

If you are single with at least one child, you need only work a minimum 16 hours per week to receive this benefit - for example.

I happen to be comfortable with this as I believe today's children are the future workforce and their parents need all the support they can get. But some would regard having children as a life-style choice which, in that case, is no different from an elderly person deciding to stay on in a house which they can't afford to heat.

If we boil it all down to 'economic choices' made by the individual, then in our very unequal and divided society we can sit and play the blame game for ever.

What we should be doing is looking at the structural inequality in society which is the result of the Thatcher 'revolution' when she transformed Britain's economy. Traditional industries were abandoned, unions smashed, and the City of London boomed as bankers and speculators magiced money out of thin air.

But the social security costs of this revolution were enormous - and the North Sea Oil revenue which, instead of being invested for the future of the country (as it was in Norway), poured into the Treasury coffers making it possible for her to 'oversee' this transformation. So who, and what part of the economy, was subsidising who - and which part of it?

I'm not arguing about your principle of, basically, to each according to his/her need, from each according to his/her ability - but it cannot work unless we change the economic model. In this free-market-libertarian economic model (which Starmer is perpetuating) the only way the status-quo can be maintained and the very very rich stay very very rich is for Peter to be robbed continually to pay Paul - or the other way round.

We can argue amongst ourselves about who gets which slice of the remaining cake that's left, whether it's fair that this demographic gets a bigger slice than the other demographic and whether our life-style choices should be supported by others - but it's all fruitless.

If we manage to convince all the old dears (male and female) living in larger than required houses, to downsize - what then? Will this solve the underlying housing problem; the high costs of energy to households; the uncertainties of a de-regulated, flexible labour market?

madalene

The problem is that the State Pension in this country is far too low. Compare it with other countries and it’s easy to see how low it is. If the pension, paid for over many years, was a reasonable amount, no one would need a WFA.

But it’s universal, as long as you’ve paid in.
I was surprised to learn a few years ago that in Australia the old age pension is means tested. A friend of ours - comfortable but certainly not loaded - received nothing.

Reasoned*!

Reason post, as usual Doodledog . Thank you.

I don't think the older generation is responsible for all that is wrong with the world, M0nica, and have said nothing of the sort. I also defend the right of people of all ages to make their own decisions, so I'm not sure why you are framing your post as in opposition to mine.

I don't buy the 'they presided over the system that's got us to where we are today' argument either - the vast majority of people had no say over the decisions that caused house prices to rise, or wages to fall, and many have done their best to prevent them. I do not support student fees, for instance, and even went on strike to march in protest at their being increased to £9k a year.

I dislike 'Boomer bashing', as I am far from the stereotype of someone who has consistently voted to pull up the ladder behind them (or I think so anyway). I have never voted Conservative, didn't vote for Brexit, and I don't complain if a young person has a flat screen TV, a tattoo or buys ready-made coffee. It is the superior attitude of 'I worked for everything I have' that many younger people find irritating, as it suggests that all they need to do is work harder and they could have it too, when the cards are stacked against them compared to the hand their parents were dealt.

We all (or most of us) work for most of our lives, but not all have 'made' hundreds of thousands just by living in our houses. Young people wanting to start families can't afford to buy a home, and whereas many will recognise that their parents worked - many of them hard - they are well aware that even if they worked a lot harder than their parents they will not be able to buy an equivalent house, will not get a decent pension, and will have to work for many years longer to get a pension at all. Meanwhile they are paying high rents, student loans and exorbitant fees for childcare. Their parents were lucky (which will give the young people a head-start too - it's not a one-way street), but when the young are told to 'cut their coat according to their cloth', given facile suggestions about batch cooking and are sneered at for having 'the latest smartphone' when they can't afford a family home, of course they resent it. When they are then asked to fund people to stay in homes they can't afford, I'm not surprised they get annoyed - it must feel like the final straw.

I am very aware of political 'nudging', and disagree with the way all groups in society are pitched against one another, whether it's old against young, rich against poor or anyone against anyone else. I think it's worrying, and is a way of deflecting public anger from being against 'the system' and shifting it to being against scapegoats.

I don't think that this is part of a move to persuade older people to move house, though. That would make no difference to the housing shortage. The vast majority of new builds in my home town are family homes with numerous bedrooms and bathrooms. The shortage is not of family houses, it is of smaller, cheaper ones for FTBs, couples (of all ages) with no children at home and single occupiers, so that older people can move to somewhere sensible if they wish to do so. We should be building more 'starter homes' and bungalows, and also building more medical centres, schools and so on on the new estates, so that people can not only afford to buy the homes, but can also afford to live in them and access facilities. Town centres, where most of the facilities tend to be, are already built on, and there is often no land there for new housing, which is built on the outskirts with no facilities in easy reach. Older people who need medical centres etc don't want to live there, even if they want to move in the first place as it's inconvenient.

That has wandered off topic, but the thread is based on a false premise - nobody is being 'told' to sell up, or being 'shoved' into smaller accommodation.

Chocolatelovinggran

Oh Primrose, that is such a sad post. I hope that your BIL pleases himself and tells his daughters to keep their thoughts to themselves, and that he lives to a very great age, or at least long enough to spend all of his money.

Thanks. he won’t move now as they have made his mind up for him! It is really sad because we have never suggested he downsize, it’s all his own decision.

He complains about heating bills, garden getting overgrown, house needing decorating top to bottom, kitchen needing ripping out and replacing etc.

His girls tell him he can’t move and leave all his memories behind but as my SIL told me years ago “you take your memories with you”. His recent memories are not good anyway as my SIL was ill for many years and they really struggled.

M0nica

Doodledog This thread started as a dicussion of a comment made n a tv programme, but as you well know, threads wind and digress and this is what has happened here.

As I said earlier inthis thread, there are a number of self-righteous think tanks, with names like 'The Intergenerational Foundation' and similar, who spend most of their time publishing reports, saying in various ways, that the older generation should be divesting themselves of all they possess to help younger people. That is when they are not complaining about the children of the aged getting undue advantage in house buying because of the Bank of Mum & Dad.

Yes, of course no one is making downsizing compulsory, but it is a thread going through society and it shapes younger people's attitude to the old - a sort of resentment that we have money or houses, and they want them.

These complainants are not even even-handed. Over 1 million of them live in houses considered too big for their needs, yet no one I know of has suggested that they are under occupying houses that their contemporaries with families need and that they should downsize.

Pressure to move or downsize, does not need to be mandatory, just a general disapproval growing in society, that old people should live in small houses. For an example of how this happens, look at smacking a child as a punishment, very few people nowadays would smack a child. Not because there is a law saying so, but because, over the years, this common punishment for children has become disapproved of. I am not arguing this case, just using it as an example.

It is the drip, drip, drip of comment and article and report, that changes attitudes, more often than legislation.

When I worked for a charity for older people, visiting homes, I saw people living in all kinds of circumstances, on all kinds of incomes and who made all kinds of decisions about how and why they live.

Some, I despaired of, who had the money and aid to improve their difficult living conditions, but wouldn't, others who needed help and refused to ask for it. But on every occasion I defended older people's right to make their own decisions how ever uncomfortable it msde them or people round them.

What we do need to see is an end of seeing the older generation as responsible for all that is wrong with the world now. Much of which has been the result of governments elected by an electorate that includes mainly people younger than us.

The Intergenerational Foundation
Started by a man who sounded resentful that his parents were still occupying their large house, worth a lot of money, which had been their home for many years, perhaps all their married life.

Children, especially when they get to their 50s, have no right to expect anything from their parents.

Doodledog This thread started as a dicussion of a comment made n a tv programme, but as you well know, threads wind and digress and this is what has happened here.

As I said earlier inthis thread, there are a number of self-righteous think tanks, with names like 'The Intergenerational Foundation' and similar, who spend most of their time publishing reports, saying in various ways, that the older generation should be divesting themselves of all they possess to help younger people. That is when they are not complaining about the children of the aged getting undue advantage in house buying because of the Bank of Mum & Dad.

Yes, of course no one is making downsizing compulsory, but it is a thread going through society and it shapes younger people's attitude to the old - a sort of resentment that we have money or houses, and they want them.

These complainants are not even even-handed. Over 1 million of them live in houses considered too big for their needs, yet no one I know of has suggested that they are under occupying houses that their contemporaries with families need and that they should downsize.

Pressure to move or downsize, does not need to be mandatory, just a general disapproval growing in society, that old people should live in small houses. For an example of how this happens, look at smacking a child as a punishment, very few people nowadays would smack a child. Not because there is a law saying so, but because, over the years, this common punishment for children has become disapproved of. I am not arguing this case, just using it as an example.

It is the drip, drip, drip of comment and article and report, that changes attitudes, more often than legislation.

When I worked for a charity for older people, visiting homes, I saw people living in all kinds of circumstances, on all kinds of incomes and who made all kinds of decisions about how and why they live.

Some, I despaired of, who had the money and aid to improve their difficult living conditions, but wouldn't, others who needed help and refused to ask for it. But on every occasion I defended older people's right to make their own decisions how ever uncomfortable it msde them or people round them.

What we do need to see is an end of seeing the older generation as responsible for all that is wrong with the world now. Much of which has been the result of governments elected by an electorate that includes mainly people younger than us.

I agree, Dickens. I don't want to move either. I'd like to stay here for a number of reasons. Apart from loving the house it is near doctors, shops, transport etc, and unless I moved to a different town I would be going somewhere less convenient.

But what's the alternative if we can no longer afford to live where we do? Nobody is saying people should move for the sake of it, just that it is something worth considering if we can't pay the bills.

Doodledog

*Certainly, only one person's solution in the context of a tv show, but symptomatic of whole movement towards thinking that the answer to society's housing problems lies in shoving older people into smaller homes when they retire.*
What is this movement?

People in social housing are often encouraged to downsize to free up a family house for a family, but homeowners and private renters can't be 'shoved' anywhere, and nobody is trying to do that.

I am the first to object to 'Boomer bashing' and am very aware that it exists, but there is no policy to coerce older people (or anyone else) into selling up or renting a smaller property. If someone can't afford to live comfortably where they do, however, then selling up is one of a number of available options. As has been suggested, equity release is a way to get an income from a house whilst living in it, but people seem to want to get the income without reducing their equity, and that doesn't add up.

Older people are often keen to advise younger ones to live within their means, to batch cook, to watch a smaller TV etc. Why the outrage when a younger person suggests that older people could cut their coat according to their cloth in the same way?

I am not unsympathetic to those who don't want to move, incidentally. I fully understand the reluctance to give up a home you've made your own and to move away from social networks. I understand, however, that this is also true of younger people who have settled children in schools, have found work nearby and have networks of their own in place, and they have to cope with rising costs and changes in circumstance too.

All true.

But the older you get, the more difficult it is to form new social networks - especially if, like me and my OH, you are in your 80s and disabled, or have complex medical problems.

And the thought of having to register with another surgery, optician, dentist - and even possibly having to attend a different hospital are too daunting, when each day can be a struggle just to 'get through', and a huge part of your life is made up of medical appointments and ongoing check-ups.

Fortunately, my home is not overly large and I can manage the heating bills, but I have thought about downsizing. I can't hack it though. With no family left living in this country to offer some help, the prospect is too intimidating.

These issues are the same for others, too, though.
I'm sure increasing age makes things less doable, for some, just the same as other members of society have issues which make their lives more difficult.

We don't want two tier system, do we?

I’d love to move to a smaller place but I just haven’t got the confidence to go though all that on my own. I also feel safe where I live, have been here for years and so have many of my neighbours. The thought of going somewhere different is intimidating. I sometimes think I should have done it ten years ago and it would have felt easier.

Certainly, only one person's solution in the context of a tv show, but symptomatic of whole movement towards thinking that the answer to society's housing problems lies in shoving older people into smaller homes when they retire.
What is this movement?

People in social housing are often encouraged to downsize to free up a family house for a family, but homeowners and private renters can't be 'shoved' anywhere, and nobody is trying to do that.

I am the first to object to 'Boomer bashing' and am very aware that it exists, but there is no policy to coerce older people (or anyone else) into selling up or renting a smaller property. If someone can't afford to live comfortably where they do, however, then selling up is one of a number of available options. As has been suggested, equity release is a way to get an income from a house whilst living in it, but people seem to want to get the income without reducing their equity, and that doesn't add up.

Older people are often keen to advise younger ones to live within their means, to batch cook, to watch a smaller TV etc. Why the outrage when a younger person suggests that older people could cut their coat according to their cloth in the same way?

I am not unsympathetic to those who don't want to move, incidentally. I fully understand the reluctance to give up a home you've made your own and to move away from social networks. I understand, however, that this is also true of younger people who have settled children in schools, have found work nearby and have networks of their own in place, and they have to cope with rising costs and changes in circumstance too.

petra

Doodledog

How is the £8m a day worked out, please? If people are here illegally aren’t they under the radar, and therefore cost nothing? As soon as they claim anything they are no longer ‘illegal’ and are either seeking asylum legally or deported.

Legally speaking you are illegal until you are granted leave to stay
As for the £8mil a day. Hotels, hostels, weekly allowance £35/37 per week plus food.
The ones working under the radar are those that just walk away from where they are housed and are no longer applying for asylum.

No, you are an asylum seeker. An illegal immigrant is one who overstays a visa or doesn't go home after a holiday etc. They are not known to the authorities and are not the same as people who have applied to stay here and are waiting to be processed.

NotSpaghetti

As Doodledog says We are not being told to sell our homes
This is one of a range of options.

There was apparently a panel on a TV talk-show where one person suggested to sell up and buy a smaller home.

This is only one person's suggested solution. It was ruled out even on the TV show, apparently.

The title of the thread "Telling OAP's to sell their home" is somewhat misleading I think.

Nobody is making people sell their home. The title is misleading.

We've lived here since we married, no intention to move house.

We're significantly downsizing posession - allowing for ease to our daughters when we pass. They've no interest in old stuff, nor did we. We took on that burden from our mums/grans and hopefully won't do similar.

Plenty of room for carers - our very old (not at all valuable) largish home will see us out in it's current condition.

Doodledog

How is the £8m a day worked out, please? If people are here illegally aren’t they under the radar, and therefore cost nothing? As soon as they claim anything they are no longer ‘illegal’ and are either seeking asylum legally or deported.

Legally speaking you are illegal until you are granted leave to stay
As for the £8mil a day. Hotels, hostels, weekly allowance £35/37 per week plus food.
The ones working under the radar are those that just walk away from where they are housed and are no longer applying for asylum.

NotSpaghetti

As Doodledog says We are not being told to sell our homes
This is one of a range of options.

There was apparently a panel on a TV talk-show where one person suggested to sell up and buy a smaller home.

This is only one person's suggested solution. It was ruled out even on the TV show, apparently.

The title of the thread "Telling OAP's to sell their home" is somewhat misleading I think.

Certainly, only one person's solution in the context of a tv show, but symptomatic of whole movement towards thinking that the answer to society's housing problems lies in shoving older people into smaller homes when they retire.

This is all a smoke screen to cover up for the problem in this country that firstly we are not building enough houses to house allthe population, secondly that there is an undue relience on the private sector to meet the need for rental homes, without successive governments seeing any reason to put controls on rents, as other countries do, plus, thirdly, the immense cost of land in the UK, especially in the south east. The cost of the land accounts for 30-40% of cost of building a new home in the uk. In the south east and London this can rise to 60% or more.

In many cases the cost of a plot of land on a housing development exceeds the mortgagable potential of many housebuyers before they turn a single sod, let alone lay any brick or complete a house.

How is the £8m a day worked out, please? If people are here illegally aren’t they under the radar, and therefore cost nothing? As soon as they claim anything they are no longer ‘illegal’ and are either seeking asylum legally or deported.

NotSpaghetti

Oreo I was referring to the illegal immigrants comments from buffyfly9 - not asylum seekers!

Maybe you misread?

They cost 8 million a day!

Migrants coming over on boats cost £8 million pounds a day according to Home Office figures. Some will be genuine but most aren’t.I think that qualifies for your comment to be wrong
NotSpaghetti when you told a poster that they don’t cost millions.

As Doodledog says We are not being told to sell our homes
This is one of a range of options.

There was apparently a panel on a TV talk-show where one person suggested to sell up and buy a smaller home.

This is only one person's suggested solution. It was ruled out even on the TV show, apparently.

The title of the thread "Telling OAP's to sell their home" is somewhat misleading I think.