Under Occupancy payments

After the last war, when my grandfather died, my aunt and disabled granny were moved from a three bedroom council house to a two bedroom prefab. We all liked the prefab very much, with its immersion heater and modern fire (no range!) and fitted kitchen (including fridge). After my granny died, my aunt was moved into a first floor flat. I don't think she was required to move but when it was put to her that the original house was a family house with a garden, she and my granny moved quite willingly to a house with no upstairs. Ditto when she moved from the prefab. It doesn't seem to me unreasonable to offer the option. Many people who are owner-occupiers downsize once the family has left. We've come to conclusion that our house, once a three-generation home, is only really used to capacity these days at Christmas. And it is hard to justify the additional cost of everything, heat, light, cleaning for one week a year. I really don't want to move on but I have accepted the necessity. This may be the last family Christmas in this house. But I have friends who rent a big place for family gatherings and then happily return to their two bedroom flat or house. Forcing people to move is a different matter.

And do you really believe, jaima, that all tory voters were born with silver spoons in their mouths and are all of the 'I'm all right Jack' persuasion? That's a very narrow-minded view.

Hang on Jaima. I'm a Labour voter and I didn't vote Lib-Dem. You can't generalise about us like that.

Jaima, Can I deduce from your post that you think everybody on Gransnet is middle class and tory?

I think if you read some of the political (and other threads) you will find that that is anything but the truth. In fact there was a thread last week (which I cannot locate) where we were all filling in a survey on an outside link on our political attitudes (not party affiliation) and the vast majority of us were coming out as leftie libertarians. it is also clear from posts that Gransnet members and their families have/are experiencing all the problems of poverty, disability etc etc that you list.

Hating is a very easy thing to do and always strikes me as a very self-indulgent emotion The real test is what are you doing of a practical nature to right some of these problems?

How rude.

I do not understand middle class England that voted Tory, will they never learn, the Tories are for the wealthy/rich people only they could not care any less for the middle classes, you were not born with a silver spoon in your mouths, you do not have £millions, the middle class thought it`s the Tories they will hit the poor people as usual and we will be laughing along with them all the way to our bank accounts.

Well you reap what you sow and on your own heads be it! The she-devil Thatcher has her children in charge now and god help the poor, disabled, unemployed, pensioners, welfare etc etc, life will only get worse with those Hitlers in charge along with the "puppet Judas" aka Nick Clegg that the labour voters backed, he sold out his voters for a ministerial car, I have no sympathy with England`s voters for it is they and they alone that elected the coalition government, if any here voted Tory or Lib-dem then hell slap it into you for thinking "I`m alright jack and to hell you"

vampirequeen The issue for some people and, therefore, for their landlords is that they won't be able to pay their rent, not that they are unwilling.

I rent from a private landlord and paying my rent is my first priority. Please don't assume that being on housing benefit or benefits of any type mean we won't pay our rent.

Yes, Jendurham you're right, my post was a bit haywire. It was getting late. I meant to say that I think that anyone who has bought and paid for their own home and doesn't expect any help or benefits from the rest of us in order to live there has every right to do so. It's their affair.
We downsized from our much loved family home as it was becoming too expensive and difficult to run - cut our coat according to our cloth (and have grown quickly to love our new home). It was our choice. But it does irk somewhat when friends living in beautiful large houses moan on about having to turn off heating in spare rooms as they cannot afford to heat them and then moan because these rooms get damp and other problems. Often the main reason for staying put is that, having strived and worked so long for their house it's seen as a sort failure, a coming down in the world, to move to somewhere smaller. But it can be the best thing.

If you see someone in a council house who has three bedrooms but are on their own and you are on the waiting list for housing with husband and two children would you care what part of the city you were in as long as you had a roof over your head? and how much is the amount suggested that people pay for the empty rooms?
A friend of mine in a council house sent her son to live with his father (also in a council house) and took in students for summer schools although she wasn't supposed to let out rooms. I always felt uncomfortable when she talked about this as she felt it was her right to do so and I changed the subject.

If you own your house, you do not need to worry, yet!
I wonder how long it will be before we are told to pay council tax at 100% instead of being given 25% discount for having lost a husband?
However, the reason that lots of families are being forced out of London is because private landlords are being given less housing benefit.
Next year the housing benefit is to be rolled up into the Universal Credit and being given directly to your tenants.

I'm a landlord and I'm afraid I would never have a tenant on benefits for the reasons you mention absentgrana. The rent forms part of my income although I spend out in order to keep the place well maintained - cost effective in the end though pricey at times!

I would like to downsize from our current house but am soon about to be invaded by DD and GC plus a new arrival due shortly. Also I have GC in the week to play and have many family times, the latest being the children's Hallowe'en party, which we couldn't do if we lived in a smaller place. So there are swings and roundabouts. Anyway as someone said earlier I don't think first time buyers could buy our house, although that said a young couple has moved in next door - but I think the parents are providing financial help.

'and is now working with computers'

allie my niece broke her back in a car accident 4 years ago. She was funded to retrain at her local college, and is now works with computers. She lives independently with the help of various gadgets. Is your daughter registered disabled? If so there are a range of options which she might like to take up and get qualifications.

My daughter has been forced to move 7 months ago, because her older sons had moved out of their three bed house.
There were no possible two bed (council) houses in that area.
As a result she is isolated from her friends on the other side of town and in a tiny two bed house miles away from the school where her youngest (11) got a place. So he is travelling a long way to get there.

She hates it. She's depressed.
She doesn't want to be on benefit, she wants to get some qualification and to work but since she has been there she has had a back injury and still cannot do either!

She will have to wait to get on any list to move, and save up (on benefit??) to pay for a move.......

As a private –and highly responsible – landlord, it has just occurred to me that if a single someone is living in a two-bedroom house and the housing benefit is reduced, what about the private landlord? You cannot just chuck someone out of their home even when the rent is in arrears, and there is no guarantee that a court will decide that they should go (plus the fact that it costs to take someone to court). I think I am right in saying that you cannot even seek a court order unless they are two months in arrears with the rent. So you can end up with the situation where a tenant has a contract but is massively in arrears and you never get the money back. Is this another -back-of-the-envelope idea that hasn't been properly thought through?

I know that I shall take great care not to let any of my houses to people on housing benefit in the future.

It harks back to Mrs Thatcher and 'There is no such thing as society' doesnt it? Family ties, social networks these are mere bagatelles, all must be subservient to the economic imperative!

The problem is that all government is based on the circumstances in large urban areas. In large conurbations most neighbourhoods have a range of housing or suitable housing within a relatively close area with good travel links. They do not realise that moving out, even to quite large towns this doesnt work and in small towns and rural area works even less. The housing isnt there, isnt available, or transport links, like bus routes dont link all areas.

We should have learnt from the massive slum clearance and replacement council estates of the 1950s and 60s, when the disruption of the invisible social networks that bound neighbourhoods together directly contributed to the start of the social breakdown we now have in Society.

Dumpling, did you mean should not be obliged to move?
I live in a village near Durham five minutes walk from my youngest son and his family. We moved here from York having sold a 5 bedroomed guest house after my husband began losing his balance and falling downstairs.
Then he died in January, so I live on my own in a two bedroomed bungalow.
There are actually no onebedroomed flats in the village. Even the ones built by Derwentside Homes as homes for over 55 yearolds have two bedrooms. However, the second one is only about 5' by 8', so not really big ebough to use as a room for grandchildren to stay.
So if I was renting this bungalow from the housing association, I would have to move out of the village to downsize.
Like those at the beginning of this thread, I thought the idea had been dropped, but obviously not.
There are a few epetitions to sign up to to stop it going ahead.

I think they're going a bit too far. I can see the reasoning when you have a single on housing benefit living in a three or four bedroom house while a family with two children live in a B & B.
There used to be a scheme when I worked for a housing association twenty years ago which paid out I think £9000 to anyone who would downsize. There was quite a good take up. It was voluntary and people were then able to move to the area they wanted. It took a bit of organising but did free up desperately needed housing for families.
Anyone who has saved for and bought there own home, whatever the size, should be obliged to move. But neither do I think that they should whine on about the cost of heating rooms they never use!

Today I received a County Newspaper from my council, Durham.
In it it says that housing benefit will change and be incorporated into the universal benefit from next year. For social housing tenants the changes will reduce the amount of benefit paid to tenants if it is identified that their property is too large for their household size, for example a single person living in a two bedroomed property.
So it was not dropped like some of you thought.
This needs to be fought. Since when was living in a two bedroom bungalow thought of as being excessive? Are widows and widowers not expected to have family wanting to visit them?
There is a website called I am Spartacus, about disability and the stories on there are awful to read.
In yesterday's Guardian there was an article about a family in London being split up because a woman with two children was forced to go and live in Luton, but her 9 year old daughter did not want to leave her school.
This is appalling as well.

I have a 4 bedroomed house to myself. I doubt that any young couple with a family could afford to buy it today. We were lucky and bought at a time when no one wanted a largish house and there was a mortgage famine on. I think we paid£35000 thirty two years ago. Heaven knows what it would sell for today.

we are silly there we are thinking we live in a country where we have freedom of choice .
Now we must all go and pack our bags and leave our homes we have brought/ rent and move into what amounts no more than the size of a cupboard and be grateful.
Then young people can have our homes that they cannot pay for because they haven't any jobs , but never mind they can live there and recieve housing benifits????
Can anyone explain to me how the goverment would have saved any money doing this

Since when has having two bedrooms been a sign of luxury? 4 bedrooms perhaps. An older couple need two bedrooms and with increasing weight or illness very often two good sized beds.
There seems to be no justice when dealing with vulnerable people who have worked all their lives, payed taxes or Nat Insuramce and been decent citizens.

The violent men who abuse wife and children are the ones we can't afford. The cost to society of looking after their children or the consequences of their bad parenting is enormous. These people cost the nation many thousands of pounds and for that a clean living couple have to move out of their home to save few pounds.

What terrible times we live in, and we are suppposed to be one of the richest countries in the world!

Yes, I know about the social housing ga but there was also a spate of us being told we should downsize our larger family houses and free up some space for families to move into, with one particular article (forgotten which paper it was now) saying we could move out, then families on benefit could move into private rented accommodation that has been purchased as buy to let. That still wouldn't help small working families buy or rent unaffordable property.

Carol this is aimed at people living in social housing, like my 82 year old mother who has lived in the same house for more than 50 years and raised eight children there. The government plan is to reduce housing benefit in order to force people to move for financial reasons. You can read the story here.
There is no way my mother will move from the estate that she first moved to before she was old enough to start school; four of her five daughters (myself included0 have urged mum to come and live with us, but she's not budging and we all understand why.