Council House Rules?

[chessington]

My partner and I rent our council house and we are the only tennants paying full rent and community charge.
Our grown up daughter left home about 3 years ago but has now split from her partner, would we be allowed to house her without her paying any rent to us? and therefore we would not be subletting, apart from telling the council about this, what else, if anything would we have to do? TIA

[EDDIE51]

The new rules are that social housing is only allocated for 15 years and the need is then assessed again. If the children have 'flown the nest' the parents will have to move to a one bedroom place.

[Islay]

Eddie yes but you have admitted that neither you or your wife (please this is not meant to be offensive) are in the best of health, so say you and your wife pass away in the next 5 years your son gets your house and if the rules don't change gets to sell it.
Please again this is not a personal gripe at you but more at the system.

[tamborine]

Eddie, if your son 'inherited' your 3b council house, wouldnt that be under occupying?

[EDDIE51]

The idea is that my son will be on the tenancy and when he has been on long enough he will buy the house and keep us as tenants for life. There is no other possible way he will ever be able to do other than rent a room with prices the way they are here. The other option is that we buy the house with him as guarantor, we are pensioners so we can't buy it on our own.

[chessington]

thanks for all the advice

[tamborine]

Owt like fiddle the hard working tax payers!

[EDDIE51]

^ I was a 'hard working taxpayer' from age 17 to 65.
We have been in the same council/housing association house for 40 years, the amount we have paid in rent would have bought the place 3 times over by now, yet we still don't own even own one brick of it.

[EDDIE51]

If you lot object to someone 'inheriting' a council tenancy then by the same token you must object to someone inheriting an entire house. The principle is the same.

[Islay]

Its not the same thing at all Eddie, council houses are supposed to be there for those in need, there is a points system in place and the more points the greater the need for the house.
Your son is skipping all of that wait because he has decided to move back in with you for a few years and live on the cheap.

[ummmm]

Not the same at all, Eddie!!

Anyway...I thought having someone put on the tenancy had been scrapped.

[sherrardk]

The principle is not the same - it's not your house to give to someone.

[ladybirder]

Inheriting a whole house usually means it was bought and paid for and belonged in its entirety to the person one inherits it from.

[EDDIE51]

We are 'secure tenants' having been tenants of the council before it sold out to the housing association. We have a 'preserved right to buy'
that preserved right to buy and to pass on the tenancy is because we are 'secure tenants' . It does not apply to recent tenancies which can not be passed on. Anyone getting social housing now will never get even a lifetime tenancy only a 15 year one as I said earlier.

[EDDIE51]

No, the house is not ours to pass on, but the secure tenancy and the preserved right to buy that comes with it is ours to pass on. We have earned it by paying rent for over 40 years !
This is all part of a far larger problem which is that of a housing shortage which can only get worse!
The new science park outside Cambridge is bringing in 10,000 more workers in the next 5 years alone, they will all need a place to live.

[Islay]

So you have a secure tenancy not your son, so you are passing something onto your son that he is not entitled to.
Again please don't take this personally as no one means to be questioning and mean spirited but you have to see this is not right.

[EDDIE51]

^ Sorry but under the rules he IS entitled to it. That is the entire point. You don't seem to understand that.
The rules have changed now , but we and any others in our situation, that of being secure ex council tenants of a housing association still have the right in law to pass on our secure tenancy and the right to buy discount that goes with it. This right can be used once only. My son can not pass it on to his son.
I don't expect you to like it but it is 100 % legal . As an aside if I had a grandchild of over 18 I could if I so chose , bypass my son and pass the secure tenancy on to them. The rule is that a secure tenant can pass the tenancy on once to a relative, it does not specify that it has to be to your child. My 2nd youngest child looked after his grandad as a carer and he was able to inherit the council tenancy from his grandfather.

[EDDIE51]

What I find wrong is that investors , nearly all foreign from outside the EU, are allowed to buy huge blocks of residential accommodation in the best areas and intentionally keep them empty for years . This is only to increase their profits by making the housing shortage worse than it should be. Kensington alone , the site of Grenfell Towers, has over 1500 such empty properties !

[bednobs]

"This is all part of a far larger problem which is that of a housing shortage which can only get worse! "
because people are buying the housing association houses perhaps?

[Islay]

I have no problem with people buying their council home as long as that money is put back into housing stocks. What I have a problem with is that you have not bought the house but you can hold onto it so that your son can when he has not 'fairly' earned the right.

[EDDIE51]

It was Margaret Thatcher who scrapped the rule that all money from the sale of council / housing association property had to be used only to buy/build more social housing! Before that every council house sale meant another one built in it's place. If that rule had stayed we would not be facing the current housing shortage!