Council houses

I’ve just reached my 30th Birthday; I woke up thinking WFT I’m still living at home! There is no way I can afford to buy a place and renting round here is ridiculous.

My question is: Does anyone have experience of getting on the council housing list, what are your chances; is there anything I can do to improve them? How long will I have to wait?

depends on area but a very long time as you will be a low priority as you have stable housing I am afraid.
Priority to homeless, vulnerable, those in most need etc you will get one but you might just get your parents first

As above, what area do you live in Timothy.

If you’ve a salary, on no benefits no wife and child your bolloxed good and proper.

My advice FWIW would be to look at buying an ex-council house as a starter home – if you can afford it. Even look at some of the repro auctions and get on the ladder – it may be your only chance

In the main council houses are very well built – I lived in one for a number of years – modernised it and had a cracking little house.

Gary – Hertfordshire; you know the area around London where there building all the “affordable homes” over my prime mountainbiking areas 🙄

as a single bloke with no dependents you have pretty much zero chance of getting a council house…

mrs ton is a housing manager in leeds.
we have been on the housing list since 1988.
and are still at the back of the queue.
we both work
our earnings are too good

sofatester if you don’t buy now then you really don’t have any chance. Prices are going to start creeping up again soon.

Another thing to look at might be shared ownership. I own 50% of mine, and rent the other 50%. You can buy the rest or sell your share whenever you want.

There was no way that future Mrs 83 and I could afford a flat here without this even tho we both have reasonably well paid jobs.

FWIW it was cheaper for me to rent 50% and pay the mortgage on the rest than it would have been to privately rent an equivalent sized property.

Bloody commuters driving the price up. Bugger awf back tah lahndahn 🙂

Since the Thatcher sell off legislation there is such a shortage of council houses and flats your chance is zero.

Try housing associations? Shared ownership schemes?

Yeah good luck, I waited almost 2 weeks to get my council flat that was 14 years ago mind and a nice letter explaining my role in the community helped.

I suppose people like you are supposed to rent – go to a cheaper area maybe? Or move into a shared house? Or a caravan or boat?! A mate of mine lived for a few years on a yacht by Canary Wharf – probably quite a bit cheaper to do that when he did it than it is now. Another bought a barge that needed work, did it up and sold it on and bought a bigger barge to do up. Another bought an old tug, ripped out the inside and moored it close to Tower Bridge where he renovated it.

Since the Thatcher sell off legislation there is such a shortage of council houses and flats your chance is zero.

I think this is an invocation of ‘RudeBoy’s Law‘; ie, it’s always Thatcher’s fault, ultimately. 😀

TJ and Ton are right; unless you have children and are on very low income, or have a debilitating illness/disability, or are considered ‘vulnerable’, most urban councils will not even look at you. Which is correct, really. Council housing should be for those with the most need, and who are unable to secure adequate housing for themselves.

Sadly, the number of people who do deserve and need social housing is ever increasing. Thatcher’s lot may have made a fast buck, from the sale of social housing stock, but the reality now is that the cost of housing the needy in privately owned housing is costing the Nation a shitload more than Council housing ever did.

Might sound a bit harsh, but if you can’t afford to buy, then you should either make efforts to have a more financially rewarding career, or just accept it, and continue to rent. Renting is not that bad; you may not end up owning a property (something that does not in any way bother loads of people in France, or the US, for example), but then you don’t have the hassle of having to pay for every tiny little cost associated with home ownership. And you can relocate at the drop of a hat, almost. Renting does give you freedom to change your lifestyle/job/career/surroundings whenever you wish.

You’re still in a position to put a roof above your own head. That’s not so bad, is it?

Poor Thatcher!
😆

Might sound a bit harsh, but if you can’t afford to buy, then you should either make efforts to have a more financially rewarding career, or just accept it, and continue to rent. Renting is not that bad; you may not end up owning a property (something that does not in any way bother loads of people in France, or the US, for example), but then you don’t have the hassle of having to pay for every tiny little cost associated with home ownership. And you can relocate at the drop of a hat, almost. Renting does give you freedom to change your lifestyle/job/career/surroundings whenever you wish.

But make sure you have a very very good pension, to continue paying rent after you retire.

but i have a sister who has never worked since she left school, and also i have a couple of mates who have never worked since leaving school.
these people all have council flats which are paid for by the social/dole/whatever it is called now.
non of them have ever paid a penny into the system, yet they get paid accomodation and whatever else they can claim for.
yet a working man who has gone to work and paid his way cannot get a council property.

??????????????????????? WTF

But make sure you have a very very good pension, to continue paying rent after you retire.

Elderly people are entitled to Council Housing…

Elderly people are entitled to Council Housing…

Ageist?

yet a working man who has gone to work and paid his way cannot get a council property

Aye it’s called the welfare state.

i used to work in council housing (KNH)
you are about as low as it gets on the council housing list
try your local houising association,

a working man who has gone to work and paid his way cannot get a council property.

meanwhile, on another thread:

had a week in the pyrenees riding in may
3 days in palma last week
2 week booked in olu dinez in august
and a weeks cycling in scotia in september if my brownie point bank is full enough by then………….

so you can go on foreign holidays but you can’t save enough for a deposit on a house? understand that everyone needs a holiday now and then, but if you knocked that lot on the head for a couple of years, you’d be a good few quid in the bank, and lot better prospect for a mortgage if you are both earning a good wage as you say.
don’t see why you should be eligible for social housing?

try Housing Associations as said above some do part equity schemes

Thanks for the posts folks, it’s confirmed one thing:

– I should have just stayed in the forces 😥

Can’t you get your folks to “kick you out”, thus rendering you “homeless” and therefore in higher need of social housing?

Renting – someone owns your house and you pay their mortgage for them.

Owning – you own your house but the bank owns your soul, and you have to buy it back by instalments over 20 years. After 20 years you own a house and a soul. You can now sell the the house and use the proceeds to pay for a nursing home where you will be humiliated as you slide into dementia and incontinence.

It’s all good. 🙂

Del – Member

a working man who has gone to work and paid his way cannot get a council property.

meanwhile, on another thread:

had a week in the pyrenees riding in may
3 days in palma last week
2 week booked in olu dinez in august
and a weeks cycling in scotia in september if my brownie point bank is full enough by then………….

so you can go on foreign holidays but you can’t save enough for a deposit on a house? understand that everyone needs a holiday now and then, but if you knocked that lot on the head for a couple of years, you’d be a good few quid in the bank, and lot better prospect for a mortgage if you are both earning a good wage as you say.
don’t see why you should be eligible for social housing?

DEL, YOU COCK, I WAS TALKING ABOUT THE OP GETTING A HOUSE………

my mortgage was done 2 yrs ago…..that why i have a big bike kitty 😉

aphex_2k – I thought of that one, i think they like me there though!

ton – Member
but i have a sister who has never worked since she left school, and also i have a couple of mates who have never worked since leaving school.
these people all have council flats which are paid for by the social/dole/whatever it is called now.
non of them have ever paid a penny into the system, yet they get paid accomodation and whatever else they can claim for.
yet a working man who has gone to work and paid his way cannot get a council property.

??????????????????????? WTF

You might find yourself closer to Thatcher’s view on things than you might like to admit…on here anyway…!

LOL! no need to shout love.
you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.
🙂
of course you made yourself perfectly clear:

mrs ton is a housing manager in leeds.
we have been on the housing list since 1988.
and are still at the back of the queue.
we both work
our earnings are too good

um, eh?

margeret is in deed my hero………….or heroine 8)

Watch out, the post pirates are about! 😆

I was desperate to get on the housing ladder before I hit 30 10yrs or so ago so hear you. Back then the market was raging, really was a danger of getting left behind. Think though we’ve all got a bit spoiled, come to expect to own our own homes way before our parents and grandparents ever did.

Stay with your folks or share a flat with a mate. No need to go rushing into buying a place, prices aint going up any time soon.

I viewed a house to buy yesterday at £45k, needs about £12k spending on it to make it rentable, cheapest I’ve seen for a while, and I’m putting an offer in on a nice three bed semi at £67k. Repo’s are starting to hit the market all over now.

The simple answer is to build a time machine and buy one ten years ago. I wish we’d bought two as we’d now be mortgage free at 32!

As it happens Miketually I am a bit of a space cadet, let’s see if I can find some worm-holes!

To infinity and beyond!

ton – Member

margeret is in deed my hero………….or heroine

I think it’s hero Ton

Does anyone remember the Spitting Image sketch that went thus:

‘Geoffrey Howe and Leon Brittan are standing at the men’s urinal in a single sex toilet and Margaret Thatcher walks in and goes to the toilet next to them standing up. After she leaves Howe turns to Brittan and confides ‘I can never go when she’s in here’.

The problem wasn’t that Thatcher allowed council houses to be sold of, it was that she refused to let councils use the recipts to build more council houses. AFAIK central government takes 70% of the sale price.

ransos – and sold them for less than the cost of the replacements.

Selling the homes is no issue – indeed possibly a good thing so long as the council does not end up subsidising the buyers – which is what happened

Indeed. The stupid thing is that the build cost is far less than the market value – so the houses could have been offered at substantial discount to the tenant, and still generate enough money for the council to build a replacement.

Find a rich girlfriend. Worked for me 🙂

I was disgusting council housing a with a colleague earlier. We came to the conclusion that the govt has missed recently. With the recession the govt should have spent money on house building projects. It would have a) got the construction industry through the recession (and there kept people in work), and b) provided much needed homes for people. If they were really imaginative they could have ensured all the houses were very green, and included apprenticeship for people.