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Housing : Birmingham Council Municipal Housing

Sakura

Sakura

master brummie
I have looked for a thread on this but not found one so please correct me if there is one. :)

My daughter watches the English program 'Selling Houses' and they are always referring to the fact that it was a council house. She was asking what happened to the people who needed subsidised housing after all the council houses had been sold?

The only thing I remember was when they pulled the old back houses ( by the Sand Pitts) down and built flats, which if I remember correctly did not always work out well for some of the people they moved. :(

A house on the program yesterday was in the Birmingham area and was very much like the house layout of my grandmother's house on William Street which I believe is no longer there. I said to Debbie that looks like my Nan's built at the turn of the century, she said it was.

Look forward to hearing your comments on this. :) Mo
 
Under the right to buy act, council tennants are allowed to after 3 years of. tenancey allowed to buy the property at a discount dependant on how long they have lived there, up to a maximum of 40 % i believe. With the high cost in the private sector making it imposable for low paid workers to get a foot on the ladder, council waiting lists are very long years in some cases.
 
Robert thank you for your answer.

What will happens when all the council houses are in the private sector and none for rent?
Are the councils still building new council houses?
Are there flats available for low income families?

Has it got worse over the years or is the waiting list much the same as it was say years ago?

On the English Housing programs we are amazed at the cost of housing and that so many people can actually afford to buy them. Or maybe it is just for the TV program and in reality things are very different.
 
Sakura Just a quick reply as i have to go out. Due to low intrest rate over the last 10 years or so many poeple have found them selves in a position to buy a second house to rent out. you would think that that would ease the housing shortage. but it deosent, to cover the cost of the second mortgage and agents fees, plus cost of repairs the owners have to charge a rent higher than the mortgage. so low paid workers cant aford to rent them.
 
Sakura, many council houses have now been bought by Housing Associations
and are therefore still Social Housing

In saying that many houses have been sold under "The Right To Buy" bought in by
Margaret Thatcher.

The real question is.....where did the money go from the purchase of these houses
as councils where supposedly not allowed to spend the monies building MORE houses. ???

As Robert said this gave many home renters the chance to get on the property ladder
but has resulted in a housing shortage.

My beef is people having jumped the queue, for whatever reason. :tickedoff:

Many properties down here in the Southwest, as in other areas, are owned by "Second Homeowners"
and the price goes sky high and local youngster cannot buy. :'(

The answer? I really don't know. :-\

I firmly believe that every human being has the right to a home, to clean water and to warmth.

House prices in this country are way too high, after all if you sell for £250,000 you
will more than likely have to pay even more for your next home........ or live in a caravan. ;)
 
I live in the South East, Berkshire, and have been told that the waiting list for a council property (not house!) is 11 years. :2funny:  The cost of renting privately here is astronomical, although I think that other decent parts of the country are now catching up.  I would like to buy a property of my own, but I think the average house price now is over and above £160,000.  If you dont have a property of your own to sell your up shi*ts creek without a paddle (as my mom would have said) :crazy2:  What a crazy world we live in :idiot2:

Gillian
 
This is the part that gets me. If you are unemployed,a single parent with young childrenor or"long term sick" living in concil property you will have the whole of the rent paid for you. you will also have the right to buy, and your mortgage will be paid. After 3 years sell the house the house is lost to the councils housing stock for ever.move back in with your parents or whoever.and you have gained several thousand pounds and its cost you nothing.then do it all over again.
 
Wow! What a situation, it seems my daughters question was valid.

Thank you all for the very good explanation of the social housing market in GB. It sounds as alarming as it seems on the programs we watch.

For just over $200,000 here you can get a fairly nice old or new three bedroom house or bunglow with a full basement. That is outside of Toronto, in the city they are very expensive but most people commute. We feel it is hard for our young ones going into the housing market now, they either have to have a very well paid job or living with someone else who also works. There are apartments/flats for rent which is the way many people have to go. My daughter shared when she was at University, a two bedroom apartment would be between $650 and $850 a month.

I feel for you Gillian it must be very disheartening, an 11 year waiting list is ridiculous. When we got married in 1968 housing was more affordable. . It seems to me that it would have been far more sensible to put the revenue from selling council houses into building new ones. :crazy2:
 
The fact that 'social' housing is in short supply is nothing new, when I married in 1952 we went to the council to put our names down for a council house and were told bluntly "come back and see us again when you've got 4 kids".
My brother lived with our parents and waited 4 years to get a council home and in the end was offered a maisonette out at Aldridge in the 'overspill area'.
I lived with the inlaws until I was able to save the deposit for a semi in Great Barr, mortgages were rationed then and I had to pay a third of the house price as a deposit, no 100% mortgages then. E.
 
robert said:
Strange this topic coming up on the 40th anneversary of Jeremy Bamfords Cathy come home trioligy.
Click to expand...
I meant to say Robert, I checked this out on the Internet as I was not familiar with it. It was very interesting and it really is strange that I should start this thread at this time.
 
Until a couple of years ago council house sales in Birmingham were discounted depending on how long you had been renting from the council and not how long you had lived in any one house. The maximum discount was 60% for those with the council for over 30 years. I have been told that the discount now is a flat 26% for all tenants but i have not confirmed this.

In many cases it worked out cheaper to buy than rent. I had such an opportunity three or four years ago being offered full discount on my home. It was a four bedroomed end terraced house built in the 70's with land at the side to build an extension or garage. How much? £22,000. Yes a bargain but we declined. After bringing up five children and never owning a property i just could not see the point in owning a four bed house for just the two of us. That house [although i loved it] needed to be filled with children. We moved to a two bed housing association house which is much easier to manage.
 
The irony is, because of the high cost of houses, many profession people, including some teachers, police officers, nurses and fire-fighters do not earn enough to repay the necessary mortgage. And, since the control of social housing was handed over to Rackman-like landlords by the council, with no limit on the price of rental, low paid workers can't afford the high charges, while those on benefits can because the state or council pick up the bill. :idiot2:
 
Times don't change. I remember a family who lived next to my Aunt in the late 50's and 60's. They had their own house, the father never worked because he got more money from unemployment and child benefits because he was out of work than he could earn. ::)

I am sure from what you say Paul it is the same today.

Although I understand there has to be some sort of assistance for people out of work as it is not always their own fault, there should be the same help for low income families. I am sure there is help but is it at the same level?
 
This is what i was hinting at on my other post.

I bought up five children and hubby was in full time employment. We could not afford to buy a home. When kids had flew the nest and hubby was pensioned off we could have bought the house for a pittance and paid for it [or not]on benefit. I decided not to. Does that make me stupid? :o
 
Jacqueline, if you had bought the four bedroom house for 22,000 pounds when it was offered at that price then you could have sold it for the going market price if you didn't want to remain in it. Sometimes decisions like that are hard to make but it doesn't make you stupid because you didn't buy the house. If you are happy where you are now that is the main thing. You enjoyed the house very much over the years and that is also important in the scheme of things.

Many people in the older age group wish they had bought properties years ago
that are now selling at ten times the price they were years ago but very few people had the money to finance a second residence at the time.
 
Jacqueline, you are not stupid you did what felt right for you. The cost and worry of running a house that is too big is not worth it, you sound happy with what you now have. Don't worry about the past, if you can't change don't worry about it. :)

We bought a small bungalow in the late 1970's, a lot of people were buying big houses and the mortgage rate shot up to 21% at one point. Guess what, we were just able to hang onto our house and it was paid off some years ago. The people who bought big houses lost them in many cases and had to start again and still have their mortgages. I am sure that happened in the UK as well, it was a :crazy2: time.

Now it is the house prices that are :crazy2: particularly in the UK.
 
What really gets my goat is that I am in a full time professional job and work really hard for my money. :tickedoff: I pay rent and council tax of £950 per month. I would love to have a council house even to rent, as I've no doubt it would be much cheaper. I do know of someone who has two 'wives' living in sseparateflats/houses in London, and he rents a council flat not too far from here AND when he moved in he was given vouchers to spend at B&Q to redecorate :laugh: I wouldn't mind so much if his so called 'wives' had actually lived in the country all of their lives and contributed financially but they haven't :knuppel2: They just expect to get everything handed on a plate and it seems that they usually get their way. AND another thing! When my mom and dad were alive, they worked hard all of there lives and a few years back bought their council house. Now after my dad died and my mom was very ill, there was a chance that she would have to go into full time nursing care. She would have had to sell the house to raise the cash to pay. In the end it didn't come to that, she didn't last long enough. It seems to me that those people who work hard and pay their dues end up being worse off than those who contribute nothing to society :tickedoff: Maybe the older I'm getting the more cynical I'm becoming? :idiot2:

RANT OVER :crazy2:
Gillian
 
as my brother says i was on the counclil list for years in the 1950s and had to move to aldridge on a overspil programmei live in sussex avenue aldridgeuntill they gave us a house in rushall we had 4 kids at the time allen
 
These stories regarding people living fraudulently in Council properties have gone on for years and years...the newspapers love writing about these people and what they managed obtain free from the Municipal Councils. Someone should report that fellow with "wives" and two Council properties. It's so much worse when you know as Gillian as mentioned that
people who are more deserving can't get near to a council property. I don't blame her for her "rant". Also, the other posts regarding the treatment they received when looking to rent a Council property. Something totally wrong about all this.

Isn't Birmingham the place with the most Council properties in Britain or have they been selling them off over the years and there aren't as many now? My Aunt and Uncle who had no children lived in a very nice Council property in Kingstanding for years with three bedrooms, upstairs bathroom and two reception rooms. This was after WW2.
 
Thanks for all your replies to my post. To explain i do not regret not buying my house but i DO regret the attitude of the council and the amount of red tape...or is it lack of interest? ::)

When i was in the larger house i asked them to give me a transfer to a smaller property. After much form filling i received a reply saying i did not have enough points to move. WHAT A JOKE!! I was offering a four bed house to exchange to a two bed and they did not want to know. I finally found my own exchange with a family with two children. At first they said the exchange family did not have enough children. ::) Yet it was ok for two people to live there??? When they finally agreed i was told i should have asked for a transfer as they would have been only too happy to help. THE RIGHT HAND DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THE LEFT HAND IS DOING IT SEEMS.

I also thought these purchase/sale prices of my parents homes cost over the years might be of interest [found a bunch of old documents and sale tranfere's]

These are for private three bedroomed houses over the years.

Purchase - Sept 1946 - a three bed recently built semi in Kings Heath......£750.00
Sale - 1954 - a three bed vVictorianterraced house in Kings Heath......£1,350
Purchase - 1954 - a three bed semi in Stirchley £1,800
Sale - 1973 - same three bed semi in Stirchley £7,000
Purchase - 1973 - two bedroomed first floor maisonette Kings Heath £9,950
Sale - 1977 - same two bed maisonette £9.000
Purchase - 1977 - two bed ground floor maisonette Kings Heath £9,750

The ground floor maisonette is now worth between 100k and 125k. Interesting the market seemed stagnant in the four years in the 70's.
 
I was looking at one of the aerial views on the forum of Kingstanding, fascinated by the road layout and then remembering that there were similar layouts in those parts of the City that we never visited unless it was to visit a distant relative and it led me to wonder how many estates were built and what was the total number of houses actually completed before WWII and were any estates delayed and needed to be completed after the war which led me to wonder as there were still back to backs after the war, where did the people who moved into Kingstanding, Pype Hayes or Weoley Castle etc come from? I know it will need to be a very big postcard for all those answers, but I am certain that many of you will have the answers.

Bob
 
municipaldreams.wordpress.com

Search Results for “birmingham” – Municipal Dreams

municipaldreams.wordpress.com municipaldreams.wordpress.com
Bob, A little light reading that may help your search.
I lived in a series of council estates from 1940-1975.
Tyseley 1940-48 Estate built around 1911.
Garretts Green 1948-68. Built 1948. A lot of the dads were ex WW2 military, don't remember the families having been from any particular area.
Acock's Green 1968-75 a privately owned ex council house.
 
devonjim said:
municipaldreams.wordpress.com

Search Results for “birmingham” – Municipal Dreams

municipaldreams.wordpress.com municipaldreams.wordpress.com
Bob, A little light reading that may help your search.
I lived in a series of council estates from 1940-1975.
Tyseley 1940-48 Estate built around 1911.
Garretts Green 1948-68. Built 1948. A lot of the dads were ex WW2 military, don't remember the families having been from any particular area.
Acock's Green 1968-75 a privately owned ex council house.
Click to expand...
Many Thanks

Bob
 
Greenwood Place off Finchley Road Kingstanding celebrated the +100k (I cannot remember the exact number) council houses built. Apparently, they had a big party on the island with all the great and the good in attendance.

The key was presented to the new tenant on a velvet cushion by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.

Apparently this one house has a few extra posh fittings than all the other houses. The council came round a week later and swapped the chrome taps back to brass.

At its peak, the council owned over 140k houses by the mid 80’s
 
Morturn said:
Greenwood Place off Finchley Road Kingstanding celebrated the +100k (I cannot remember the exact number) council houses built. Apparently, they had a big party on the island with all the great and the good in attendance.

The key was presented to the new tenant on a velvet cushion by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.

Apparently this one house has a few extra posh fittings than all the other houses. The council came round a week later and swapped the chrome taps back to brass.

At its peak, the council owned over 140k houses by the mid 80’s
Click to expand...
Thank you 140k that is an awfully big number when you think about things like maintenance, rent collection &etc
Bob
 
Bob, I have a feeling Birmingham had the largest social housing stock in Europe, there was a maintenance team of around 1,500 staff and manual operatives. It took on 90 apprentices each year, employing and training 300 at any one time. Then of course you had the back-office staff too.

Interestingly, as housing stock started to fall due to right to buy and government preventing the construction of new stock in 1984 the number of the back-office staff grew.
 
Bob Davis said:
I was looking at one of the aerial views on the forum of Kingstanding, fascinated by the road layout and then remembering that there were similar layouts in those parts of the City that we never visited unless it was to visit a distant relative and it led me to wonder how many estates were built and what was the total number of houses actually completed before WWII and were any estates delayed and needed to be completed after the war which led me to wonder as there were still back to backs after the war, where did the people who moved into Kingstanding, Pype Hayes or Weoley Castle etc come from? I know it will need to be a very big postcard for all those answers, but I am certain that many of you will have the answers.

Bob
Click to expand...
Bob, if we can get some answers it will be very revealing! Excellent questions..
 
I appreciate that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing etc. But as I understand it the post war explosion in council house building was possible because of the 1944 Blitz and Blight Act which enabled Birmingham to compulsory purchase vast tracts of back to back housing, the programmed maintenance or clearance of which enabled the building of the post WW2 estates.
 
Kingstanding, where I was born, was started in the 1920s, to the right of Kingstanding Road (outward bound) was mostly council developed to be let, to the left it was privately developed and built for sale, although there was some cross over between both, my first house in Birdbrook Road was leasehold when I bought it, the freeholder was the National Coal Board pension fund to whom we had to pay an annual ground rent.

My parents moved into Hurlingham Road in January 1933 after living in 'digs' in Aston from the time they married in July 1930.

The houses we lived in were designed in collaboration with Cadburys, they were nicknamed Nig-Nog houses from a Cadburys advertising cartoon running at the time.

Some of the houses north of there towards the Pheasey Estate were started but not finished when the war came.
 
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