WHEN my late mother went into a care home in 2019 we had to sell her flat.
She lived in a purpose-built ‘retirement development’ in Salisbury.
She had bought it five years previously, and in that time its value plummeted by £41,000 – almost 20% - in a market where other property prices have kept on rising. Why?
Because of the huge number of retirement developments going on all around Salisbury. The market was flooded, a local estate agent told me, and only the shiny brand-new ones were selling, despite their sky-high service charges.
Mum’s flat was spacious, sunny, well kitted out, not at all dilapidated, looking out on a lovely garden. But we had to pay the service charges even when it was empty, and slashing the price was the only way we could get anyone to view it, let alone buy it.
I was reminded of this episode by a chat with a fellow councillor the other day. He’s been asked to help someone in a similar situation, who cannot afford to pay the maintenance costs, along with the council tax, on an empty parental home, and has been trying to shift it for a year.
(I have to say that Wiltshire Council are generally helpful in allowing relatives to defer payment of council tax until a flat is sold.)
Buyers are spoilt for choice. A look on Rightmove this week showed 107 retirement apartments currently on the market in Salisbury at prices up to £350,000, some of them vacant for well over a year.
The cheapest second-hand one could be had for just £45,000. Yet many more are being built.
It seems that the glossy brochures and smooth sales patter, and the allure of the new and ‘trouble-free’ are still winning over our older generation.
It’s only when they no longer require their homes that difficulties can emerge.
Meanwhile there is a massive under-supply of affordable flats being built for young people desperate to set foot on the ladder. They deserve better than shoeboxes converted from redundant offices, like the examples we've seen in TV documentaries.
There is a campaign group called Better Retirement Housing that is pushing for reform of leasehold law to protect the interests of the elderly.
This takes place under a planning system weighted heavily in favour of developers, some of whom donate to the Conservative Party.
That’s fact. Anyone can check it online.
But although there is a political point to be made here, there's also a moral one that I can't imagine anyone could really disagree with.
We urgently need, as a society, to focus on the have-nots, and to provide them with decent, affordable housing close to decent jobs.
We’re talking about offering sanctuary to Ukrainian refugees - and not a moment too soon. We absolutely must. But where will they move on to in due course if they can't return home?
We still have families from Afghanistan languishing in block-booked cheap hotels with no hope of proper homes being provided for them.
We have thousands upon thousands of young adults relying on their parents for shelter at an age where they should be able to become self-sufficient.
She lived in a purpose-built ‘retirement development’ in Salisbury.
She had bought it five years previously, and in that time its value plummeted by £41,000 – almost 20% - in a market where other property prices have kept on rising. Why?
Because of the huge number of retirement developments going on all around Salisbury. The market was flooded, a local estate agent told me, and only the shiny brand-new ones were selling, despite their sky-high service charges.
Mum’s flat was spacious, sunny, well kitted out, not at all dilapidated, looking out on a lovely garden. But we had to pay the service charges even when it was empty, and slashing the price was the only way we could get anyone to view it, let alone buy it.
I was reminded of this episode by a chat with a fellow councillor the other day. He’s been asked to help someone in a similar situation, who cannot afford to pay the maintenance costs, along with the council tax, on an empty parental home, and has been trying to shift it for a year.
(I have to say that Wiltshire Council are generally helpful in allowing relatives to defer payment of council tax until a flat is sold.)
Buyers are spoilt for choice. A look on Rightmove this week showed 107 retirement apartments currently on the market in Salisbury at prices up to £350,000, some of them vacant for well over a year.
The cheapest second-hand one could be had for just £45,000. Yet many more are being built.
It seems that the glossy brochures and smooth sales patter, and the allure of the new and ‘trouble-free’ are still winning over our older generation.
It’s only when they no longer require their homes that difficulties can emerge.
Meanwhile there is a massive under-supply of affordable flats being built for young people desperate to set foot on the ladder. They deserve better than shoeboxes converted from redundant offices, like the examples we've seen in TV documentaries.
There is a campaign group called Better Retirement Housing that is pushing for reform of leasehold law to protect the interests of the elderly.
This takes place under a planning system weighted heavily in favour of developers, some of whom donate to the Conservative Party.
That’s fact. Anyone can check it online.
But although there is a political point to be made here, there's also a moral one that I can't imagine anyone could really disagree with.
We urgently need, as a society, to focus on the have-nots, and to provide them with decent, affordable housing close to decent jobs.
We’re talking about offering sanctuary to Ukrainian refugees - and not a moment too soon. We absolutely must. But where will they move on to in due course if they can't return home?
We still have families from Afghanistan languishing in block-booked cheap hotels with no hope of proper homes being provided for them.
We have thousands upon thousands of young adults relying on their parents for shelter at an age where they should be able to become self-sufficient.
And we have older people who may have room to spare, living alone in family-sized homes, unable to afford luxury retirement developments.
Ramming the green fields of southern England with estates of pricey and highly profitable ‘executive’ boxes, with a grudging row or block of social housing tucked away on their least desirable plots, and luring ever more pensioners to places like Salisbury where public services - particularly medical practices - are buckling under the strain, will not solve these problems.
Ramming the green fields of southern England with estates of pricey and highly profitable ‘executive’ boxes, with a grudging row or block of social housing tucked away on their least desirable plots, and luring ever more pensioners to places like Salisbury where public services - particularly medical practices - are buckling under the strain, will not solve these problems.
They require more imaginative solutions.
I'm not being nasty. I'm a pensioner myself (my husband's not far behind!) and I can see that a day will come when one or other of us is no longer able to look after themselves in the family home.
But this is unsustainable housing policy.
But this is unsustainable housing policy.
