Buying Next Door to Social House

em_cat

Op, I very rarely weigh in on threads like this, but felt compelled too as you asked if you do get a bad egg family as LA neighbors, firstly getting them out would be very difficult. Councils have to prove an extremely high burden of proof to obtain an eviction and it can take years and in the end it will be down to a Judge to grant the order.

For example, I live in an multi unit development that has drug dealers and some very violent persons, all LA tenants and after 13 years they still are housed here.

I think you need to seriously weigh it up as sure you could get a lovely neighbor but if you don’t, can you or your family wait and live next to your worst nightmare?

Suppose the risk is higher that you will have an antisocial tenant housed beside you. Generally they do not look after the houses as they feel its the councils responsibility to do so. Some are good, some are bad.

Another thing to keep in mind is if the house is detached and any shared works need to be completed some councils can move at a glacial pace when it comes to repairs and will often only use companies that have completed the tender process or are the approved vendor list, so costs for works are generally higher if you have to share costs.

wildwillow

No matter where you buy, the council can buy beside you and lease to anyone on their list.

Some rural, one off houses are being bought around the country so no place is exempt.

Most council tenants are fine but some can ruin a whole area. At least, with a leased house you can put serious pressure on the council to evict problem tenants, not easy but possible.

You could move on to another semi house and find the adjoining house for sale soon after, you have no control over who might buy it.

If a lot of the houses are owned by older people you can expect more sales than in a mixed age estate.

I would probably go on the area and take a chance, you could dither forever..

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573865#Comment_119573865

There's no point contacting the council. They won't and can't make any promises on who they'll move in there.

Personally, I would walk away.

Supercell

There's a house down the road from us that was bought by the council a few years ago. The people living there now have a dog in their back garden thats never ever walked and barks continuously all day, I'd literally go insane living beside that. In addition, their front garden is a dumping ground, its like an obstacle course to get to the front door given the amount of junk there. They also have a broken down van and car in the driveway/garden that haven't moved in years. I can only imagine what the house inside and back garden is like.

I feel sorry for the people living next door to them, they'll have a hard time selling if they ever decide they've had enough.

hustlenbustle

My advice is leave it_ walk away. You could end up with nice people but theres a high risk of someone awful. I lived beside a rented house , rented to council , with what I can only describe as the filthiest person living there. Rubbish everywhere. Thankfully they .moved on but living and paying a mortgage to be beside them was heartbreaking.

penny piper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573170#Comment_119573170

My advice would be not to buy the house at all...........when buying a house you should always think about whether you would ever want to sell the property ..........you won't get the true market value if you have social housing next door......

ElitesTeam

walk away

Mr. Grinder

Hate to say it... And this is only from personal experience (and the particular area I once lived in).

I'd be highly cautious about moving anywhere near social housing. As you pointed out most folks are decent people. But in my case, there were a few rotten families in there too, and they made life for me and my parents a living hell. The Garda could do nothing.

At one point we had an elderly next-door neighbor who passed away. Then we got the family from hell in who were allocated the house.

victor8600

I think you should buy a mansion in Wicklow. Close to Dublin, yet no pesky neighbours. However, if you are one of the poorer people like me, your choices are rather limited. If you can afford a house to buy on the estate, it's likely the council can justify renting a house in the estate as well. It's risky to buy a house in Dublin. I have great neighbours now, but the family on one side is buying a new house, will they rent out the old house to drug dealers or students? Who knows!

This thread has been done a hundred times.

The bottom line is this. You have no control over who your neighbours are. Whether social tenants, or private owners.

You could reject this house and move on to the next one, and a year from now find a neighbour has sold to the council and be right back with the same worries and concerns as you have now, only you already own the house.

Someone could buy next to you as a private owner, and be the neighbour from hell. Owning your own home doesn't exempt someone from being an asshole.

I personally don't buy into the line that social housing tenants don't take pride in, or look after their homes. Again, its a minority who don't. You'll only hear the negative stories on Boards. You can't tell which are the social houses on my road and which are privately owned.

Social housing is everywhere, and will continue to be everywhere, because no social housing is being built. This is where we are at.

If you've found a house you love, and can afford, and had the offer accepted, and otherwise like the estate but this is the only stumbling block, I say go for it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119575293#Comment_119575293

There's no need to get snarky, I've already said that the majority in social housing are no different to anyone else. I've lived in poorer areas myself and there's been good and bad, but the bad can be a living hell if you're stuck beside them.

We're nowhere near rich and we've saved for a long time to be in a position to buy. I don't think it's unreasonable that we'd like to live in a peaceful home.

victor8600

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119575705#Comment_119575705

Snarky? Hardly. You want cast iron guarantees that your future house in a middle income area will be peaceful? You will not get it. The best bet for you is to do an investigation into people who live in the immediate neighbourhood now. Go around, knock on the doors, introduce yourself, ask about neighbours. Hire a private investigator.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119575837#Comment_119575837

Where did I say I was looking for a cast iron guarantee?

I asked for opinions, and experiences, which people have kindly given me.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119575620#Comment_119575620

You could reject this house and move on to the next one, and a year from now find a neighbour has sold to the council and be right back with the same worries

But you're comparing something that would definitely happen (the OP situation) with something that has a very low probability of happening (the OP finding himself in the same situation again) and you're saying they're the same. They're not. At all.

The idea that living next door to a local authority rental is the same as living next to an owner occupied house is nonsense. It's one thing to chastise the OP for not being politically correct about it but he's the one who has to put a couple of hundred grand into it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119576132#Comment_119576132

The idea that living next door to a local authority rental is the same as living next to an owner occupied house is nonsense.

Have you done it?

Because I am an owner occupier who has been living next door to a council tenant for the last six years. Another neighbour two doors away is also a council tenant. Like I said, no issues.

(Unfortunately, i wish I could say the same for the owner occupier who has been living on the other side of me for the last 20 years, but thats another story.)

I had no say when the owner occupier who lived next door to me died and his children sold the house to the council.

I did not "chastise" the OP, and you cannot give them any guarantees that any home they buy, whether it be this house or some other house, will never end up next to or in very close proximity to a social house, unless they buy detatched on a big plot out in the sticks somewhere.

This is the situation we are in now with housing, and there are plenty of posts here attesting to the fact that first time buyers are competing with councils and housing associations who are snatching up houses, especially in Dublin, as quickly as they can, so your "very low probablility" is not so low, at all.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119576183#Comment_119576183

Yes, I have lived next to a place that was privately owned but on a long term lease to the council. I wasn't as lucky as you, let's leave it there.

I wouldn't give the OP any guarantees but if he buys a different house, the odds that the house next door will go up for sale AND that it will be bought by the local council are pretty remote.

And of course, if the OP did buy this house and went to sell in a few years, guess what? Having council tenants next door will seriously hamper the resale value. That's just the reality.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119576485#Comment_119576485

And what about a house that goes up for sale a couple of doors away? Or new builds, where a percentage is guaranteed to be social housing?

The truth is, no matter where you buy, you cannot avoid social housing any longer - especially in Dublin.

So if the OP has found a house they absolutely love (as they say they do) at a price they can afford, with an offer accepted, I wouldn't be doing everything I can to talk them out of it under some illusion that they will be avoid all social housing elsewhere.

Bargain_Hound

I hate to say it - Walk away

Council bought two houses attached to us in Meath, travellers moved in to one, the other was a single mother with a child and shortly after her partner moved in with a company van and personal car - none of my business really, they were fine but for the other house.... We sold up less than a year later. Won't go into detail but it was an eye opening experience.

Council have since bought a few houses in our current estate and neighbouring estates. One of which, travellers are in it whom have a hobby of collecting old scrap cars up on blocks, fridges, metal and just about anything they can get their hands on. And it's in a right old sorry state. Feel sorry for the neighbours.

Another down the road from us didn't want to pay for their bins to be collected and their backgarden is just stacked high with black sacks of sh!t.

Appreciate all the comments here. The prevailing opinion seems to be leave it alone.

It really is our favourite of all the houses we've seen so it's hard to walk away. I completely get why people are saying it though. Just wish the tenants were already in so we could get an idea, but they're not so what can you do.

I'm swaying no and my husband is swaying yes.

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119571465#Comment_119571465

Many of those living in social housing or receiving housing supports are, in fact, people in full or part time employment but whose income is below the qualifying threshold which is thirty-five thousand per annum. There is a prejudice evident in your comments which are sweeping and not well informed, to say the least of it. On the list of criteria to determine what makes a good neighbour their economic, employment or family circumstances ought to rank at the very bottom.

Iguarantee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119591785#Comment_119591785

The point I sought to make was that a house of value X can be subsidised by the government and the house next door can be sold for full price. The government have set up it up as such.

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119597155#Comment_119597155

What is your definition of a "standard" person or persons? Well paid, professional, mortgage holder, two cars in the driveway, kids in fee paying education? A minority of the working population would have all those criteria ascribed to them these days just as a minority of welfare recipients could be categorized as lazy, dishonest, scrounging , anti-social, entitled or criminally minded.

The state has a duty to protect it's weakest citizens be they unemployed, disabled, poorly paid or homeless and part of that obligation is to provide housing affordable to those of limited means.

I think you would like to see all of these non "standard" people living together in ghettos rather than contaminating your nice, leafy, middle class enclave. We have seen many of these ghettos arise in our cities and towns over several decades now because of disastrous local authority policies and decisions and we have seen the major societal ills that have arisen as a result.

So this requirement for private developers to earmark twenty per cent of new builds as so called "social housing" is a welcome development in attempting to avoid repeating mistakes made in the past. It may not be a perfect solution but it is a start.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119591785#Comment_119591785

On the list of criteria to determine what makes a good neighbour their economic, employment or family circumstances ought to rank at the very bottom.

"Ought to" indeed, but that isn't the reality.

The reality is that a social housing tenant is far, far more likely to be a bad neighbour, to wreck the place and disrupt a peaceful area than an owner occupier.

Maybe people don't like admitting that but it's still the truth.

dontmindme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119600650#Comment_119600650

So there's no such thing as 'normal' and many (according to you) social housing tenants are employed up-standing citizens that anyone should be delighted to live next to, but at the same time - according to you, if you place these same people all in the same area it turns into a ghetto?

pale rider

This is something you can control for now. Why buy potential problems when you do not have to.

if it happens after you buy a house then so be it but why make your biggest investment with the risks you outline op.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119573170#Comment_119573170

There is always uncertainty in an estate. You can't control who buys the houses next to you or if a landlord rents them out, the tenants could be anyone

My mother bought a house in an estate that had 'no social housing' partially for this reason.. Then, probably, the worst family in the town bought a house privately near to her and terrorised the neighbours

They were so bad that the person living next door to them was forced to move out in fear of their lives and the house ended up selling for a fraction of it's price.

This was all privately owned housing.

In my housing estate, all privately owned houses too, but with some Landlords owning a few units, a house very close to us was rented to someone who had been convicted of a very serious sexual crime against a minor. There is no certainty in life.

On the other side of the coin, one of my friends lives in an estate with 100% social housing, and she has never had any trouble at all from her neighbours and loves it there.

There is no certainty.

IWW2900

Dont do it.

There is a much bigger risk of anti social behavior, neighbors not looking after their property and just general bad vibes. WALK AWAY.

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119600755#Comment_119600755

No, I just use the word ghetto as a device to illustrate that mindset certain members of the middle class possess. The acronym NIMBY would be more appropriate. Not In My Back Yard. Bad planning at local authority level over the past six decades has resulted in vast estates being developed on the outskirts of our major cities and towns without any supporting infrastructure put in place. Inevitably, problems such as crime and drug abuse can arise because of this but the vast majority living in these communities are responsible and law abiding.

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119574825#Comment_119574825

"Generally they don't look after the houses"? Did you make that up? Do you know how many thousands of families lived in social housing for generations?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058261899/buying-next-door-to-social-house

If you've **** neighbours it makes no difference if they are council or not. Actually a homeowner would be more difficult to have shifted id imagine.

You are not a council tenant reliant on the council to settle a dispute between you and a fellow tenant. You can follow any course you like.