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That's the most insulting thing I've heard in ages. Who are they the tell people they should move out of their family homes. People work all their lives for their homes and will have so many happy memories there. It's not their fault this country is over populated.

There's an emotive aspect to it, certainly, but surely the point is it's not a 'family home' any more? The family will have long moved on and found homes of their own. I remember my gran rattling round this big five bedroom house on her own because she couldn't bear to leave the memories behind. She couldn't clean it. She couldn't look after the garden. She didn't go in half the rooms at all. What was the point of it? Keeping this huge mausoleum to old memories when, frankly, she'd have been much better off in a smaller house that suited her better that was nearer her grandchildren, with a great big lump of cash to spend on stuff that made her life easier into the bargain.

Hanging on to memories to the detriment of the present is foolish. You carry your memories with you, they're not bound up in bricks and mortar.

Nobody should be forced to move out of their home just to put someone else in it but the idea that you should stay in a property that's wrong for you because of the past is, IMO, a poor justification.

My GF's Gran and Boyfriend are just moving, they had a huge many bedroomed house with a large garden. The trouble is looking after it was almost killing them, her gran spent all day cleaning or looking after the garden just to have it looking the better side of shabby.

They finally saw sense and agreed to move to a smaller house with a smaller garden.

TBH for many elderly people downsizing would help them a great deal. Getting a tax break for doing so would have been a benefit.

My parents keep threatening to move. They have one of three large Victorian town houses. I have a feeling that they and the there residents would coordinate their house sales so a developer would buy the plot and they’d get a large sum out of it.

It would be a shame - I really like that house. Lots of stairs and rooms. No central heating though.

I tend to have similar pangs when thinking about moving out. The area has gone downhill over the last twenty years. I agree that memories aren't based in bricks and mortar but they do reinforce them, which I think is the main problem. It's easier to recall a memory of an event taking place in the room in which you're sitting that in a house that you can't recall much about.

And I'm sure they come back to stay with the grandchildren once in a while too. Old people like having guests too you know.

I think it's a hell of lot easier for granny to go and stay with the grandkids than vice versa. What people want and what is practical are not necessarily always the same thing.

Again, I'm not saying people should be forcibly evicted. But I am saying being an elderly person on your own - even if that's the majority of the time rather than all the time - living in an enormous house you struggle to look after adequately simply because of habit and sentimentality isn't a very smart way to live.

Jon

I see Jon's POV - those guests aren't going to be over for more than a few days. Even then, it becomes more difficult to manage because if you've got grandkids, they may or may not be able to help/want to help out. So it becomes even more difficult to look after the place.

I've seen some awesome retirement homes in my work. I once visited a couple in a block of flats. It had a door man to welcome you in and there was a lift man for the elevator. Proper lush flat, rich carpets, two bedrooms, etc. It's perfect for elderly (and rich) people.

What I heard on the news earlier implied there's be some sort of incentive.

Like I say, for many like my GF's gran, it may just make their lives better.

My grandmother moved to a nice modern bungalow which is warm and easy to look after. It does have a very large garden, but her boyfriend is a healthy young gardener so that's not a problem for her

My parents also moved to a little modern bungalow when they retired. They also have a huge garden - about 2 acres - but they have a tractor and designed it to be easy to maintain.

When I retire, the only reason I'd want a big old house would be if I could afford to keep it full of pretty young women. Same goes for the garden. I can actually imagine being very content in a really nice nursing home, provided the internet was good and the nurses were hot

God there's a thought. Soon good wifi is going to be a requirement for nursing homes.

Hugh Hefner's already got that job.

And as for wifi in OAP homes, I'll start worrying when they demand it in graveyards....

Here it is generally accepted that the children will move back into the house / will inherit the house, once the parents are too old. It is also very common that the children build an extension onto the house and live there, or split the house up.

For example, my girlfriend's family, the middle daughter has a house built onto the back of the "family" bungalow. The mother (over 80) still lives in the house, her youngest son still hasn't moved out (over 40).

It is very common for 3 generations of a family to live in one house, with the house split up into "flats" as each generation comes along.

Okay. Let's say all old people did suddenly downsize. That would be a short term solution. But then for the next decade or so there would be no steady drip of family houses coming onto the market as old people died. People needing family homes in a few years would have even less on the market to chose from than they do now.

in France they do a system where a younger person pays a sum every month to an elderly one, while they live in a house and when they pass away the sort of "inherit" the house.