A new investigation has called on local authorities and the property industry to come together to provide more support to elderly people looking to downsize to a smaller property.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors believes that will help to cut-down on the emotional distress of pensioners moving home in later years.
Visits
RICS suggested that councils work more closely together to arrange, ‘accompanied visits,’ to suitable properties to, ‘create a more positive experience.’[1]
In addition, the company thinks that the Government should pay for a new fund that covers pensioners’ moving costs, in order to encourage them to move home.
Data from the report shows that pressure is growing on pensioners to move from their large homes and into smaller flats or bungalows. It suggests that a third of over 55 year olds considered moving in the last five years, but only 7% have actually moved property.[1]
Community
The report stated, ‘knowing ones neighbours and feeling a sense of community is also an important factor in deciding to move homes for some older people. RICS recommends that local authorities and industry work together to provide accompanied visits to suitable properties to mitigate emotional distress and create and more positive experience.’[1]
One of the authors of the report, Jeremy Blackburn, told The Telegraph newspaper, ‘one of the things we heard was about the number of pensioners living in under occupied property, who might be asset rich terms of the property itself but are actually quite poor overall in terms of their savings.’[1]
While reluctant to provide a more accurate figure for how much elderly people would be offered to assist with moving costs, Blackburn said it would be, ‘more in the hundreds than in the thousands.’[1]
‘I think for many older people, they want to downsize and it’s really hard to do it, so anything that makes it easier must be a good thing,’ he continued. ‘There’s a lot of hysteria about forcing people to downsize but this is just ridiculous, because nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. It’s just helping people who want to do something already.’[1]
Exciting
Lord Best, chair of the All Parliamentary Group stated, ‘we want to make it easier to move all round, that’s the essence. Looking for a new home should be exciting and fun. We don’t want people to feel as though they are being forced out of their homes, we want downsizing to be a positive experience.’[1]
‘As people get older, by in large they don’t want to move very far where they live already, the challenge in many areas is that there just isn’t good quality housing available so that has to be looked at as well,’ added Lord Newby.[1]
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/active/11885825/Elderly-people-should-be-given-emotional-support-to-encourage-them-to-downsize.html