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@BringMeMyFix
@Corny - I'm not trying to vilify your mother in particular, but she is part of a culturally regrettable phenomenon, as far as I'm concerned. Typical of local authorities to try and sort out their budgets by making the socially disadvantaged in their 'care', so to speak, pay for it; knowing full well that many would use the process to gain an asset rather than a permanent home, which in turn sees councils having to manage less stock... and a rise in homelessness... and the interests of lease-holders slowly eroding the foothold of tenants on their own estates... etc...
So her life was maybe less comfortable due to the strain of a mortgage, but it was for security...
... and yet I know plenty of pensioners who've been secure for the 40+ years they've paid their council rents. A couple have died this year. And now there's a new family in the flat - the kind of disenfranchised family that might otherwise be crammed into a parents' home, in care, queuing away their lives trying to sort housing benefit for a private rental, etc.
We pay council rent. My wife is in a similar position to you. There was a succession of tenancy from her mother, when she was suddenly in a position to live elsewhere (her partner was part of a lottery-winning syndicate). We feel entirely secure paying rent, other than the constant spectre of Islington Council or Homes For Islington or whatever fucking money-grabbing organisation has control trying to push through some kind of wholesale sell-off of the estate. But as long as the majority here are tenants rather than lease-holders, things are unlikely to happen on that front any time soon.