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Questions to ask about a first home

The first place that was properly someone's own didn't always come with a mortgage and a clean start — ask what it actually took to get it.

"Where did you live when you first left home?" tends to get a one-line answer. What actually gets a story going is asking how they got the place at all — the deposit, the favour, the waiting list, the piece of paper that made it theirs.

The facts, briefly

The facts
From 3 October 1980The Housing Act 1980 (Royal Assent 8 August 1980) gave secure council tenants in England and Wales the legal Right to Buy their home from the local authority. After three years' tenancy the discount was 33%, rising by 1% for each further year to a maximum of 50%, and tenants had the right to a mortgage from the council.
By 1986The maximum discount had been raised twice — to 60% in 1984, and then to 70% for council flats in 1986.
Checked 19 October 2026 against the Housing Act 1980 as enacted (legislation.gov.uk) and Wikipedia's "Right to Buy" article.

What to actually ask

The same rule applies here as to any of these questions: ask about the mechanics, not the feeling. "Were you happy there?" gets a shrug. "Who signed for the mortgage?" gets the whole story.

First Home

  1. 01Was your first place rented or bought — and if bought, was it the council house you were already living in?
  2. 02What could you actually afford, and what did you have to go without to manage it?
  3. 03Who helped — a deposit from a parent, a guarantor, a joint mortgage with a brother or sister?
  4. 04What's the first thing you bought for the place once it was properly yours?
  5. 05What was wrong with it that you only found out after you'd moved in?
  6. 06Did you share it with anyone, and who?
  7. 07What's the one thing about that first place you still remember clearest — the rent book, the key, the smell of it?
  8. 08Looking back, is there anything about how you got it that you'd have done differently?

One of the 52 weekly questions asks about exactly this — the first place that was properly theirs, and what they could and couldn't afford at the time. It sits in the same "Home & Family" group as questions about lifelong friends and family traditions, and alongside questions to ask about a childhood home and questions to ask about a first job — three places in the bank where a specific date or a specific number turns an ordinary memory into a piece of social history.

StoryPrompt emails one question like these a week, for a year, and the answers collect into a typeset book you can download at any point. If a first home is the thing you actually want on record, asking it directly today and writing the answer down works just as well without buying anything — the free 100-question list has the fuller set.

One question a week, for a year — £25

Written for a British life, including the first home that came with a discount and a waiting list rather than a blank slate.

See what £25 includes

Or try the first 3 questions free, no card needed.