A KEY PERK OF THE JOB
With the challenge of securing a job and a comfortable home tougher than ever these days, how lucky are those whose job comes with a home thrown in? The countryside has long traditions of tied accommodation, either to lure people to remote areas or to bolster remuneration. With property and rental prices bordering on bonkers, a job with a house has rarely been more valuable, as rural schools such as Benenden in Kent and Ludgrove in Berkshire have realised, with recent staff accommodation building programmes.
But is a tied house just a blessing in troubled times or, perhaps, also a relic of another age, when people rarely batted an eye at mildew and no one ever ‘customised to personal specifications’ everything from their car to their kitchen? Is a job with a tied home a big attraction or a potential vulnerability, leaving you homeless as well as jobless if things don’t work out?
It’s a subject close to my own heart as I prepare to downsize at the end of my husband’s 13-year tenure as a housemaster at Eton. Spoiled for years
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