Council property

[Flute56]

I have heard people refer to council housing as social housing so I just wondered is the term Council housing outdated

It seems so, but I have no idea why. Maybe it happened when councils sold all their stock off to housing associations, so they were technically no longer council houses.

Social housing consists of both council and housing association housing.

Most council housing has been bought out by social housing.

There's not really alot of house owned by the council left. They were sold to private Housing associations so social housing is more accurate than council housing now

In my area there is a large Estate which is high-rise and I think that is still Council but a lot of the flats are being sold to tenant with the right to buy which I don't agree with because there are some people who need secure housing who can't afford to buy and can't afford to privately rent so they really shouldn't keep selling off council property

It is the faults of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who allowed councils to let tenants by their properties

Well, yes, but successive governments have had almost 35 years to stop it happening and they haven’t chosen to…

I live in a housing association flat and I have lived in it for 30 years but I do not have the right to buy but if I did after all these years I would get this flat for a very very cheap price and then sell it with a huge profit and then buy a bigger property on the open market and I know someone who did that and she now lives in a three bedrooms semi-detached house with a large garden which she bought on the open markets and she originally had a one bed council property

We were council owned, when they were selling them to a housing association they offered us the chance to buy it first before allowing the housing association to buy it. I knew from friend's experience with the housing association they were not good landlords and she'd had lots of issues with them, so we opted to buy it. We would never have been able to afford to buy if we were not given the opportunity by the council when they wanted rid of them all.
if the council hadn't have sold it off we wouldn't have actually applied to buy it.

There is still a lot of council hosing in my area of Scotland and the council are building more houses. Housing associations do exist but have a far lower number of properties than the council.

The term social housing covers both council and housing association properties.

Right to Buy is a legal obligation on councils 😡

Wrt housing associations, Google says: In England, the National Housing Federation and the 2015 Coalition Government agreed to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants on a voluntary basis. This means that housing associations can refuse to sell in certain circumstances, while still maintaining their independence. In June 2022, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the Right to Buy would be extended to housing association tenants, and that a new social home would be built for every property sold.

I don't think Boris's announcement came to anything. In practice, HAs are compelled to sell (at reduced rates) to tenants unless they have some kind of specialised covenant.

While I have Right to Buy on my HA flat, I'm unlikely to use it due to age & income. I am strongly opposed to it, and have been ever since I was a home-owning yuppie with no expectation of ever wanting social housing for myself. It's deliberately set up to impoverish social housing providers while pulling more households into debt.

Right to Buy is a legal obligation on councils

In England. It was scrapped in Scotland years ago

Studio flats ought to be abolished in favor of one bed because when I got my property I was told all I could have was a studio flat because I am a single person and now because of health issues I am told I can move to a ground floor property into a one bed but I'm still a single person

I don't think there is a problem with right to buy particularly. The properties would need upkeep over the years so that fact that they get bought takes away some of the costs councils would incur.

However, the monies that were made when selling the properties never went back into building new ones. That's the problem.

Wales also scrapped right to buy. I live in a county which still has a lot of council houses. In my area they haven't been bought by the housing associations either.

During the period that Scotland still had right to buy, friend’s mum purchased her high-rise flat. It seemed like a bargain. Until repair bills started coming in.
They can be quite substantial and are mandatory once assessed.
Flat is now very hard to sell.

You have to be sure your property is in good condition before you buy it for example I live in a top floor flat and the roof is leaking I did not know the roof would leak so if I had bought this flat I would be liable to pay for the roof repairs which can be very costly

I guess if I wanted to buy my property when you get the survey done they would look at the roof with it being a top floor flat

In my London council there are 33,000 council properties, including Victorian terraced houses and flats in Victorian conversions which cost millions on the open market (though they would not sell for as much as they are kept in poorer condition). The council is building more council-owned housing every year,
with secure council tenancies and rtb, but the rents are a bit higher than in the older council homes but still far cheaper than private rentals.

Council housing is different from housing association housing although they are both considered to be types of social housing. Council housing has secure tenancies, while housing associations have assured tenancies. Most London councils still have council housing as well as housing association housing. Socially rented homes make up 34% of homes in my borough (36% are private rentals and 30% owned). Across England & Wales it's only 20% socially rented, so it's much higher here and in other London boroughs.

When I say social housing. I say that meaning housing association and council.

My house is council but it's a new build without RTB. My DD place is with the same council but does have RTB hers is an old build .

I had the right to buy my formerly council (now social housing) 3 bedroom house for 70% discount but I gave it up. Was a hard decision as not many people have the opportunity to have a cheap house these days.

Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear. Flat in middle of high rise is assessed a share of costs for maintenance of the fabric of that whole high rise - so roof yes, but also new lifts, internal communal area maintenance, newly introduced concierge service ( well, a man who sits in a glass box and take in the mail 🤷🏻‍♀️).
If the flat needed cladding renewed - that too. It can be expensive, but more than that, the timing is out of your control- the council determines when these things happen.

Do single people still get studio social housing rather than one bed I'm in a studio and I was very lucky to get it and it really annoys me when people I know just inherit a house and they've never had to get a mortgage or anything they've inherited a four-bedroom home of their

More social housing is sold off than built. A situation not helped by Cameron, the number of council homes sold under the policy increased five-fold in six years after David Cameron's government lifted a cap on the policy and increased discounts.

Neither did removing the obligation for councils to use the revenue raised from right-to-buy to build social housing.

I asked about studio social housing

My friend is in a tiny studio HA flat. Her GF has moved in now and I don't know how they live there