... to not understand the "Right to Buy" thing???

[MillieV]

OK. Up and down the country, and here on MN, there is talk about councils not having enough council stock, that there should be more, and we all blame it on Margaret Thatcher. But why is it that now, politicians want to follow in Thatcher's footsteps yet again?!?

One article here

Do these properties come with covenants, i.e. they can only be sold on by the original buyer to those who are also in council/social housing, and continue to be at a discount? This would be fair. However, I fear the housing stock may just be sold on at market value 5 years down the line...

the right to buy thing is just all so wrong. i agree that people in social housing should somehow be able to get a foot on the housing ladder, but social housing needs to be freed up for younger, less wealthy people too. I have friends in their 30's who still have to live with their parents because they can't afford private rent, let alone to buy.

Theres something so very wrong with the property market in this country. a decent home shouldn't be a luxury.

There is usually a clause attached when someone exercises their right to buy. The clause is usually that they cannot sell or rent the property for at least 5 years or they have to repay the discount they were given. After the five year period they are free to do as they wish and can sell the property to anybody at market value rent it out at private rates or stay living there themselves.

Last person I know who exercised their right to buy got a 76% discount on the property value as they had been a council tenant for 28 years. I think the discounts were capped at a much lower percentage a few years ago.

Just wrong in every way

Theres something so very wrong with the property market in this country. a decent home shouldn't be a luxury.

It would be wonderful if homes were available at affordable prices for everyone who wanted them, but that's never going to happen.
There is no way sufficient homes can ever be built to meet the increasing demand, particularly in the south-east.

So glad the Scottish Government have abolished right to buy as of 2017. On the surface such a policy seemed to help those who could only dream of owning a property but is so open to abuse.

How many people do you know who have bought parents/grandparents etc houses for buttons then made massive profits when ther relatives have died? I can think of quite a few off the top of my head. A relative of my DM who is a very well known barrister earning megabucks all his working life (despite lowly beginnings) bought his parents home for £10,000 & will profit massively when his 92 yr old mother passes away. His parents have benefited a bit as they have had no rent to pay during the last 20 odd years of their lives but he will profit massively. Just so short sighted to allow this theft from council stock!

Last person I know who exercised their right to buy got a 76% discount on the property value as they had been a council tenant for 28 years.

And the length of tenancy is all that counts, you can have spent that 28 years receiving Housing benefit/rebate.

OP

You usually have to live in the house for a few years afterwards but then you can sell it on at market rates.

I know someone who sold one on local to me for a huge profit bought for 50 something k and sold for 420. Moved to Kent and bought a bungalow for less than 200k and pocketed the rest

In the 60s and 70s the northern town where I lived built hundreds of bungalows and flats for OAPs, all were warden controlled.
Most have been bought, funded by relatives, then sold when the person has died.

Relatives have made a fortune.

Completely crazy. Thank you Thatcher.

We bought our house for £240k off someone who'd bought it seven years prior for £42k. She then bought a farmhouse in France.

Sil's dmil was offered right to buy, central London. Sil and bil remortgaged, paid for mil's house and will be left the right to buy property when the mil buys. Massively discounted property bought for a song.

A friend bought her Grandparents house that they had lived in since their marriage (bullied into it by friends Mum) for 20k ish, the Grandparents became ill and as they where tenants (yes they paid rent) were put in sheltered housing.
She pocketed 300k ish and didn't contributed toward their care and didn't really visit them!

I looked into buying my home.. 4 bed and I can get it for around 40 grand. The mortgage payments would be lower than what I pay in rent.

I don't. I think if you have a good system of social housing then people living in it don't need to get on the housing ladder, although they may wish to do so.

I think right to buy should be abolished and more effort should be made to increase social housing stock, including a lot of nice 1 bed properties.

And the length of tenancy is all that counts, you can have spent that 28 years receiving Housing benefit/rebat

Yes, the person that got that discount had been in receipt of full housing benefit for 20 of those 28 years. The house she bought under right to buy was a 5 bedroom council house and social houses of that size are in very short supply. She only really bought it because she could pay peanuts for it and she was worried about being forced to move to a smaller council house because all of her children had left home meaning she didn't need 5 bedrooms.

I think that right to buy is the main reason we have such a problem with affordable housing now.
The welfare bill is so high as people have been forced into private rentals, which means that they have to claim housing benefit.
Crazy scheme which should have ended years ago.

i live in the cheapest place to live in the uk, a quick google shows me that 1-2 bed houses start from just 20k here. a few years back my sister bought her lovely 3 bed house for about 10 grand (would've been worth about 60k), I'm on the fence about it all tbh

Social housing isn't just for poor, needy people.
It's for all.
The shortage has caused it to be offered to the poorest and neediest in lots of places.
I can't find recent stats but the last lot I saw showed profit (capped) at 8% being made on my LA housing stock.
If they spent the profit and income generated by social housing building social housing we wouldn't be short.

Problem is under investment and poor maintenance makes it easier to sell off to housing association or trust.

Now I need a shower, I think I inadvertently agreed with MrsT

don't. I think if you have a good system of social housing then people living in it don't need to get on the housing ladder, although they may wish to do

Agree! Although that does mean that people in social housing need secure long-term tenancies, and that is something which has been undermined in the last few years for new tenants.

We are only now feeling the full impacts of Thatcher's first sell-off of social housing, as many of the people who bought their homes under RTB are reaching the end of their lives. If they were still living in a rented home that home would be becoming available again for a new tenant when the older person died. But they are not. In many places a large chunk of what was social housing has been sold on to private landlords and is being rented by people who might otherwise have accessed social housing, at vastly higher rents and with little security of tenure.

Well I'm buying mine... until the laws change I am doing nothing wrong. There is no way I could buy if I didn't.

In theory LST everyone would buy their house lowering house prices and the demand for social housing.

It didn't work because SH became scarce allowing private 'll to capitalise.

IAMNOTATORY

I've been on the waiting list for housing for two weeks and have already been offered 2 three bed houses.
I hope in years to come I will be able to buy my home.
My council haven rebuilding quite a lotsof new homes too.

Sorry for typos . I'm using iPad

*building not rebuilding

If the Thatcher government had allowed local authorities to use the money from RTB sales to build new properties we wouldn't be in half the awful mess we are now.

I'm a local authority tenant and have been for thirty-odd years and I still think the RTB is immoral.

Councils having been compelled to only rehouse those considered in the most need rather than those waiting patiently on the housing-list has dramatically altered the quality of life where I live. And I doubt I am unique. It's not a sink-estate quite yet but I fear it could be before much longer.