To think Right to Buy discounts should be made fully portable?

[Arsenic]

I.e. that tenants should be allowed to spend their discounts on the open market, rather than being obliged to buy the home they are in?

It would make sense in expensive areas (tenants can't afford to exercise their RTB due to rocketing values).

It would aid geographic mobility.

It would aid social mobility.

It would free up a lot of social housing.

It would even keep the Tories happy (higher value council housing vacated in London would presumably be sold of us per their announced plans).

Generally speaking, it would do a lot of good.

If you're eligible for RTB what mortgage are you paying? ?

So who was this^ addressed to then?

Ok Dinky what's your answer? Assuming there are council tenants living in council houses worth £600kish who can't afford to exercise their RTB and don't have much deposit, but who could get a mortgage for £150-200k and they WANT to buy a home. And at the same time you have homeless families being put up in B&B by the same council at great expense?

How would that work vivienne?

Where are these open market houses that you can buy for a third of the price of council houses?

Council maintain their properties as cheaply as they can, and as little as they can legally get away with- and that's if they're maintained at all. If a council house would sell for 600k in that particular area, even the worst fire-damages fixer-upper would not be going for 150-200k.

Unless you're suggesting that South-Easters take their discounts and hotfoot it to Yorkshire? Could work.

Well I'd come along with £1m and buy somebody's council house. Then the council will afford to build four or more houses with that money to house more families. I'm not suggesting that should happen but I don't see why HA and council tenants should get the right to buy a house that belongs to the local council or a trust. They've no more right to buy that house than anyone else.

Portable discount PLUS mortgage of 150-200k might do it, if you moved 3 miles further out. That or good old shared ownership.

Of course there will be people with family or other ties miles away (mortgage/work might be tricky unless the people concerned are self employed in a very mobile capacity). Or a yen to live on the coast. I'm sort of hoping the social cleansing of the cities doesn't work, though.

Council maintain their properties as cheaply as they can, and as little as they can legally get away with- and that's if they're maintained at all.

And yes I know, it's shocking.

So you're just being silly vivienne.

Can't you see that there isn't money to give a portable discount unless the property is actually sold? The discount applies to market value, so until an actual sale takes place, neither the money or the discount can exist.

The house could have a value of a fiver or of six million quid, it is a meaningless, made up figure until there's a sale. And you can't give someone a discount on something you aren't selling.

You aren't talking about a discount, you're talking about choosing the lucky people who have been at the right place at the right time and just handing over millions of pounds.

You aren't talking about a discount, you're talking about choosing the lucky people who have been at the right place at the right time and just handing over millions of pounds.

There never seems to be this hand-wringing about priveleged people or the MCs experiencing minor luck. Half of my friends have been handed similar sums by the bank of Mum and Dad. People find themselves 'in the right place at the right time' in all manner of ways and contexts. To wit:- a large proportion of the baby boomer generation.

Life is a lottery. My suggestion is pragmatism.

Keeping a medium sized family in temporary B&B for a YEAR costs a council more than £60k. THAT is how it would pay for itself in a tiny timeframe.

Some councils offer a cash incentive to move to a property on the open market. In our borough you get £55k if you vacate a 3 bed council property

I don't see why council tenants have any more right to buy the property than anyone else in a fair market. Private tenants don't have the right to buy property they rent. It's not their property. It's communal property owned by the council. It either stays owned by the Council or sold to the highest bidder. It would raise more money for more houses. Don't know why nobody has thought of it before.

YABU. RTB shouldn't even exist.

And I don't think Vivienne is the one who is being silly either.

YABU- RTB should never have been introduced at all, it's a ridiculous scheme.

Would your scheme not cause people to be up in arms? So I'd have to pay 200k for my house, while my next door neighbour gets a massive donation from the government and therefore only pays a fraction of what I've paid, for essentially the same house?

What? If they want to/can afford to get a mortgage of their own on a £200k home they can go and do it fine, wherever they like. Why should the taxpayer subsidise their deposit? Did I miss something?

Why not just soend the discount money, I dunno building houses? Or doing up derelict houses/offices/shops to use as council houses. And save the B&B money that way.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32555733

Another social housing scheme cleared to make way for a private development.

I don't agree with rtb at all because although the idea is that the money goes to build more houses, I don't see this happening in reality.

I do agree with you about the hand wringing about people in social housing being lucky. I'm in social housing some of my friends have been able to buy because their parents gave them 10k for deposits, I think that they are lucky too, they are lucky that they will inherit 300k houses that their parents bought for 80k, I've worked just as hard in terms of college and employment but they're decent people and I'm a sponge on society (in some people's eyes).

And I don't think Vivienne is the one who is being silly either.

Her suggestion was that we should be able to bid to buy council houses from underneath (secure, lifetime) council tenants. She is being a teeny tiny bit silly if she can't work out that wouldn't be legally possible or feasible in any way.

Rolling out a local programme nationally, OTOH.....

Some councils offer a cash incentive to move to a property on the open market. In our borough you get £55k if you vacate a 3 bed council property

That's the kind of thing I mean waiting.

I wonder how popular/successful it's been?

What? If they want to/can afford to get a mortgage of their own on a £200k home they can go and do it fine, wherever they like. Why should the taxpayer subsidise their deposit? Did I miss something?

Because if they can't get a deposit together, they won't move and free up a council house.

So people lucky enough to have been given a council house (as opposed to all those on the waiting list) are then even luckier enough to be given a wad of cash. Not fair on those desperate for decent council houses, let alone those in private renting or normal home buyers who scrimp and scrape to get on the housing ladder. Except of course the few who do get the vacated houses who would benefit from this generally unfair scheme.

I suppose there is some logic, but grossly unfair to most people.

RTB was a stupid idea that should have been buried, never to be seen again.

The tax payer should not be subsidising people to buy any home. Home ownership is not a basic human right. If you want a house you should pay full market value for it and if you can't afford to do so then tough you have to rent. Renting is not the end of the world, particularly if you have a secure tenancy.
RTB should be stopped with immediate effect. I dont support the Tory plans to boost house deposit savings for FTB either, total waste of public money.

grape

Nothing about housing is fair though is it? You have to concoct policy to improve specific problems and shortages, not to aim for total housing fairness.