To wonder how Labour’s Right to Buy on privately rented houses would work?

[Bearbehind]

Just read something this morning about Labour proposing Right to Buy on privately rented properties - how would that actually work?

How can they force a private landlord to sell at a discounted rate?

Also, if one of the requirements is you have to have been renting the property for several years, that’s just going to lead to less secure tenancies because landlords will make sure tenants cannot qualify for this.

It seems like a bonkers idea to me

Can anyone actually post a link to what this Labour policy says? Because all I can find is newspaper reports on it and they aren't very detailed.

BTW TomPinch do you "Lol" at all aspects of human rights law, or just those bits which protect those you wish to target? As a PP said, it might be wise to be careful what you wish for ...

I said lol because the ECHR clearly doen't say what a previous poster claimed it said.

The ECHR, which was signed in 1952, did not prevent the wholesale compulsory purchase of privately-rented property in the UK throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s by local councils. So it's hard to see how it would prevent this much more limited policy.

It would completely ruin the housing market and put loads of people into negative equity. If landlords were forced to sell properties at below market value, loads would try to sell before any legislation comes into place. That would flood the market and reduce value of properties.

Loads of people in the private rental properties would be made homeless and there wouldn't be enough social housing to house everyone. Complete disaster and combined with big companies going abroad to get round the 'more than 250 employees, having to give them shares in the company' stupid policy, will push thousands of people into desperate situations. Utter madness!

How would they be made homeless? If tenants exercise their right-to-buy, they'll stay where they are, won't they?

TomPinch Cite some.

Oh, I'm not going to provide you or Momentum with free legal advice. Its far more fun to watch you showing your total lack of resort to legal advice on this very important issue and your use of words such as "lol" in relation to the ECHR.

I found an entire PDF summarising the case law in 30s and have read over it already. There is a lot of case law but its a bit more complicated than cutting and pasting Protocol 1. An understanding of the concept of proportionality would assist. That innocent little word, proportionality. So seemingly innocuous, not even appearing in treaties itself, yet always acting as a handbrake on the unconstitutional ambitions of left wing governments.

The text is very clear that a convention nation's law can provide for the involuntary taking of property, if it is in the public interest. It happens all the time.

Oh yes, sure it does. Well, it will be very amusing to see Momentum become an utter laughing stock amongst the international legal community. I mean, why do we need lawyers when we can just have thugs cutting and pasting a paragraph instead? This is really, really pathetic. I cannot believe that a political party would not even bother to employ a reasonably educated lawyer to look through their manifesto.

You are aware that you come across as really thick to people that are educated to a higher standard than you? Or do you actually con yourself into thinking you come across as plausible?

So does this mean my OH can sell our tiny house and go rent a nice big one and then after several years can buy it much cheaper than it’s worth?

@Cleopatra I agree about the need for more social housing and better pensions.

A lot of people turned to buy to let to replace pensions when the final salary schemes ended. Outside of the public sector it's hard to know how to save up enough to retire off.

I hate the current tendency in politics to blame everything on groups of people like landlords or benefit claimants. It's a distraction from the real issues.

TomPinch The ECHR, which was signed in 1952, did not prevent the wholesale compulsory purchase of privately-rented property in the UK throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s by local councils. So it's hard to see how it would prevent this much more limited policy.

I actually feel sorry for you, so I'll give you a little hint. There has been rather a lot of case law since 1952, particularly in places like Cyprus, Austria and Greece.

Compulsory purchase for individual projects is considered on a case by case basis, not as a measure to curtail the property ownership of an entire class of persons for political purposes. The aim can be achieved by less restrictive measures.

Why are you even wasting my time with this nonsense? Go and get an education, or please Momentum, employ some lawyers with more than a Bachelors degree and a rudimentary knowledge of international treaty law and judicial enforcement!

You aren't citing any authority because you haven't got any.

And as for Momentum, what would be more to there liking (I'd have thought) would be compulsory purchase by the State, as happened until the 1970s despite the ECHR. I do wish you would stop with the accusations. I have nothing to do with Momentum. It's an ad hominem and if you repeat the accusation I will start reporting your posts.

OK. Allow me the chance to explain why I am defending right-to-buy. It doesn't have anything to do with my politics generally, more on what actually works.

TL/DR: in the UK accomodation based on private renting results in a) a small, rich and lazy class and b) a poorly-housed majority class.

For those who want more detail, read on...

We will start in the 1800s, when the UK urbanised and started to look like it does now. Just about all people rented privately. In poorer areas, there were normally a strata of leases: someone at the top owning a street subletting each house, the house lessee subletting each floor, and the sublessee of the floor subletting each room. Result: squalor and overcrowding. Slum property was more profitable than property in more affluent areas (there was a fair amount of renting there too).

From about the 1850s onwards, there was increased public concern (this was probably because London was getting reall foetid and Parliament's location - in Westminster - was near some of the grottiest parts of town. They tried cleaning out houses, tried slum clearance (e.g. Shaftesbury Avenue, New Bond St), later charities tried subsided housing. Didn't make much difference. Later, people tried social housing for profit, e.g. the Peabody flats. Plenty of those still exist around London. They didn't work either because the rents were too high for the poorest.

From the 1890s onwards, local councils started providing social housing as that simply worked better. Remember that at the time it was very much a free market economy, and the UK exercised no border controls at all - anyone could come.

By 1914, I think about 80% of people rented privately, 15% were owner-occupiers and the remaining amount socially housed. I think - I read this about ten years ago and I can't remember which book I read it in.

Between the wars, and especially after WW2, councils engaged in huge compulsory purchases of private rentals. There were court cases but the landlords invariably lost. This was when councils put up the concrete high-rises etc. We say they were awful now, but they were a massive improvement on what the private sector was offering. Google "single-end tenement flat" for an example of how a huge proportion of people in Glasgow lived. Basically a one-room flat for a family.

In the meantime, the price of houses (as compared to incomes) becomes as low as it's ever been.

Skip foward to Thatcher and right-to-buy - possibly no different to what Corbyn's proposing now except that it affected publically-owned property.

Now we are heading back towards the 1800s: a reducing proportion of people owning houses, an increasing private rental market, and a hugely increasing number of people who can't afford their own home. This is not just a problem in the UK. It's across the whole Western world. I admit that it could be rough on people who have carefully built up a property portfolio. But have a thought for people who, despite their best efforts, can only find insecure housing. It's a lot rougher on them.

GrapefruitsAreNotTheOnlyFruit - you are right about the blame game obscuring the deeper issues.

And I don't have a pension at all and am trying to fund my mother's care costs. I had thought of buying a property just to be sure of having some income when I can no longer work - but looks like that won't be the most sensible move right now.

Well, I did some brief research of my own and I found this:

rm.coe.int/168007ff55

The notion of “public interest” is necessarily an extensive one. Since the domestic authorities have a better knowledge of theirsociety and its needs, they are usually better placed than the Court to establish what is in the public interest. The Court will therefore respect the domestic authorities’ judgment as to what is in the “public interest” unless that judgment is manifestly without reasonable foundation.

For example, in the case of Former King of Greece and others v.Greece, the applicants, members of the royal family, claimed that alegislative measure deprived them of their ownership of some landin Greece. The Government argued that the State’s legitimateinterest lay in the need to protect the forests and archaeologicalsites within the contested estates and, moreover, that the contestedlegislation was linked to the major public interest in preservingthe constitutional status of the country as a republic. The Courtnoted that there had been no evidence to support the Govern-ment’s argument on the need to protect the forests or archaeologi-cal sites. On the other hand, although with some hesitation giventhat the disputed law was enacted almost 20 years after Greece hadbecome a republic, the Court accepted that it was necessary forthe State to resolve an issue which it considered to be prejudicial for its status.

and

However, the Court leaves the Contracting States certain discre-tion commonly referred to as “margin of appreciation”, consider-ing the state authorities to be better placed to assess the existenceof both the need and the necessity of the restriction, given theirdirect contact with the social process forming their country.

TL:DR the ECHR will not interfere in a country's domestic politics unless its government's actions are manifestly unreasonable.

So, to argue that tenants' right-to-buy infringes the ECHR is not arguable.

I asked upthread why it is that, if Labour are so worried about the lack of affordable housing, they haven't ended tenants' rights to purchase LA/HA properties. Bearing in mind that many of those ex-tenants have profitereed from selling these on - or even become BTL LLs themselves - I wonder if it's merely coincidence that this hasn't been answered?

Perhaps they have another policy on that. I wouldn't know, but it would make sense.

I did have a look through the policies on their website an hour or so ago and I did notice that they wanted to introduce rent controls and more secure tenancies, so this is not the only thing they would want to do.

Puzzledandpissedoff I wonder that too. I never understood why Labout didn't reverse that policy as soon as they gained power. (Well I did understand I suppose, I just didn't see how they could justify it).

Most of the RTB LA houses were bought by the adult children of long term tenants as they were able to get mortgages. As soon as parents died they were rented out for profit, (or sold on)

QualCheckBot

Wow, listen to you. I haven't a clue about this stuff, but I'm with you.
You really sound like you know your shit, gives you confidence in the legal profession.

Cleopatra maybe Labour's reluctance to overturn the policy was influenced by a belief that LA tenants formed their natural voter base?

Though those who started voting Conservative after suddenly becoming property owners and profiteers must have been a disappointment ...

On the contrary. QualCheckBot's claim was simply a statement that the policy would breach the ECHR. No reasons why were given. When I pointed out that the text includes an 'out' on public interest considerations, Qual said that there was case law against this. I asked for it and Qual refused to cite any but mentioned some countries including Greece.

So I have now provided commentary, including a Greek case that absolutely does not support Qual's claim.

I am waiting to see an argument to the contrary.

In the absence of any I think I have proved my point that right-to-buy as currently discussed would not breach the ECHR.

Indeed, that would be a very surprising result. The ECHR is not designed to allow people to get rich on the basis of insecure housing.

I can remember my dad telling me about the first house they nearly bought.
It was flattened 3 years later, he'd seen the plans but even his solicitor said the houses would never be compulsory purchased.
He was glad he followed his gut. This was 1950's.
They are still offering relatives money (much under value) but they are refusing.

But Tom

Qual has to have it on passion, it's just oozing.

The government always reimburse the discount.

Using what?

Money they don't have as per usual Labour form.

Labour are turkey mental at the moment therefore they will keep the Tory’s in power forever more

Drabarni Wow, listen to you. I haven't a clue about this stuff, but I'm with you. You really sound like you know your shit, gives you confidence in the legal profession.

Oh no, all you need is the ability to cut and paste, and bang you're ready to go in the CJEU! Who needs qualifications in the brave new world! Who needs professional indemnity insurance either!

We will all be equal after all.

Its a pity this will never see the light of day, because it would be incredibly funny. I doubt it would ever reach legislation unless the entire government Legal Service resigned, but lets suppose it did. Specialist lawyers would make a fortune. It would have to go to the Court of Appeal, then the Supreme Court, who would then refer it onto ECHR (unaffected by Brexit). This would take years. Presumably the policy would be sisted in the meantime, or there would gigantic amounts of compensation to be paid. We might even have mass rioting before we got to that stage. Meanwhile, the UK would be an international laughing stock and most investors would have long gone so the London property market would have crashed and the tax revenue from London would have resulted in the rest of the country following suit as investor confidence plummeted. So we would certainly have low house prices, but no-one to buy them.

I think there might be a good idea why Labour's never tried it before!

It is really worrying that there is obviously such little thought process that goes into the legalities of manifesto promises, and so little education around in Momentum. They clearly haven't bothered to consult even a reasonably experienced lawyer in the field of property law and the ECHR. Theres obviously some trainee who's written a bit from the EU law compulsory undergraduate one semester course on the Posting of Workers Directive, but they've even got that wrong because in practice it never applies in the UK due to totally different labour laws. But they've obviously just stuck in a paragraph on it because they think it sounds impressive. Its all very disproportionate.