Council house sold to resident after just 3 years

[Zaane]

An aquaintence who acquired a council property to rent only lived there for 3 years and has now bought it with a 35% discount too! Cash purchase. This makes me wonder how someone in need of council house is in a position to actually purchase it just after 3 years. Isn't the system flawed ? I rent and am far from buying my own property. There are hundreds of people waiting for housing, council isnt building new properties, and they are actually loosing the one sthey could help the neexy with?
This makes me wonder if I am just jealous or this is unfair. AIBU to think its unfair?

Even if RTB was stopped now, there isn't going to be enough social housing. The people who are buying them will likely just stay in the houses, renting them.

I understand that some people think that those in social housing, once they aren't in the desperate situation they were when they took the house, should move to private renting and free up the house. But asking people to leave a stable and safe home, for something less secure and more expensive, is a big ask. Especially when for quite a few of those people the reason they are in social housing is because of having been forced out of private rental, either because of price or the general insecurity of it.

I've never been in need of social housing but I understand that people do rely on it, plenty of PP have said it stepped in when they needed help...if everyone buys their house...who will help the future families that are desperate?

Nah, really?

SH was set up to provide people with affordable housing.

Maybe you can answer the question about how the taxpayer forks out for council houses since nobody else is tipping up.

Gamerchick,
No really, I own my house outright. I bought my first house at 24 and now on house number 5. (i'm early 40's)

It doesn't mean that I don't have a social responsibility, morals or empathy. Far from it, I recognise my luxurious position.

take a look at families in America who are forced to live in cars....this is what happens when social housing is unavailable.

I have no idea what you are asking in your last question? (forks out for council houses)

Goady thread bringing the snobby council house bashing out.

You are talking shite bobby SH was created because we saw what state poverty had left working age men who were sent to war.

You are confusing SH with emergency or poor housing.

@England101 both my husband and I have always been tax payers. Like most of the working population

TheQueef. Working age men, that returned to live in slums!

The Addison act was set up to provide safe, secure homes for low income families. it was a response to the slums and coincided with slum clearance.

i'm not confusing anything, its history!

@Icantrememebrtheartist

Are you sure you’re being told the truth? It doesn’t add up.

MN is full of posters full of righteous indignation because their acquaintance’s cousin’s best friend’s cleaner’s step-uncle’s mother in law’s grandson’s fiancé’s employee’s sister got some privilege or benefit that said poster would have liked for themselves. I can never figure out how everyone seems to know so much detail about other people’s finances and personal lives when nobody I have ever met in real life talks about it. But it’s always TRUE.

@bobby6678

gamerchick, actually social housing was set up to help those in need. it was to aid low income families who were living in private rented slums. it offered security, safety, quality housing and guaranteed rents...

it was NOT set up to help people onto the property market.

This. ^

I don't blame anyone using right to buy, when you have lived in a council property for over 20 years you have probably paid what it would cost to buy. Every year after the first 5 years you get a further 1% discount up to the limit.

@Nat6999

I don't blame anyone using right to buy, when you have lived in a council property for over 20 years you have probably paid what it would cost to buy. Every year after the first 5 years you get a further 1% discount up to the limit.

Too right!

Some of the older council houses, with nice gardens, are really good places to live too, especially if not situated on an obvious council estate.

You can't blame anyone for seizing an opportunity to buy a property.

The eligibility for RTB was changed from five years public sector tenancy to three years in May 2015. So yes, any council tenant would be eligible to buy after 3 years, assuming they met the other eligibility criteria.

I've had a council tenancy for 22 years and I will be buying this year. I will get a 29% discount as the discount is capped at £110k where I am in London. I will continue to live here after I buy as I need the support network in the area. I've saved for a long time, and some of my income comes from disability benefits, but I work hard and have been careful with budgeting and investing to allow me to buy. I wouldn't be able to afford to buy in this area on the open market.

I don't consider myself to be fortunate to be in council housing, because I had traumatic and desperate circumstances which caused me to be given priority. It is shocking to me when people complain that they are stuck in private rentals and would never be given a council property when they live with their partner, both have good jobs and no health needs. I would certainly love to have been in a positon in life where I wasn't given the top band for the housing list, and hadn't been involved with police, social services, disability services and MH services who all wrote letters to support my application. My estate suffers from gang-related crime, most of my neigbours are in poverty and often have issues like DV/poor English/alcoholism, the local school is inadequate, so it's not somewhere anyone should envy from the privilage of being in private rental (where you can at least move into a better school catchment).

My council is a London borough and they do build new council properties - there is a large development being built on my road right now, and there have been quite a few other developments.

Oh do fuck off with the 'if you use RTB you are stealing housing'...

I bought my house, I'd lived and paid rent in council housing for 12 years before I bought my last house, full discount.

One of the reasons they were selling off houses is that the cost to maintain them to a decent standard was too much - my house needed a new kitchen, bathroom, flat roof to the outshed, new boiler and more, THAT is why it was so cheap.

I bought it with an inheritance, as the only way I was ever going to get on the housing ladder and have some security.

I sold it when I needed to move to be nearer my remaining family as my and their health deteriorated.

I now live in another ex council house that the former tenant bought on RTB and sold -such properties are always going to be the lower end of the housing sales market and this was the only way I could afford to move to a more affluent area to be near family.

Should I not have taken the opportunity put on my plate? Should I have attempted to buy somewhere ELSE for 47K? Do tell me where else I'd get a 3 bed semi with a decent garden for that, or the house I have now, a 3 bed terrace in a posher area... That wouldn't buy me a park home fgs.

@widdlinDiddlin Oh do fuck off with the 'if you use RTB you are stealing housing'..

Why did you end up in social housing? why didn't you buy a house 12 years ago?

lets go back 12 years and imagine there's no social housing available (due to RTB) what would you have done???
Every house that is sold is gone forever. Take a look at Shelters comments on RTB. More homes are sold than can ever be build.

Whilst I appreciate your need to profit, what happens to those in need going forward? ( You 12 years ago)

@bobby6678 it was more for the credit checks private landlords wouldn’t take us on.

Tbh it’s not in the greatest of areas our rent was only £340 per month if we rented private in this area it would have been £450 we also wouldn’t of had the expense of flooring and decorating also having to buy appliances such as cooker as social housing doesn’t come with.

It’s not a golden ticket people think. We had invested £1000’s getting the house to a liveable standard.

this thread is DRIPPING with jealousy!!

Not sure people objecting to tax payer money being misused can be called "jealousy".

Of course it's not jealousy. Has anyone been able to put forward a good reason for selling council houses at a discount when there is a housing crisis in the country?

@Chicchicchicchiclana

Of course it's not jealousy. Has anyone been able to put forward a good reason for selling council houses at a discount when there is a housing crisis in the country?

Errr my good reason is that I was able to provide a suitable home for my family, gave me an opportunity to own my own home and a better lifestyle.

Your telling me if you were offered £100k discount on the house you wanted to buy, you'd be worried about how it would have an impact on society? Nah I don't buy it, pun intended

i will be buying my housing association home and don't have an ounce of guilt.

you can all be as 'outraged' as you want to be, won't change a thing.

@GirlCrush

i will be buying my housing association home and don't have an ounce of guilt.

you can all be as 'outraged' as you want to be, won't change a thing.

of course not, but that's why we vote. And why the system is slowly, very slowing changing. Because it's so wrong and it must stop.

If you were in their position OP, would you have bought it, or would you have refused it on ‘moral grounds’? Genuine question.

@apooagnuandyou but its only 'wrong' in your opinion, and a few other mums netters on this thread....that is allots just an opinion

out there in the real day to day world nobody is saying its wrong, never heard that opinion before at all. Not from family/workmates/friends/acquaintances and certainly not from HA staff.

not at all

its just another (legitimate) way of becoming a homeowner. I'm sure many people own their homes in ways many others would hate,or 'vote against.'

We were in that position. We were fortunate enough to get a council house based on a points system in our area. However my husband had a good job and the rent was cheap so we saved a deposit. After 3 years we were told we could buy it at a 35% discount on the condition that it couldn't re sell at market value for sever years later. We decided it didn't feel morally right, despite it being the financially frugal thing to do. So we bought privately and saddled ourselves with a bigger mortgage
My council house was the best rental i had given we'd always been private to that (expensive and shoddy houses). It didn't seem right that my neighbour on min wage had to pay same as us and we had better income. But we wanted a secure long-term rental. Think this needs addressing.

Stolen? By paying the price asked of them? Must have an extremely different legal dictionary.

Anyway, it's also laughable that people are blaming Thatcher. She may have started it off but her government built MORE council houses a year than the Blair AND Brown governments did in 13 years. Damn those evil Tories.

Social housing was decent quality housing for working folk. If you ever want a chuckle, look up the hilariously one sided original tenancy agreements out. If you didn't keep that house to a high standard, you were out. It wasn't for people who wanted it all paying for.