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?

@Maggiesfarm they are very much 'family' type houses and area though if that makes sense. It isn't an area which would hold much attraction for a couple of friends sharing. And when you factor in the cost of childcare, maybe part time earnings its easy to see how families are priced out and indeed feel hard done by if their next door neighbours happen to be paying 400 as theirs is still council owned.
And easy to see why it would be tempting to buy it with your discount and then sell on .

Yes, sweeneytodd, I can see that.

I don't know what the answer is, short term. If there are government changes regarding housing, nothing is going to happen overnight.

We bought our first -dog-kennel- house before starting a family. It was grim but at least we got on the 'ladder' and it's history now.

Blame the system not the people who are advantaged by the system ,of course people who are offered a large discount on their council houses are going to take it ,they would be crazy not to,
Not everyone who lives in social housing will be massively advantaged however , I live in the North west in social housing,in a not particularly nice area ,my house is probably worth momabout £80,000 at the most ,I ,haven't the money to buy but even if I did and got a discount it wouldn't be huge and I doubt anyone would Want to rent it out due to the area and even if they did.the rent wouldn't be much more than social rent anyway

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

I also see photos of people trying to swap their properties on social media, these properties are beautiful, massive garden, great catchment schools

should they all be shit houses with no gardens near shit schools?

Some people would prefer it that way.

That way, the lower classes are kept in their place, and prevented from mingling with naice people.

@ilovesooty

Right to Buy should have been abolished years ago.

Yes, Blair should have done it when he had a chance. The Tories never will.

My husband bought his 3 bed council house many years ago. I think he paid about 40k for it with the discounts - it’s worth around 300k . It’s rented out for about £1100 a month
this is the prime example of exploiting the system, sheer greed.
Thankfully, here in Scotland, right to buy was abolished and nee social housing is being built.

In my community if a right to buy house comes up and if someone doesn’t have the money to huy, other relatives step in to help. So it’s not necessarily the case that they’re scamming the system.

@HerMammy

My husband bought his 3 bed council house many years ago. I think he paid about 40k for it with the discounts - it’s worth around 300k . It’s rented out for about £1100 a month this is the prime example of exploiting the system, sheer greed. Thankfully, here in Scotland, right to buy was abolished and nee social housing is being built.

Blame the system ,not the people taking advantage of it .

@x2boys
Yes let’s not have any morals or decency just blame someone else.

I hate the ability to RTB but I dont hate the people who choose to take up their RTB.

They could have had an inheritance.

Also, you dont necessarily have to be "in need" to qualify. Some areas of council housing have little to no demand due to external factors so a couple who both work ft could be shortlisted.

Also, if you qualify due to need, you dont get booted out when your circumstances improve.

Life's not fair ,it's the system at fault not people who are legitimately using it to their advantage and getting angry that a stranger on the internet has benefited from it isn't going to change the system.

Locally we have a lot of newly built housing estates where there have been a percentage of Social housing built and run by a Housing Association, including a few properties designed for Disabled living. Non of these places have a Right to buy for the occupier, nor do they stipulate that they can only be lived in by Employed applicants.
They are a right mixed bunch when it comes to size and quality, some are so tiny that a family of four would have no option other than to use bunk beds in the second bedroom as there’s no space to put 2 single beds side by side, and the downstairs is just one large room with open plan Kitchen, Lounge, and Dining area. The estate was built along the lines of providing starter homes for first time buyers, so these houses were accepted by the planners as being in keeping with the area.
The problem comes though when these families outgrow their 2 bedroomed properties due to children being of the opposite sex to each other and reaching the age deemed too old to share a Bedroom.
There is a large shortage of similar three bedroom properties under similar schemes mainly due to land prices and the fact that they can fit many more two bedroomed in than they can larger 3 Bed versions.
My Sister in law was lucky enough to be allocated a Disabled adapted property built on the edge of Greenbelt land, as part of the Social housing clause enforced on a developer who was building larger executive type properties, and managed to get permission to build larger but fewer Social housing properties on the site to allow for single story dwellings with good wheelchair access. The attitude of some of the local residents though has been less than welcoming, she has already been labelled a scrounger and reported to the benefits people who mistakenly thought that her new Motorbility WAV car was her own!
Just because these people could afford to buy their large fancy houses doesn’t give them the right to treat others that are renting the local Social housing with any less respect than they would expect themselves, but sadly it happens.

@ HerMammy
You would absolutely hate my husband 😂
After buying his council house many many years ago , He used that as a springboard into buy several buy to lets by remortgaging it as the prices went up .
He is pretty much retired at 54 and just manages the properties now . Only one has a small mortgage on . All the others have no mortgage .
I also bought my council house under RTB

And I don’t feel the slightest bit of shame for doing what’s perfectly legal and what was best for myself and my family,

As they say
Hate the game not the player

@Wegobshite
Hate the game not the player is just a get out, we are all capable of making good moral choices and not being blinded by greed.

[quote HerMammy]@Wegobshite
Hate the game not the player is just a get out, we are all capable of making good moral choices and not being blinded by greed.[/quote]
Is it always greed though, or just a way of making life more secure for self and family?

Those who I know who have bought their council homes have been far from greedy and really appreciated the opportunity to purchase.

I've never been a council or housing association tenant but I can imagine I would feel the same, and it would be nice for my children to have their own home.

I still don’t fully understand this system of allowing social housing or ha houses to be purchased. The waiting list gets bigger every week and yet they allow people to buy up houses that could go to people who have been on waiting lists for years. Also don’t get me started on the property tycoons who buy ex council houses and the rent them privately for huge sums of money . Just greed and very wrong in my opinion. Also one final rant why is it once a property owned by a local council or HA gets old they also sell them off to private buyers. They don’t want to invest money on repairs . The whole system is broken and very wrong.