AIBU to think right to buy scheme should be scrapped?

[MumOfTheNorth]

There was a debate on LBC today about the shortage of social housing and the presenter said no party would support scrapping the right to buy scheme as it is too popular.

To me it seems mad to be selling off social housing at a discount, further depleting our national stock of social housing, despite thousands of people being on waiting lists.

I get it is a massive boost for the person you sell it to but in the long run wouldn't keeping it help more families in need?

I hope this isn't massively controversial - genuinely interested in if there is huge support for this scheme and if so why?

YANBU.

And in terms of "It would be fine if the council replaced the properties sold", that is not going to be possible if they sell at a discount, which they do.

It was never RTB that was the issue, it was Thatcher telling councils that the sale money could not be used for more house building.

One council was given special government dispensation to use the untouched RTB fund to pay a property developer after Slough Estates sued them for a breach of contract, with a payout over £31 million.

You have to factor in that, especially since the pensions crisis & recession in 2008, council properties have not had the refits & regular maintenance due to lack of funds. Repairs are made using substandard materials (which often need replacing within a couple of years), or planned kitchen & bathroom replacements are shelved. Friends who are council surveyors say that any remedial work they suggest, unless life threatening, won’t be carried out, so we’re left to read stories in the press, National and local, about black mould deaths due to mould, collapsed ceilings because leaks go unfixed, or boiler repairs delayed or cancelled during winter affecting the elderly.

Councils use the rent money to patch holes in council budgets, not on their housing stock. And most housing is paid by rents by working folk, not housing benefit.

A few years ago, in the midst of this century’s house price boom, the same council had a story leaked (with documents) that they were planning to sell their entire stock to a housing association for £15k per property, tenanted, as that was all it was worth, due to years of underinvestment.

Current housing stock is not the panacea you think it is.

We need more low value housing built, and as a nation we need to shift our priorities away from seeing housing as a wealth generator or quick way to make a few quid, away from BTL rents of 150% of mortgage payments, away from asset hoarding which then stand empty, away from second homes used at weekends and summers whilst families can’t afford to live in the coastal areas they were born, and move towards a view of houses, social and private, as an affordable thing for everyone.

What about people who live in 3 4 and five bedroom council homes alone as their children have flown the nest and because they have lifetime tenancy they don’t have to move out ? the elderly lady next door as lovely as she is currently occupying a four bedroom council house and there are several others like her on my estate. The house doesn’t belong to her but it might as well do , there would be no difference if she bought it . Why doesn’t your point address these situations as well?
You’re a whole families, living in one room, hostels whilst people whose children have flown the nest, occupying large houses by themselves and only using one room

My dad bought his house under our TV in 1988, and we are all still living in it. Had he not bought his council house we all would’ve acquired a council house each but currently we are all living in one house years later
It’s the same for most other families, I know under R&B, not everybody is selling them off down the river

I think another issue is people buying what would normally be classed as starter homes, so 1/2 bed houses and flats and turning them into holiday homes and air b&bs etc. This has happened where I am, landlords have bought most of this kind of house, stopping people being able to get onto the property ladder, meaning more people are forced onto social housing lists as there are no affordable houses. I really think it should be banned. These landlords are making an absolute fortune charging hundreds a week for people to holiday in their multiple properties, whilst there are thousands of people who can't even find anywhere to live!

Sorry for the typos!

RTB would have been fine if councils had replaced the stock. That's what should be happening.

Your argument does not make any sense

Right to buy does not in any way deplete housing stock - it isn't "right to demolish" is it.

People are still living in the property after it is bought, mostly the same people, and now with a chance to improve their circumstances, and at less cost to the council, as they take over the responsibility for upkeep.

It shouldn't be possible to rent out a right to buy property as a landlord though, and the council should be using the profits to invest in further housing - that is the point

Yanbu, they just get sold on for a massive profit. It should have been scrapped years ago.

Yes it's time it went.
Britain today is vastly different in so many different ways to the late 70's early early 80's when RTB came in.

We need every single council house to stay available for rent and a few thousand more being built in every local authority area as well

The Tories scrapped lifelong leases, they're usually 2/3 years now. I had a friend who got a HA house had to carpet it and provide all kitchen appliances. Her rent was higher than mine and I'm in a private rental with all those things included and her lease was only 2 years.

I think if i ever met you, i would really like you.

The whole premise was bonkers and it's crazy that no government has rectified the madness. The idea itself is sound, i.e. being able to buy the house you've rented for years, but the discounts were way too high, and the monies raised should have been compulsorily re-invested in replacement homes, not just languishing in council bank accounts earning paltry interest (or stupidly invested, and lost, in Icelandic dodgy banks).

And there needs to be a law to prevent a right to buy house ever being used as an Air BNB or holiday let! In fact, the buyers shouldn't be allowed to even rent it out. It should be on a kind of long lease, where they live in it for their lifetime and then the council have to buy it back at market value when they die, to put back into the council rental market stock. Cut the investors out completely!

Absolutely should be abolished. A very common situation is a older couple occupying a decent sized council house. They sit on Housing Benefit/Housing Costs Element of UC for years effectively living rent free. Then when one of them dies, the family swoop in and purchase the property under RTB before the other one also dies or goes into care. So the taxpayer gets to pay both ways. If you can't get a mortgage in your own name as a tenant then you don't get to buy. A reminder that adapted properties are exempt from RTB before anyone starts moaning on

Spare room subsidy should be extended to older tenants, and the Housing Act completely rewritten to ensure social housing goes to those who appreciate and deserve it. Because housing is needs based now, mixed estates don't exist and that can often lead to downward spirals. A massive amount of fraud is involved in obtaining social housing and this needs to be addressed, the trouble is many councils are simply incapable of managing their housing stock effectively

It should have been scrapped years ago. Labour are very good at bewailing Thatcher’s introduction of it, but they had 13 years in which to abolish it - but didn’t.
Presumably because they thought it’d lose them votes.

Though in fact it had been going on to some extent well before Thatcher. A dd bought an ex council house which (as dh found out from a good old nose on the Land Reg) the former owners had bought from the council in 1971 - well before Thatcher.

They had paid almost exactly 1% of what dd paid.

Not true. Building a house costs less than the price the buyer pays or constructions companies wouldn't build them.

Councils use the rent money to patch holes in council budgets, not on their housing stock.

They don’t. The housing account is ringfenced.

If this country wasn't so obsessed with "owning your own home' as the ultimate goal there wouldn't have been a need for it. People look down on social housing and even now, when SH is the most secure affordable housing there is, above private rents and those suffering with their mortgages. People still want to look down on it.

It's weird.

Right to buy should be scrapped immediately. It was always going to cause problems and Labour should be at the forefront of ending it. A tiny minority benefit and I don't think it is the vote loser they think it is. All the major parties are avoiding tackling the woeful housing crisis we have in the U.K. and the knock on effects on people's finances, physical and mental health.

It should never have been introduced in the first place and I'd vote to have it scrapped.

Labour had 13 years to end it and not even a squeak from them. They've got their snouts in the trough re making money from housing, so won't want to rock the boat. House prices and rentals shot up during Labour's 13 years - snouts in the trough.

I brought on my own - ex council house done up to sell, at the time the owner had to keep the property for 3 years. I think an elderly person brought the property or her family did - and sold it to me.

I could afford this on x3 salary £35K

My friends did the same. Sold 4 years later £30K profit.

The issue isn’t council housing V rented - it’s the fact eh population is growing wildly and housing is in short supply - which drives up the cost.

Have we enough council properties
Prices would be lower and people could afford their own home.

The RTB scheme is massively unfair and I agree it should be scrapped. It should have been scrapped a long time ago.

There are many people who would benefit from social housing but have not been fortunate enough to have been granted it. Instead they have struggled to pay private rents prices leaving them unable to save and have lived with the insecurity that private renting brings. At the same time, those who were lucky enough in the first place to be allocated social housing have had lower rent to pay so had more opportunity to save. Then to add insult to injury those people are also offered a massive discount in a house and never have to pay moving costs.

It is a huge advantage in life for those who are lucky enough to benefit from it and simultaneously takes opportunity from others who needed it as much if not more. It is crazy that the government actively chooses to perpetuate this inequality.

Wow really? I didn't know that, I got mine a long time ago. I do know they usually come without carpet now though!

The mechanism needs to change. The money goes to central government and it should go to the LA and be ringfenced for reinvestment into provision of social housing. They could also put a covenant in that any resale within 30 years which generates an uplift in value, the LA gets a % of the uplift.