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?

For long term council tenants, buy the house they already live in makes sense because the council no longer has to maintain it IF that money is ring fenced to build replacement housing stock.

The huge gains in value are pretty regional too, the person I know bought their 3 bed council house in 1985 for £32k and sold for £98 in 2018, this is not a huge gain, they would have made more investing the money! Because a few london house owners hit the jackpot doesn't mean that's the case everywhere, especially ne England and parts of the midlands

Yes but what about those who have parents who own homes and then give them money from the bank of mum and dad for house deposits etc, and then they inherit money too? That's also perpetuating inequality, is it not?

I also agree and have been saying this for years.

YANBU but the housing situation is much bigger than that and needs tackling as a whole.

We need rent controls for private rentals, and secure tenancies.

We need to ban second home ownership.

Buying and renting property should not be seen as a legitimate way of making money. Being a landlord is not a job.

We need to ban the purchase of property in London in particular by foreign investors under the guise of companies.

As a start.

The thing is, if the scheme didn’t exist social housing capacity wouldn’t increase because the tenants who no longer had the right to buy would just stay there.
People forget that as a tenant you may be able to receive greater benefits if needed, such as money towards rent, but as owners you don’t get help towards mortgage payments.
What should have happened is that councils who have benefitted from this scheme in monetary terms should have had systems in place whereby all profits from the Right to Buy scheme should have been ringfenced into a fund that pays for new social housing.

I agree.

The tenants get a life tenancy so a home for life. With the shortage of social housing it seems mad that government are still selling those houses off.

Yes it is, and private individuals are at liberty to do that with their own earned and taxed money. That doesn’t mean the state should be doing the same. Parents have a responsibility towards their own children. The state has a responsibility towards everyone and shouldn’t be actively giving some people an advantage over other others, especially when there is a housing crisis.

It shouldn't be automatic lifelong housing. I know people who were given 2/3 bed houses years ago to raise their families. Those kids have left home and the tenants still live there, some are subletting! Others are doing v well financially now with holiday homes abroad and still clogging up social housing here, that just isn't fair, but they're not doing anything illegal, just a bit immoral, but nobody addresses that...

A significant proportion of RTB's are now being rented out with full or partial housing benefit paying the rent. So the house that was built to support those in need, is being lived in by those in need but instead of the reduced rent burden, the state now contributes the inflated rent and effectively pays the mortgage on a property that it once owned. It's crazy!

But the council would be selling at a 30-55% discount (including on land value, which makes up a huge proportion), and then acquiring or using land at 100%. No construction company would do that in any area with high land value (where most demand is), and no ability to set price.

I bought my council house on the RTB 25 years ago, I paid £28.5k, 2 bed, the mortgage was cheaper than my rent, for me the RTB scheme was my only chance of home ownership as a single working parent who could never have afforded to buy a house otherwise.
I never gave a thought to the repercussions of the scheme, the lack of social housing it would cause, for me it was an opportunity and I grabbed it with both hands.
I recently sold for £200k more than I paid for it but in my defense my new house is also an ex council that was bought by the previous owner on the RTB.
On my estate there's probably more bought houses than council owned.
The plus side of this is the estate has become a nicer place to live.
Before anyone jumps on me, when I moved here 30 yrs ago our estate was practically a no-go area, taxi drivers didn't come onto the estate, buses wouldn't come up here, gangs roamed freely causing mayhem, police were attacked if they came onto the estate (I once saw a policewoman being chased by a knife wielding youth), cars set on fire, burglaries (stealing from people who didn't have anything to begin with), targeting families who didn't fit in with violence and smashing their windows.
As people bought houses and took care of them the trouble families became the minority.
Now, even though I benefited from the scheme, I do think it needs an overhaul, young families don't stand a chance.
When I first went on the waiting list I waited three weeks for a property, unheard of now.

I'm in a council property and I would support the scrapping of RTB. They would have to write it into new tenancy agreements though. I live on a 'council estate' and I would say around 60 percent of the houses are owned after RTB tenants bought them years ago, so I think it's probably too late to make a real difference.

However, I would only relenquish my RTB if I knew there was something in my tenancy that meant my daughter would have right to rent the property should something awful happen to me. I'm a single mum and she's got no-one else and I wouldn't want her thrown into the awful world of private renting in her late teens/twenties with no family to fall back on. That's my main incentive for one day wanting to use my RTB- to give her security in this crazy housing crisis. I think the right to inherit a tenancy should be means tested though. Not just automatically kick a grown child with no ability to buy somewhere, out of a property to give it to someone else who is in the same situation as the deceased tenant's family. That makes no sense to me- the person being kicked out, is in just as much need as the new person being given the home. I don't see RTB as being the main issue in the housing situation but something people jump on, driven by all the other issues in the housing market. It all needs reworking to be fair for all.

But a lot of the money has not been earned, has it? The profit has been made through our broken housing 'market'.

The whole system is broken.

I have always thought social housing should be kept for people who need it not sold off cheaply.

Some could say it's immoral for people to buy up family homes and rent them out for 1500 quid a month. Before anyone takes a look at SH, I'd take a good look at the private rental thing first. Long and hard.

It could be phased out gradually so it's not a giant change. But honestly what they should really do is just replace the stock.

I think it's a good idea in general to have government contracts for housing, both building and renting. It means you can stipulate minimum standards etc while leaving the wider market open for more variety.

At the very least the councils should have been allowed to use the revenue from council house sales to build more houses, but that’s not what Thatcher wanted. She wanted to create more Tory voters.

I'm against it.
As far as I know, council tenants already have assured tenancies at decent rent so don't need to buy whereas for private renters, buying a house takes them out of a precarious situation, reliant on the whims of their landlords.

It's up to the local authorities & government to build more council stock which they didn't do which is the real disgrace about right to buy.

However people are less likely to strike, etc if they have a mortgage to pay - just being cynical.

Right to buy should be removed from future council tenancies just as there was the cut off date for multiple child benefit.
It has to end sometime.

RTB has been scrapped in practice, if not in law, for the majority. It's one of the major reasons that many councils handed over their housing stock to be managed by housing associations or set up ALMOs, as RTB doesn't apply to HA tenancies. There is no benefit to councils to lose their housing stock, they don't even receive the money for the property (it goes to central government)

I've just bought my home on rtb. In Northern Ireland although it's permanently over now. It was my only chance at owning a home and give my family security. It feels amazing and only completed last Friday. I get what some of you are saying but if it was any of your only opportunity to buy would you not then in my position 🙄

I am in your position and am not buying my place. There's not enough secure housing as it is, I want my home to benefit someone else struggling when I die. My DS will have the opportunity to create his own security by living at home as long as he wants until he can save enough to buy his own home, I did not have that opportunity.

It should never have been brought in in the first place!!!

The impact has just been catastrophic on social housing!

Absolutely- ridiculous policy which has been disastrous for this country!

Fully agree with right to buy realistically a lot of these homes would have the same lifetime tenants so unlikely they’d be freed up to house people

BUT when they come to sell they can only sell back to local authorities at the same discounted rate they bought at

A lot of those lifetime tenants will have died since 1980.