Right to buy - grossly unfair on private renters and private home owners

[Winterday1991]

Is it just me or is RTB grossly unfair. People that already have cheap subsidised rent and a secure tenancy can get over to £105k off the market value of their council property.

This seems so unfair to us who have to brought in the private market at full market price and private renters who often do not have secure long term tenancies. Why should the public subsidise this?

But you'd still need to work and save a deposit and pay a mortgage if you had right to buy.

I think you need to look up the meaning of "subsidised."

Social housing is not subsidised.

It's lower than most private rentals because private landlords make a higher profit, not because anyone subsidises it by paying part of the rent for the tenant.

Someone above posted what seemed and excerpt from the policy and it states clearly 3-5yrs.

I know in certain London boroughs the get access RTB after 5yrs, not 10.

edits for spelling

YANBU. I’ve seen a man who grew up in the house actually use this ‘right’ to steal the house from his mum. Then sold it at a massive profit after she died. He didn’t ever live there as an adult.

Personally I don’t give a fuck if someone wants to buy the council property they live in so they get to stay in a lovely area and send their kids to a lovely school and make a massive profit when its sold etc. That property belongs to the taxpayer. It should either stay as a council property or be sold to the public at market price with the profit going back to the taxpayer.

That may well be the case, but it is still very much a thing in several London boroughs for example.

Sorry should have said I've been a tenant for 10 years my bad

So it’s unfair for people to criticise a system the benefits you and immigrants are to blame for the whole situation. There, I’ve summarised it 😄

@Rosmaree This is common. My DHs relatives did this. It’s a form of investment if you are lucky enough to have elderly parents in a nice council house in a good area. These houses might need modernizing but the profits are huge. I’ve seen it done repeatedly. It was also common in the 50s/60s to choose to have a council house as you didn’t want maintenance costs or to borrow. It did allow for a higher disposable income for cars and holidays! Often these houses were bought up later.

Do not forget that Thatcher helped the parents of many by Right to Buy. She recognised that many council tenants could afford a mortgage (some had cash!) and wanted to join the house ownership boom. It appealed to the upwardly mobile. The mistake was not investing the profits in more homes. So the next generation didn’t get the same advantages as far fewer houses built. But Thatcher got the votes! It was typical government short termism and effectively bought votes.

@secretvictoria I remember reading this and I really was hoping it would come through. We now pay £2k a month on a house in rent, and would love have this reflected in how we could afford mortgage repayments.

It's frustrating because I would love the stability of Council houses or HA. A close friend has a council house 5 mins up the road and only pays £750 a month. She will also get right to buy. I'm not a bitch, I'm happy for her. But I do sometimes wish I had gone down the council route instead of private, I wouldn't feel the pressure of being uprooted every couple years and the rents are so expensive. Yet it will never be mine, the kitchen is 20 years old & well we are where we are. It's frustrating & keeps me awake most nights.

Gets rid of stock LA's don't want to bother maintaining any longer.

When i bought mine (yes, yes I know im such a steaming cunt! But do tell me where else I was buying a 2bed semi for 48k please?)... I had lived in it 10 years.

It needed a new kitchen, bathroom, insulation, half the windows doing, the heating system ripping out and starting again, the electrics were dodgy as fuck and each job we did revealed 20 more (peel some wallpaper... all the plaster falls off. Lift a floorboard, find the rest are rotten as are some of the joists... etcetc).

I'd been a good tenant - rent on time, repairs reported, nothing needing repair beyond usual wear and tear - but what I bought was a property that had been built with all the corners cut (And none square), that had then had 30 years of abuse and bodge repairs courtesy of the councils repair contractors.

I did those jobs, I rented it out when I had to leave the area and I sold it on paper for 12k ish profit, only when you take into account the work done in the years I owned it, no profit at all really!

Do ya think the LA put the sale price back into more affordable housing? I don't, though that is what they are supposed to do. They had first dibs to buy it back at market rate, didn't want it, they never do.

So yes, it might be a stupid scheme and it might be horribly unfair on those who never got their foot on that particular ladder.

However the RTB scheme is the only reason I am home owner (my current property was bought via RTB, sold to my sister then to me) and in terms of housing costs saved ot the LA, I can't even begin to count it. If they STILL had a duty to house me, I'd be costing them THOUSANDS a week now - and if I'd stayed a council tenant, they would have and now, I am disabled.

My recollection from studying social housing a long time ago is that the subsidy comes from government grants towards the original building costs. It's a capital subsidy rather than revenue. So if you were just charging rent to pay back the cost of the house-build, you could afford to charge less. But as far as I'm aware, that's not what the rent is based on.

Social rents are cheaper partly because they organisations which own them are not-for-profit. They also have housing stock from long before the huge price increases - BTL landlords have a much higher mortgage per propery than a housing association, so they have to charge much more. This is the benefit of social housing - it's a public good.

It says everything we need to know about how broken the system is. If you can afford to save 10 or 20k for a deposit for a mortgage of 100k ( surely most houses cost at least 100k these days), you do not need council housing. Hundreds of thousands of desperately poor people are waiting on social housing lists while people in well paid jobs sit in their council homes, buy them and then sell them for a profit.

Now I might be missing something but surely your mum did not need to buy the house in order to stay in the area ? Was she at risk of being evicted from her social housing ? I always thought social housing was the most secure housing to have. Private rent and mortgages do not feel more secure than social housing.

Study hard, get qualifications, go to university, start a decent career, work your way up and you could wind up earning six figures, as long as you don't mind working 70 odd hours a week of course, and you might then just be able to afford a decent house.

Or, don't bother, go on the council waiting list, get a property that way and save yourself the equivalent of five odd years salary in the discount you get through RTB!I

It's insane and unfair. No wonder Gen Z are known for their lazy work ethic. Maybe they've realised it's all a big con.

In many cases , the right to buy discount was the deposit. People didn’t save up 10 or 20k.

Why do tenants get a discount? Why don't they have to pay full price?

Yes. I dated a guy who's grandparent had RTB. He was a proper lefty and didn't understand that it contributed to the lack of housing.

Oh that's interesting, I didn't realise that.

Someone I work with bought their home under RTB with a substantial discount and now rent it out (for considerably more than they paid in rent or similar houses would now rent as social housing). They have bought a second home with their partner. The thing that made me sad (although is possibly a mortgage condition?) is that when looking for potential renters they wouldn't consider anyone in receipt of benefits.

Often can't get insurance if people are in receipt in benefits.

RRB shouldn't be allowed to rent out.

What the hell??

So anyone who comes from a poor background should not, in fact, be bothering to work towards a socially useful job?

I certainly agree that I shouldn't have bothered, not to help provide services for people like you.

Many of these houses are no longer classed as 'Council housing' though. So the link provided will only be for pure council hosting. In our county a while back it was all changed over to housing associations. Our housing association offers a 10k discount for tenants on right to buy, not everyone will be receiving over £50k if they choose right to buy.

Or do all of those things but become a public sector professional like a teacher or nurse and earn 40k if you're lucky.

I know of someone who bought a house for £107k (north Lancashire) but the previous owners did rtb and bought it for £7k

Well I would rather you feel sorry for ME please OP! My house would be sold on the open market at about £400k, but with the RTB all I can get as a discount is £96k. So I need a £300k mortgage. Which is never going to happen.

Yet if I lived the the north, that £96k discount would be enough for 50% off a nice house, as houses are so much cheaper there.

How unfair is THAT??! So unfair, I think I will have a tantrum like you are and stamp my feet! Or maybe not, because I am a grown up and take things on the chin and try to be happy for others.