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?

Just out of interest, how much is your rent and how many bedrooms?

Well life isn’t fair but it’s rare the poorer and more financially vulnerable people get a leg up so I can’t get excited about it tbh
The housing market isn’t a level playing field when you look at societal advantages and disadvantages overall so on that basis, yabu.

@Paintballmaker i agreed with the system even before I had this property 🤣🤣 I was facing homelessness with 3 small children and I STILL agreed with it.. also no it’s not the immigrants fault, it’s the government’s fault.. yawn when people try to summarise shit on here and fail badly😅

What does that prove though, other than house prices change.

My parents bought a house for 50k. They sold it for 90k. Those buyers sold it for 1.5m.

The difference is of course my parents bought it in 79. Sold it in 96. The people they sold it to, sold it a couple of years ago and i assume installed a non-victorian era heating and electrical system, open plan dining/kitchen/conservatory wanker extension on the back and changed all the carpets to grey.

(Ok yes I looked).

House prices change. My mums first house cost 2k. Last i looked it sold for 350k. A mere difference of some 50 years.

I bought mine. I got £9k discount with right to aqquire.

I feel no guilt about it at all.

I had to spend a fair whack to get it decent for market rent when I moved in. And spent three years pouring money into it because the council wouldn't fix anything!

Garden was rat infested with crazy paving on the grass so couldn't even mow it.
Front and back.

No flooring in any of the rooms. This standard where I live.

Every wall in every room needed re plastering.

Kitchen was dog chewed and doors were hanging off. Worktops all scratched to actual fuck.

Bathroom had the toilet leaking for the whole time before I replaced it. I could smell the rotten wood and every time they said it was fixed. It wasn't ever fixed. Luckily it was the clean water not the waste pipe.

Every single internal door was punch or kicked in or missing.

There was not one room that was ok.

Lots of these places are like this.

These are just the things I can remember.

It was a shithole.

And by market tent I mean what they were charging me at the time

Yes, in the past it made sense to go on council housing waiting lists. These days you'd be hughly unlikely to get a home unless you were in extremely dire need, though, so you'd have to have terrible things happen to you first, not really an easy option.

I am quite surprised at some of these responses.

There have been several threads of people benefiting off the system and the majority of posters have been supporting it.

One poster had a council home and was renting her spare rooms out as an air B&B and one poster inherited money and she was advised to stay in her council house but buy other properties to rent out for extra income.

These sorts of things get support but right to buy is somehow wrong.

My parents could've bought their council house for next to nothing,they didn't because they never agreed with the RTB.

The RTB scheme isn't as generous now as when it was first introduced. The discounts on full market value now are far less than on tenancies started more than 20 years back. As a single waged household even with RTB discounts my property is still unaffordable for me to buy and this will be there case for many others in council properties today. Even if I could afford a mortgage (if it was similar to my rent for example) then I wouldn't be able to afford repairs and upkeep on my wage.

For me, I'm likely to always be a tenant. I'm very fortunate to be a tenant with a realistic rent rather than the highly inflated private rents. I'm also fortunate that all major repairs and renovations aren't mine to afford. The counter to that is i will always have to pay rent and be at the mercy of the system until I die and I will leave no inheritance for my children, but at least they had a roof over their heads as they grew up.

What bugs me more are the people who, (and I see it regularly) used the right to buy to purchase their council houses, sold them, used the massive profit to move to a posher area, then complained like hell when any new social housing was built anywhere near them!

"Oh, we couldn't possibly live next to council tenants" ......The horror!! Well you wouldn't be in your posh house now if it wasn't for social housing so pipe down! 🤣

Everyone knows there is a lack of social housing so I never understand why government and local authorities allow housing stock which are assets that belong to the taxpayer to be sold off below market value.
It seems a disservice to me that houses are sold to allow people to become 'homeowners' to the detriment of those in the same situation behind them. If you are able to raise a mortgage with a bank purchase from the private housing stock so as not to deprive others of a home when in need.

Council/HA properties are not subsidised! They are rented out at the rate that they are affordable to sustain, and not to make profit. The only error has been not to replace those sold and that has been an utter travesty! Had they done that there wouldn't be the mad rise in private rental rates we have today - due to supply and demand! More social housing would mean cheaper rents/house prices all round. And that is what we should be fighting for! It's headed the way it has because greed for profit and backroom private developer deals overrule longterm sustainability.

The only unfairness about RTB is the sale value goes to central government not the local council who loses a property but doesn't get the funds to reinvest in a replacement property.

The tax payer doesn't fund council or social housing, they are priced as sustainable property ie they pay for themselves.

A poster replied to me I would say to you.
no I would never be at the mercy of a private landlord or pay their mortgage.

The point I was trying to make is there is a huge disparity between council and private. Private landlords do their properties up to meet the demands of prospective tenants and on the whole to a high standard. Then compare that to council housing you get what you are eligible for and it’s very very basic its bare floors etc. however I am extremely grateful for the position I’m in. Like others I would not be able to buy under the RTB unless I had a large win on the premium bonds.
With regard to RTB there have been people that I feel unethically milked it. For example bought grannies/older relatives house for cheap (they live elsewhere owned home) wait for gran etc to go and bingo huge profits for them. That was wrong.

It's absolutely not unfair to private home owners. If you can afford to buy your house at full price, you are not at a financial disadvantage in life in any way. No sympathy from me.

However I do think it isn't fair for people who can't afford to buy. As a housing association tenant myself who has the right to buy, I won't take advantage of it. There is such a shortage of these properties and I don't think it should be taken away.

That's very gracious of you @Beezknees but I'd rather pressure was put on the state to make it possible for more people to have the opportunity you do. It isn't your personal fault that there isn't enough social housing to go round and I wouldn't knock anyone who is able to progress to ownership in this way. Done correctly, it's a sustainable solution.

Plus, cheaper mortgages makes for more disposable income, which is also better for society!

Oh I agree, I know it's not my fault. But I was given this property when I was on my own living in temporary accommodation with a toddler. It's benefited me so much and I'd like to see it benefit someone else who is in the same position that I was. I accepted a long time ago that I'd never own and made my peace with it 😂

My own DS will have the opportunity that I didn't - to live at home and save to buy his own place so I won't have to worry about not having anything to leave to him.

But that implies that the house your parents bought was an ex council house so the people your parents bought from must have done RTB at some point. Hence your parents would not have been able to buy that particular house if it wasn't for RTB. Did they not realise when they bought it? And how could he justify being furious at the neighbours doing exactly what their own vendors had done?

It was an ex council house but interestingly the time lines don’t add up from memory. I need to go check if there was phases of it as we had lived there quite a while before the neighbour had the right to buy.

Actually, the unequal playing field is the differences in income. Some receive minimum wage incomes (if they are employed) whilst others receive 6 figure salaries. Everything else that stems from income differentials is ‘unequal’

It did get some families on the housing ladder and made them very happy - have you ever walked through a council estate and played spot the privately owned houses - there is 2 sides to it

Social houses should not be sold as it depletes the social housing stock.

That might be the case.

I was born and brought up in a council house. My parents would have loved to own it because my Dad, who was in the building trade, could see all sorts of improvements he would have liked to make if it was his.

I am pretty sure there had been a period of time, well before Thatcher government, when there had been a version of RTB. My parents couldn't afford it then and subsequently the policy was changed and that RTB withdrawn.

So yes I suppose your parents house may have been bought from council way before Thatcher. Doesn't really change the illogicality of your DFs fury at neighbours exercising RTB when they wouldn't have the house they were in without a similar, earlier policy!