Right to Buy.

[Differentforgirls]

Was “Right to Buy” a policy that has created the current housing crisis? I think it was.

Many people do.

A very big part of it is the monetisation of property (obviously further enabled by council houses not being readily available). A home should be a right, not an asset. But now people think it’s the norm and a business idea to build their ‘portfolio’ of houses to rent out to people in order to build profit for themselves. Again, a home is a home, not an asset. It is a right to have a roof over your head to keep you warm and safe

Yes & it’s caused so much damage.

Excellent their rent can be used to build more social housing.

RTB has decimated the decent affordable housing that this country needs. When it was first introduced tenants could get up 70% discount and the council was prohibited by the govt from using money recieved to replace housing stock. A huge percentage is now owned by private landlords who charge whatever rent they fancy and can remove tenants pretty much at will. Even those houses that have been resold on to owner occupiers are not available as affordable secure accommodation. Another Thatcher brainwave along with the privatisation of our railways, national utilities and deregulation of the banks that have left this country in the mess it’s in now.

Most people in council housing are not well off
My social housing housing is not in a desirable area
Its not somewhere I would choose to live given the choice
And i cant imagine many well off people choosing to live here.

Tenants die. Maybe half of those who exercised right to buy would have died by now.
Tenancy succession needs to go too. Most children are not able to stay living in family owned homes when their parents die so there's no reason why those in social housing should have the right.

The children dont have a an automatic right to stay
Usually there csn be only one succession of tenancy
I have a joint tenancy with my husband if i die before him he succeeds the tenancy as a single tenant and vice versa our kids have no right of succession.

I agree with this.

Of course it has contributed but just as much is the huge increase in the population over the last 50 years and also the huge rise in single occupant households. That’s has risen from approx 10% to 30% in the same time period. Those households are single older people and households created by relationship breakdowns and change in societal expectations. Two of my friend’s children are buying houses solo, no waiting for a partner. There is no morale debate here it’s just factual information in a huge change in societal expectations and practices.

Yes it probably did. The first right to buy scheme was in 1980. Many of the people who bought would have passed away by now, and even if they'd rented for their whole lives, their homes would eventually returned to the council for other users, instead of which they are in private hands. The council homes used by people our family were being refreshed for use by other families within a month of the occupants passing away.
It's also means that more recently people have paid huge sums for home that are no different to council flats - one in our old block went for £385k in 2024. This can lead to resentment towards council tenants in the same development if they are (usually inaccurately) perceived as being given something identical for free when other people are working long stressful hours to pay for it.

That wasn't a failure by councils though, it was in the rules: the receipts from selling the properties had to be used to reduce councils' borrowing.

Things may be different now, but back in the 80s and 90s, all council borrowing had to be approved by central government, so they couldn't borrow more money to build more homes, either.

I will thanks!

The point I was making was there’d be a churn of tenant every 50 years
also some family members may take over the tenancy .it would of made minimal difference on the housing crisis

personally I don’t agree with RTB as everyone who has done it has just waited minimum term the sold and profited

I think it should have been sold one build one , any discount should be paid back
make them lease hold with council being lease holder
no subletting clause.
if they wanted to sell they should offer it back to council at discounted price .
if you bought it at 20% discount
if you sell they should pay back 20% of current market value. But also you first have to offer it back to the council with a 30% discount
this would weed out people wanting to make a quick profit
put if people wanted a home to make there home there own

Hasn’t she just 🤬

I’m not council tenant bashing. Most people I know were brought up in council houses, including me!

👏👏

YABU OP for starting yet another council house thread. It's a bit hypocritical to say it was a mistake when you've bought one yourself. You could have yanno, not.

It might not be a waste if the property is in an area where house prices are relatively low.

A PP upthread said that her DF had a two bed flat with garden that was worth under £100k. I live in the south east, and any two bed flat in my area is going to be more than double that, probably 2.5 x if it has a garden.

The costs of building from scratch, aside from the cost of buying the land, will be pretty much the same wherever it is. In an area where property is relatively cheap, it could well be cheaper for an LA to buy on the open market than to buy land and then build on it. Quicker, too: no need to get planning permission or go through the tender process for the build.

There is not an issue with tenancy succession.
There are always articles in papers about an adult child being living in a council property being made homeless because their parent has died.
Tenancy succession usually only applies once. If one parent dies, then the tenancy goes to the their spouse. It does not go to their children.
DF died this year so the tenancy went to DM. With no succession of tenancy in place, she should would have been made homeless. That makes no sense. Thankfully, there are rules about it, and she can stay as long as she wants.

I haven’t bought a council house. No idea why you think I have?

IMO it’s at least partly soaring house prices, with rents alongside, and that’s been happening in so many countries, not just the U.K. Sweden and Australia are just two I know of personally.

Of course Right to Buy was misguided, but house prices were far more affordable when it was introduced. What especially pisses me off is people ranting on about Thatcher and RTB - Labour had 13 years in which to change that law, but they never did - could that possibly be because they thought it’d lose them votes?

Added to which, more than one of Gordon Brown’s measures, including scrapping mortgage interest relief for landlords, but not for owner occupiers, helped to rocket-fuel the huge rise in buy-to-let.

Did Labour reason that an explosion in rental properties would absolve them from having to bother about providing social housing?

i's a funny old world.

I remember a thread saying private landlords should give tenants the house once the mortgage is paid off as the tenant has paid for it.

Meanwhile, RTB is criticised as SH tenants who had paid rent for years were offered a discount to buy a home; they should have carried on paying rent.

Those who didn't buy (who apprently deserve a pat on the back up till this point) should be forced to move when their family moves out because they are selfishly blocking a family home. Unlike those renting privately who should be given the house.

I'm still trying to figure it out.

You no longer have the right to buy in Scotland.

My Mum lived in her HA house for 40 years. When she died it went back to HA stock. 3 people have lived there in my lifetime.

If it had been sold, it would only have been used by my Mum.

My parents could have bought their council house, but wouldn't. My leftie DF was adamant that the house was built for people who really needed it, and that it should go to someone else who needed it when they died.

And it did, and bloody quickly. The council showed the new tenant round while I was still clearing the house!