Right to Buy.

[Differentforgirls]

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

Someone further up the thread said that no socialist could approve of right to buy - I think that's a tad harsh.

Like I said before the decision my mum made to buy her home was her income. As soon as she bought it she was paying half of her rent and if she hadn't bought it she would currently be paying around 7k a year off a 23k income - she's in a council estate where people pay more rent

It doesn't sit easily with me that there are families across the road from me who will be charged 900 quid for their flat even if the dwp pay it when I'm paying 380

It is wrong - but there's not enough support for single people who don't earn much to buy either

And wages don't help either. When my brother started his job 17 years ago he was on min wage and his wages were so shit he claimed WTC.

❤️

Sorry, if I wasn't clear. I meant if the house had not been bought so the council still owned it.

Sorry this is nonsense. The number of houses sold on my small estate alone, which forms just one of many estates in my small town, definitely runs into treble figures.

The Greater London Council used to do exactly that. A few friends bought their first homes with GLC mortgages back in the 1970s. They were at a slightly lower interest rate than bank/building society mortgages and would lend 100% of the purchase price. My then BF and I nearly bought a house on that basis, but the survey threw up several issues and it was downvalued, so we couldn't proceed.

I don't think councils are allowed to do it now.

No thought was given that many of these houses would end up in the private rent market.

Absolutely, the policy was only considered regarding what would happen in the short term. Eg wouldn't it be nice if existing council tenants could own there own homes. There was no regard to what would happen in the longer term.

I don't understand why this matters so much. Three people on my housing estate owned. What does it matter if one person bought their council house or 300 people did - I personally am not responsible for the fact that my council haven't built more houses - and right to buy is no longer available in Scotland

I am not responsible for a housing crisis. No one who bought a council house is responsible.

And if Scotland and Wales can stop right to buy - why can't England?

How am I responsible for Thatchers policy?

I wasn't saying that it matters so much. I was simply pointing out that the previous poster was factually incorrect when she said The number of houses sold under RTB is so infinitely tiny compared to the total number of houses in the UK. Although if only one person bought their house, would have much more stock. I believe there have also been restrictions on councils building more houses and, in many London boroughs there would be nowhere to build them anyway.

But, as you say, RTB is no longer available in Scotland and Wales and the current government as greatly curtailed the amount of discount available for RTB in England, which seems fair as it should generate more income for replacement. I think that policy has rather gone under the radar - I only found out about it via mumsnet!

No one has said you are. We are talking about the policy and how it affected the current housing crisis.

The evidence shows that it did.

I won't be posting on this thread again. I really have had enough. As some people know I'm sure when I was moving house after my flat was sold I was dealing with the aftermath of being stalked. Im still not well six years on - and I need out

You have a council house. You should not have it. You buy one. That's wrong

I am poor and it's just awful all round because nothing you do is right for some people on mumsnet. Everything is wrong

I bought my flat on one of the toughest areas in my home town that no one wanted to live in or buy a flat in and I'm still wrong

My life is shit. I hope that the person on here who was shouting at me yesterday on another post saying just get a job actually realises that I spent most of my life working. Then I was stalked but don't worry I lived off the money from my flat sale

Then I smashed my leg to pieces - so I'm the very bottom of the pile.

Honestly fuck it

I'm not convinced that it did, tbh.

It didn't make the homes that were already there go away. The real issue has been increasing population, smaller families living together, and lack of new housing initiatives from state or private sector.

The logic of allowing it was that people stuck living their whole lives in a council house were basically throwing their money away as renters. Unlike home owners who had a real asset that could be used for example as security for a loan. So the less well off were never able to use their assets to begin to accumulate wealth and better themselves in other ways, unlike the middle classes who had the wealth to begin to accumulate assets. So would always be ahead.

Lots of them did use that ownership to ascend to the middle class, .

My parents have been renting their council property for over 40 years. Yet I was told (on the recent thread about council housing) that they were still being subsided by the tax payer (despite them paying rent on not being on benefits).

My DF was always against buying their house, despite the fact they would have had a nice discount. DM always wanted to buy. They could not agree so it never happened. He died 6 weeks ago. It is too late for my mum now.... so she is staying put... and that is wrong too!

I don’t think your parents are wrong. The problem in here us that people are obsessed with money and being middle class. Good for them!

Yes and now people are chucking their money away to the private landlords who ended up with the council houses!

The high cost of housing is an intentional act by governments of all types perpetually printing money and devaluing the money in your pocket. It makes workers poorer and asset owners richer.

It is not accidental or incompetence. Inflation and money printing is one of the greatest crimes committed by governments against their own people and goes back centuries when gold coins were clipped to reduce their value. It is the main cause of the huge disparity of wealth between boomers and the generations that followed them.

The lack of new housing stock is caused by ridiculous planning regulations and blocking of projects by already wealthy asset owners trying to protect the value of their own homes.

@Sparron

(Sticking my oar in again)

The housing crisis being caused by ‘ridiculous planning regulations’ is one of the greatest cons of our time. Now, why do you think a system that was set up to help make sure that development favours the health, prosperity and interests of the British public would be being touted and ‘ridiculous’ and ‘unnecessary’ ‘red tape’??

Im going to resort to a copy, paste and reference because I have just about run out of steam but I think that this is a very important message for the British public to understand…

’[…] In fact, local planning authorities are approving more than enough planning permissions to exceed the government build target of 300,000 homes every year. The problem is not the number of planning consents or the supply of housing land. The problem is with the landowners, promoters and developers who hold these consents. The problem is that these homes are just not being built.

[…] Housebuilding in this country is concentrated in the hands of ten volume builders who operate across both land and housing markets. In order to meet the cashflow needed to acquire a housing land pipeline, these companies have developed a stop-go model of building. They use a standardised and limited housing design palette to provide predictability in pricing, and employ a casual, semi-skilled workforce that only builds houses at the rate they are sold.

[…] the housebuilders have among them around 1 million plots with planning permission but have not built them out. In addition to this, they own or have options on thousands of hectares of ‘strategic’ land in their land banks. It is simply not part of their business model to build out their consents or land banks because that would bring down house prices and land prices […]

[…] Let us not also forget that on top of the land banking, the housebuilders and landowners and their financial backers have over decades been quietly capturing the lion’s share of the gigantic amount of land value created by the grant of planning permission. They have captured £billions of this increase in value, while the community gets crumbs. The National Housing Federation estimates that in 2016/17, landowners in England made £13
billion in profit from land sales (up from £9 billion in 2014/15), more than double the total profits of Amazon, McDonalds and Coca-Cola put together […]’

(Source: https://www.tcpa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TheWrongAnswers.pdf - well worth a full read!!)

In summary, we are but crabs in a bucket.

I don't know anyone who ascended to middle class really from purchasing their council house. Mostly they are still in them or have passed away
I only know two couples who sold and moved elsewhere.

The one couple sold the council house to buy a nicer house. That money wisely invested in the hope of leaving some inheritance for their kids is being blown on nursing home fees.

Others have sold and moved into Sheltered housing, and moving money on to their kids while they are able to do so.

The whole system is designed to keep working class people down. Very difficult to be upwardly mobile in the UK

It’s very common for people on mumsnet to believe owning a home make you middle class.

add Parents who RTb in the 80s with children who went to university in the Blair years and that’s firmly middle class in MN land.

i don’t agree, but they’ll argue until the cows come home

But you didn't have to buy in your 20s. You could have bought in your 30s or 40s like so many of us have to (if we can ever buy at all!)

You could have used the large lump sum you got for selling your former council flat as a deposit.

So many of us are on extremely low incomes (less than a teacher) yet having to pay extortionate rents because there weren't enough lovely cheap council homes to go round. Honestly sometimes people living in council housing or who have received other help don't seem to realise they are not the poorest of the poor.

Out of interest, how would you have felt if right to buy had a clause that meant when the property was eventually sold, it had to be sold back to the council (or at least they get first refusal) at the same discount as it was bought? That's the only thing I can think of that would remotely justify right to buy.

Yes, I’m aware of that. I don’t think the OPs thread is about it coming to an end though, more about the impact it has had over the past 30 years on the housing market now.

Wasn’t going to buy my CH but now in the process of buying because

a) there’s that much hate and fury regarding lifetime tenancies I now have a fear that this right will be removed. So I now feel less secure, hence me buying it.

b) rent was affordable when I moved in 6 years ago at £405 a month. I now pay £795 a month. Up and up and up it goes, to the point where a mortgage on it would now be cheaper (bloke next door bought his and his mortgage is around the £500 a month mark)

So why on earth would I choose the most expensive option? So it is what it is and it will be mine soon.

Exactly. The argument needs a trajectory upwards not downwards. Those at the bottom don’t have the power to change anything whilst those at the top do

Indeed. Borrowing money to buy a house does not make anyone middle class. It makes them unable to secure housing in any other way. That then creates all the jealous bile towards those who have

I wasnt in a position not to buy because of my principles. I was poor. And as I said I lived on a housing estate that was knocked down because no one wanted to live there

My mum was in the same position - if my dad and my brothers dad had actually stepped up and paid her an appropriate amount of child maintenance she might have been in a position to buy elsewhere

She would have struggled badly in retirement if she hadn't bought her council house

It feels personal. The comments about me not being left wing feel personal