Pressure is growing on the Government to scrap Right to Buy, after it emerged that councils in London are spending over £22m a year renting back homes that they once owned, to house homeless families.
According to answers to a Freedom of Information request, 42% of ex-council homes in London are now rented out privately. The figure is up from 36% in 2014.
Right to Buy in England is to be extended to social housing, with a trial in the midlands, where over 9,000 housing association tenants entered a ballot to buy their homes. The Government expects that there will be 3,000 actual sales.
In Scotland, Right to Buy has already been scrapped, in 2016, and the policy is due to end in Wales this weekend.
The latest Freedom of Information data has been published in report by Labour London assembly member Tom Copley, who said it would be “reckless” to continue with Right to Buy amid strong demand for social housing.
He said: “Something has gone very wrong when tens of thousands of homes built to be let at social rents for the public good are now being rented out at market rates for private profit, sometimes back to the very councils that were forced to sell them.”
He said some councils have bought back homes at more than six times the price they sold them for.
Housing minister Kit Malthouse defended Right to Buy, saying that since 2010, over 100,000 people had bought their homes, including 17,000 in London.
He said: “This Government is determined to make the dream of home ownership a reality for as many families as possible.”
Under Right to Buy, the maximum discount in London is £108,000; in the rest of England it is £80,900. In Wales, until this Saturday, it is £8,000. In Northern Ireland, it is £24,000.
Comments (4)
I hated it when someone who you knew had bought their place under the RTB scheme, and how much they paid (land registry) would then put it on the market a few years later for £100k more than they paid, and by Jingo didn’t they argue over ever offer or price reduction…
Should have been similar to the way a council with an aging population worked grants to adapt houses. If you sell within x years, you pay back x of what was ‘lent’ to you. I think it was a 10 year thing, within the 1st year, you paid back 90%, 2nd year 80% and so on. Stopped people getting the council to pay for improvements.
Social housing should be for social use, not for a profit making exercise
The right to buy was a conservative government (Mrs Thatcher) scheme of buying votes for the conservative party. The problem with right to buy was the massive discounts which was effectively asset stripping public/tax payers money. A small discount is one thing but the massive discounts were wrong. Several labour governments have been in power since and they chose not to change the system either so both political parties are at fault. This is the problem with political ideologies. Another way one might look at this is as a PFI scheme for housing i.e the homes are owned by others and rent is paid; the only difference is that the councils were forced into the sale to start with! Government/councils then complain when they don’t like market terms! ie market rents. Similar things are happening with hospitals and other schemes out there. So who is at fault for all this misery? lack of social housing etc politicians and governments! Who takes the **** and unrelenting attacks for their poor schemes and poor decisions? the poor old landlord/investor who is demonised by the same idiots who initiated the situation originally! In my world its called shooting yourself in the foot. Governments seem to be good at ******** up and turning it to be the fault of everyone but themselves.
Home ownership isnt a god given right it has to be earned, saved for and budgeted. Yes i understand that for many people home ownership is a difficult one to get on the agenda, but Right to Buy has never been and will never be a good idea. In my opinion it should only ever be considered if there is a restriction in place preventing the property from being rented out.
Allowing social housing tenants to buy a property at a much lower price than market value is hardly fair compared to first time buyers etc.