Right to Buy
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Latest property news
Right to Buy worsens housing crisis
The Government’s commitment to build a replacement for every social rented home sold through the Right to Buy scheme is not being fulfilled, new figures show. The latest published data from the DCLG reveal that almost 50,000 council owned properties have been acquired by tenants in the UK since the Government’s Right to Buy programme was relaunched in 2012, but the Government is failing to meet a pledge for a one for one replacement of homes sold off from under the scheme. Local authorities in England have replaced just one in 10 of the homes sold through Right to Buy since discounts were increase four years ago. Official figures reveal that there have been 49,573 sales since the scheme was reinvigorated, but only 4,594 homes have been started onsite or acquired by councils. An estimated 3,250 homes were acquired by tenants in Q4 2015, up from the 2,941 during the previous quarter, while only 396 homes were started onsite or acquired by local authorities during the same three-month period. Council tenants can currently get discounts of up to £77,900, rising to £103,900 in London, under the existing Right o Buy initiative. More than 2 million council homes have been purchased…
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Housing Market
Jeremy Leaf
Home ownership strife: Jeremy Leaf says, “Higher rents and tougher lending criteria continue to hamper home ownership. How can we close the gap between aspiration and reality?”
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Regulation & Law
The Right to Buy Debate
It’s a thorny subject, with many different opinions, Joanne Young, Associate Solicitor at Ashfords LLP, shares the facts.
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Housing Market
Town planning expert slams Right to Buy scheme
Giving housing association tenants the right to purchase their homes will do nothing to solve the UK housing crisis but instead is aimed at targeting new Tory voters, a Birmingham City University expert has warned. Alister Scott, Professor of Environment and Spatial Planning at Birmingham City University, describe the Government’s plans to extend Right to Buy discounts to 1.3 million housing associations as a “double whammy and bad news for the provision of social housing”. The Government announced new measures in the Queen’s Speech to Parliament last week, giving tenants the Right to Buy their homes while requiring councils to sell off high-value properties and invest the proceeds into building affordable ones. But Professor Scott pointed out that history has shown that the replacements of new homes will not keep up with the losses of housing associations stock and high price stock of council housing, and that the spatial impact of where these properties are lost will be significant and will worsen the housing waiting lists. Professor Scott (right) also highlighted other Government initiatives that seem destined to fail. He commented, “David Cameron’s recent pre-election pledge for 200,000 new discounted houses is what I would call a ‘Ryanair approach to…
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Housing Market
Property sales dry up ahead of Election
The upcoming Election is to blame for residential property sales drying up, but a general lack of housing stock coming onto the market could fuel another surge in home values after the election, according to the latest monthly market survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The research reveals that political uncertainty surrounding next month’s General Election is deterring many purchasers, with buyer enquiries and house sales falling. But despite the dip in demand from purchasers, a general housing shortage across many parts of the country led to 21 per cent more surveyors reporting an increase in home prices in March, up from 15 per cent in February. Furthermore, 15 per cent more surveyors expect prices to appreciate even further over the next three months compared with 10 per cent in February, fuelled by the existing supply-demand imbalance in the market. Nationally, the market in Northern Ireland continues to outperform the rest of the UK with the strongest home price growth last month and the highest price expectations over the next three months. However, across much of the rest of the UK, particularly in Wales and Scotland, price gains over the next three months are expected to be…
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Housing Market
Conservative Manifesto launch – Right to Buy for 1.3 million families
Margaret Thatcher did a great deal of good as the UK’s first female Prime Minister, but her Right to Buy initiative wasn’t, (in many people’s view) one of her better ideas. Thousands of council tenants thought it was brilliant and many that bought their homes at super low prices have reaped extensive financial benefit. The big flaw in the Thatcher plan was that the revenues raised from Right to Buy did not always (ever?) go towards replacing the lost housing stock with new council owned properties. However, Mr Cameron clearly sees his new version of the scheme as a vote winner – those tenants in housing association homes could be onto a winner if they vote Conservative. 1.3 million families could do so, at discounts off market prices of up to £102,700 in London and £77,000 across the rest of England, but the Tories say all the properties that are sold will be replaced. “Conservatives have dreamed of building a property-owning democracy for generations,” he said. “The next Conservative Government will extend the right to buy to all housing association tenants in this country. So this generation of Conservatives can proudly say it: the dream of a property owning democracy…
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