Right to buy schemes

[Spare tyre]

Why do these exist

Who benefits ( apart from the people buying) from it
Is it fair that people who've had subsidised rent from their housing association get a discount
Are the valuations actually realistic or inflated to start off with

With massive waiting lists for social housing why on earth are we selling the , or is the cunning plan to re invest the monies into new build social places - if so why the discount

I have no real knowledge on the area and wondered what people thought

[austinsmirk]

the labour govt proposed it originally, however it was of course the conservatives that made it reality.

I work in social housing: I'd say it should be abolished. All that happens is you lose your good stock and are left with rubbish.

Also many new owners get massive mortgages, can't pay them, spend their equity on rubbish (American motorhomes, motorbikes, holidays, ridiculous home improvements), promtly go bankrupt and just then re-apply for social housing. The house is lost for good.

The argument against it of course is most relevant in the south- where is the sense in selling off flats and houses in London where you simply can't replace them. Its less of an issue in the North where land is plentiful and they can be replaced, although for decades the receipts from sale didn't go back to the council, they went to central governent. So how does a council replace them ? well of course they don't.

Added to this a £1m flat in a council block in London, is still an awful property on an awful estate surrounded by tenants. Its not a £1m property one would aspire to own.

I actually worked on the "bedroom tax" or "underoccupation" project. It was blindly obvious this was a clear cut case of it only being an issue in London and not the rest of the real world. Of course legislation made it national. This is relevant as without the RTB, it wouldn't be needed.

A positive of the RTB is of course council estates do generally improve once people own their own homes and for the individual many have done well financially from it.

[austinsmirk]

Oh and they're aren't massive social housing waiting lists (except in London): what you have is big waiting lists of what people demand to live in, in their perception of nice areas. Understandably so.

Homelessness in reality is a myth, there is plenty of stock: but people don't want flats and so on.

I like to use the arguement: if you had £200k- you wouldn't be walking into an estate agent and buying a 3-4 bed house in the places you demand to live in: why on earth do you think you can get social housing for nothing in said areas ?

[cheesesliceking]

austinsmirk said:

Homelessness in reality is a myth

Seems legit.

[crashley]

Sounds like a farce to me, specifically in London. Taking some headline (round) figures for London - avg property prices of £500k, via the scheme they'll get a £100k discount.

So these people who are applying via right-to-buy, and therefore have been in social housing with subsidised rents etc, still have to stump up a £400k mortgage. Sounds like a fair chunk for someone in social housing (i am unfamiliar with those rules, but that sounds a lot).

Surely, there's a clean £100k or so for flipping the next day. I don't know the ins and outs of the system, but it does smell like a piss-take.

[Hooli]

It's a pisstake unless it's changed so they pay FULL market rate & the money goes to buy a replacement house.

[amusingduck]

cheesesliceking said:

austinsmirk said:

Homelessness in reality is a myth

Seems legit.

I mean, have you ever seen a homeless person? They're just made up, like TV detector vans.

[anonymous-user]

amusingduck said:

I mean, have you ever seen a homeless person? They're just made up, like TV detector vans.

Sadly they aren't a myth by far.
One issue is a surplus of empty housing but its not available on the market. You just have to look at flats above shops - many in secondary locations are empty, and often the shops closed too. People get too old to run a shop with a flat over it, having bought their own house when times were good, they don't want to sell and often for security reasons people don't want to share their shop door with a flat above anyway etc etc - anyway they become just shut buildings. There have been initiatives to encourage rehabilitation but they are few and far between.

[vanordinaire]

amusingduck said:

cheesesliceking said:

austinsmirk said:

Homelessness in reality is a myth

Seems legit.

I mean, have you ever seen a homeless person? They're just made up, like TV detector vans.

I used to work for a small local authority with between 5 and 600 households registered as 'homeless' at any one time but at same time we had between 2 and 300 empty properties with no demand . Any genuinely homeless person could have walked into a new home the same day that they presented to us as 'homeless'. While there is genuinely a homeless problem in a few popular areas of the country, most applicants use the homeless legislation to try to circumvent the allocations processes. In our region with 500+ 'homeless' people, I would estimate that here were less than a dozen people at any time who were genuinely homeless and most of them had slipped through the social work/mental heath net and were housed as soon as they were discovered.

[geeks]

Spare tyre said:

Why do these exist

Do what most people do when this is asked and blame Thatcher.

Spare tyre said:

Who benefits ( apart from the people buying) from it

Typically the person or persons buying it. However the money generated by the sales Councils are obliged to put the money back into existing stock, be that building or maintaining!

Spare tyre said:

Is it fair that people who've had subsidised rent from their housing association get a discount

Arguments for and against, life isn't fair I agree with it and think it is fair, for example locally you can only have a discount if you have been a tenant for more than 3 or 5 years.. Full discount is only available after 15+ years of being a tenant. Discount locally is up to 50% or £75,000 whichever is less.

Spare tyre said:

Are the valuations actually realistic or inflated to start off with

Valuation is done off of Open Market Value.

Spare tyre said:

With massive waiting lists for social housing why on earth are we selling the , or is the cunning plan to re-invest the monies into new build social places - if so why the discount

Lists aren't as big as people think they are, more often than not people are waiting because they don’t want (in some cases can’t have) a 2nd floor flat in a block of 50. Or people don’t want to live in an area where social housing is prevalent! As said, money has to be used on existing stock building or maintaining. Councils typically aren't building many homes anymore as they don't want the cost of building nor the maintenance costs, they are farming out to HA's

Spare tyre said:

I have no real knowledge on the area and wondered what people thought

Some are for, many are against, I guess which side of the fence you live will have a bearing. For us it is the only realistic way of getting onto the housing ladder, we understand that this is a privilege and not a right and we are grateful for it, however I will say that I don’t feel guilty about given the amount of money we have put into our home and the amount of rent we have paid as tenants far, far, far out ways the discount we are getting!!

Edited by geeks for spelling! on Wednesday 25th November 14:09

Edited by geeks on Wednesday 25th November 14:11

[geeks]

crashley said:

Sounds like a farce to me, specifically in London. Taking some headline (round) figures for London - avg property prices of £500k, via the scheme they'll get a £100k discount.

So these people who are applying via right-to-buy, and therefore have been in social housing with subsidised rents etc, still have to stump up a £400k mortgage. Sounds like a fair chunk for someone in social housing (i am unfamiliar with those rules, but that sounds a lot).

Surely, there's a clean £100k or so for flipping the next day. I don't know the ins and outs of the system, but it does smell like a piss-take.

You cant flip the next day, so locally we must keep the house for 5 years in order to retain the discounted price, if we sell after a year we lose 75% of the discount and slide accordingly down to 5 years from there (I think this is universal). When it comes to selling time we have to offer the council first dibs on the purchase!