Right to buy

What do think ?

Some would say it’s a good idea but others would say, it look away Housing stock from those who are in need.

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I tend to agree with you, Artangel.

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If I’m correct those in shared equity own a percentage then pay a rent until they can buy the property in full . Yes each who wishes should be able to do this for their future and childrens security.

If you live in a council property or a rental from housing the rent I believe is subsidised by whom I’m not sure but cheaper than private rental . I know of people who’s adult kids who live away from parents who bought mums house at reduced cost by thousands then when mum dies they sell the property for a massive profit leaving more young people without a subsidised council property to rent . I always felt this was unfair why should the adult kids benefit after they moved out . After all mum was safe for life in the home. When she died it could then be let again .

My sister rented privately a lovely 3 bed house in Surrey the owner bought the house before mum died really cheap because parents lived in it 40 odd years . She rented it out at a high rent and still does .

I’m all for helping the young own their property but not for council houses to be sold on to adult kids

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It is also important to know where the monies from the sold properties goes.
Will it be used to build more properties, or ‘ring-fenced’ like it was before, under Margaret Thatcher’s government. The money gained in the sales wasn’t accessible by the councils to build more properties.

There is also a tendency for councils only to sell off the older stock that they know is going to cost them a lot in expense in the future for repairs.

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I don’t like it, Housing Association homes should be kept for people in need of somewhere to live and can’t afford to buy

If tenants buy them, then there’s nothing for those in need

Even if the proceeds aren’t ring fenced and the housing Associations are allowed to build more, that means they’ll be permanently in a cycle of building homes, then having to sell them off cheap to tenants

I think the money would be better spent on giving long term tenants, (15 years or more) an interest free loan to put down a deposit on a shared ownership property

Or some sort of government scheme giving tenants access to no deposit mortgages

It’s often lack of a deposit that prevents tenants buying in the private market, and it would give long term tenants a bit of recompense for all the rent they’ve paid, while freeing up homes for those that need them

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Maree, The need for new housing now has never been greater. With so many people coming into the country and single parent families, we urgently need more housing.

Maybe, the problem needs to be sorted at the source of it.

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We do, and we need to get building

But I’m not sure that the housing associations building them, and then having to sell them off cheap to tenant is the way to go

There will always be some who can never afford to buy, for loads of different reasons, or who need urgent short term accommodation so I think housing association homes should be kept for them

And then the government should partner with private companies to build 50/50 shared ownership properties with no deposit mortgages, including flats for single people and couples

Because lots of people could afford rent/mortgage but can’t save for their deposit because they have to pay out huge rents

That’s why so many are living in vans

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Right to Buy is a typically Tory solution - give to the haves and the have-nots can naff off 
 :roll_eyes:

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They’re not living in vans in the UK. As for right to buy - IMO there should be NO “social housing” and only private housing to serve the rental sector. There does need to be a shake-up in the housing market especially since the UK population has become so huge because of immigration and one sector that breed like rabbits.

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I think you’re right, Susan, in that shared ownership, which has been used very successfully by my offspring, works well.

They took a mortgage for, about, half of the cost, and owned that half of the property.

As their incomes rose, they would buy back the other half and carry on, on the ladder, like anyone else.

I have a different view of what we call Council properties.

Council properties were, I’m sure, paid for by the Private House owners, via the Council Tax., or Rates, as they used to be called.

Once in there, a family kept the rights to be there, renting, even when the less “well off parents” passed away. This happened even when the new offspring took them over whilst some were in no way “in need”. Some even sub-letting whilst moving themselves to better properties.

I think that the only balanced way forward, with Council Property is for the owners, (The Council on behalf of the Council Tax payers) to use any sales profits to fund further purchases.

There was a TV program, a couple or three years ago, shot in Manchester, featuring quite a few millionaires who made it big time buying up Council Houses from people who used the scheme and sold them immediately., I would hope that we don’t see that happening again.

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I believe they have to live in the property at least four years before they can sell it or they have to repay the discount they got?

Perhaps that should be increased to make it harder people to exploit the system

When Mrs Thatcher’s government introduced “Right to Buy” legislation it was to enable people to become stakeholders in the country and to ease out Social Housing from government responsibility. The later was a VERY good move because the job of government is to govern the nation, not to be a landlord hence a block on using income from sales to perpetrate being a landlord. If Doris is contemplating the introduction of legislation to enable tenants to buy from private landlords that will be disgusting beyond belief.

The wife and I both came from council house stock we would have been happy to have rented one, but Thatcher brought in the right to buy, we were kind of forced on the housing ladder, best thing ever happened to us 40 yrs down the line.

Government proposals to sell off housing association properties have been branded “hare-brained” amid warnings they will worsen the shortage of homes for more than a million Britons on waiting lists for affordable accommodation.

Boris Johnson is reported to want to grant 2.5m housing association tenants in England the right to purchase their homes at a massive discount, in an echo of Margaret Thatcher’s popular “right to buy” policy of the 1980s which saw a huge proportion of the nation’s stock of council homes sold.

Labour branded the plan “desperate”, pointing out that it repeats a policy from David Cameron’s 2015 Conservative manifesto which failed to deliver any sales.

And the chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter said the “hare-brained idea” was “the opposite of what the country needs”.

Quite 
 :exclamation:

I agree. My Mum bought her own council house after renting it over 30 years. My Dad used to say they had paid for it over and over again anyway! A neighbour was in a similar position but hers was a bungalow and her grandson bought it and then moved to Australia. She carried on living there but kept this whole business very quiet.

My Mum had to sell her house when she went into care to pay her care home fees. The other lady went into care and got all her care home fees paid because she did not own her property!!

I think councils should be more stringent when selling these former LA homes because it is just not fair.

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So did I and I’m bloody glad my ex insisted we buy a house when we decided to get married. Having said that, when we lived in Rome, we rented because getting a mortgage over there was so, so difficult for an ex-pat. When V and I returned to the UK, we rented for a few months until we found and bought an apartment not far from where I was working. Now, the bungalow we live in was built in the early 1930’s as a council property. The people who lived in it prior to us bought it in 1985.

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I just can not understand why councils or central government should provide housing under any circumstances. Provide financial support for those unable to meet the costs of rental property if essential, but act as landlord? Absolutely NOT. The only exception for people who can’t find their own accomodation under any circumstances could be a modern version of the rightly discredited Victorian Houses of Industry but that should be all. I loath and detest socialism which is actually immoral and legalised theft and “social housing” encapsulates just that. Legalised theft.

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I agree party .
I think that there should be a modern HUMANE equivalent to the workhouse .
A place of temporary abode where people can go until their circumstances are stabilised .
I think the needs system is unfair young people awaiting a house will always be placed below those who have children .
I would like to see developers building houses with granny annexes so that older people may live with their extended families and so will not want to hang onto large houses. In their old age .

That’s exactly what I had in mind. As for “granny annexes” - I think there would need to be a seismic shift in the British and especially English concept of family for that to work. We certainly wouldn’t want to live cheek by jowl with the fruit of our loins. Pretty sure the feeling is reciprocated too.