Croftons Solicitors LLP

The government has announced, not unexpectedly, in their Housing Strategy released Monday 21 November, their plans to boost the Right to Buy sales for councils and social landlords.

The housing strategy announced that council and registered provider tenants of at least five years will be offered discounts of 50% of the value of their homes by ‘substantially’ lifting the caps and doubling the current discount.

The average saving for council tenants buying their home would increase from £26,000 to £52,000. In London and the south-east, where property prices are highest, the discount could rise from £38,000 to £76,000.

The government wants people to take advantage of what George Osbourne called “one of the greatest social policies of our time” by getting 100,000 people to buy their current council/registered provider owned homes.

The plan is that the government will then replace these homes with new ‘affordable’ rent property with rents of up to 80% of the market rent. They hope that the new drive could result in another 100,000 homes being built, creating 200,000 jobs.

Social landlords have been waiting to find out whether or not they are able to keep the sales receipts from right to buy sales and the government has now said it is ‘committed to letting [councils] keep the portion of the receipt needed to cover the housing debt associated with additional right to buy sales’.

On this the government said that, because registered providers are independent organisations, it did not want to mandate what they do with any receipts they retain.

A consultation document is due to be published soon and it is anticipated it will propose three models of replacing the homes sold through Right to Buy.

We will keep you updated on the changes as and when they happen via our e-News.

Lucy Worrall, Partner

Twitter;@lucyVworrall

Email;lworrall@croftons.co.uk

Posted on 14.12.11

---

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website