Social Housing Sales Up For Councils And Associations

Over 23,000 social housing units were sold in 2016-17, latest government figures show. Released by the CLG the stats show 23,186 sales of social housing homes overall – 13,652 by local authorities and 9,534 by housing associations. The sales amount to 0.6% of the total stock of 4 million social houses. Between 2015-16 and 2016-17, local authority sales increased by 9% and association sales were up 1%. The association increase was due primarily to increased preserved Right to Buy sales. Download the figures from the CLG website.

Right to Buy Scheme – Parliamentary Written Answer

Lord Beecham: To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they estimate has been realised since 2010 through the sale of council housing under right to buy; and what was the  total of the discounts accorded to purchasers exercising that right. 

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth: Nearly £4.8 billion has been generated from Right to Buy sales receipts since 2010. Table 682 - Social Housing Sales: Annual Financial Data on Right to Buy sales for England. (https:/www.gov.uk/government/statistical-datasets/live-tables-on-social-housing-sales) contains the average discounts that tenants received when purchasing their home under the Right to Buy.

Right to Buy Scheme – Parliamentary Written Answer

Chi Onwurah: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will make it his policy to ensure that local authorities that sell council houses use receipts to build replacement stock.

Gavin Barwell: Local authorities should manage their stock efficiently, including reinvesting sales receipts in new housing. Where our policies directly relate to local authorities selling council housing, we think it is important that receipts are used to deliver replacement homes. For example, under the reinvigorated Right to Buy, we are committed to ensuring that for every additional home sold an additional one will be provided nationally.

Sales Of Social Housing Increase By 8%

English social landlords sold nearly 22,000 homes in 2015/16, an increase of 8% on the previous year. The latest figures from the CLG say landlords sold 21,992 social properties in 2015/16, with the majority of the increase in sales driven by housing associations. This makes up 0.5% of the four million social housing stock. Housing associations sold 9,435 properties, an 18% increase on 2014/15 whereas councils sold 12,557 properties, a 1% increase. Download the figures from the GovUK website.

More Bill Amendment Defeats For The Government

The government has suffered more defeats in the Lords during the report stage of the housing and planning bill.  The requirement to instigate pay to stay will now be voluntary for councils as it is for Housing Associations. The government was also defeated over its taper proposals. It wanted a 20 per cent taper but peers opted for a 10 per cent taper.  Another successful amendment resisted by ministers means the pay to stay income threshold will be increased to £50,000 a year in London and £40,000 outside London. The government wanted to have the thresholds set at £31,000 outside London and £40,000 in London. In another move the government has now accepted that the regulation on council house sales to fund the right to buy extension will now be decided by parliament instead of ministers alone. Read more on the Planning Portal.

Council Sell-Off Rules To Face Parliamentary Scrutiny

Rules on council home sales to fund the Right to Buy extension will be decided by parliament instead of ministers alone after a government climbdown in the House of Lords. Regulations setting out the definition of high- value homes will now be subject to “affirmative approval”, meaning both Houses of Parliament will be able to vote on them, the government has agreed. Despite this concession, the government then lost a vote in the Lords on an opposition amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill, which sought to force all the rules on high-value sales – not just the high-value definition – to be made through regulations and subject to parliamentary approval. Read more on Inside Housing.

Council House Sales In England Back To Pre-Recession Levels

The number of council homes in England sold under the right to buy scheme has more than doubled in two years. The latest figures show sales are now above what they were in 2007, before the financial crisis that triggered the recession. CLG statistics revealed 12,304 sales under right to buy in 2014-15, compared with 5,944 in 2012-13. Housing charity Shelter said the homes were not being replaced by councils. Birmingham City Council sold 517 homes, the most in the last financial year. Read more on the BBC website.

The Housing And Planning Bill- Creating A Legal Loophole For Rogue Landlords?

Much of the focus of the Housing and Planning Bill is on the right to buy extension and the forced sale of councils’ most expensive properties.  But this is a Bill of two halves, and the other focuses on measures to tackle rogue landlords and poor conditions in the private rented sector.

These include:

·         Allowing local authorities to ban the very worst landlords and letting agents;

·         Creating a database of rogue landlords and letting agents for local authorities to access;

·         Allowing local authorities to access data on landlords from the tenancy deposit schemes to help enforce against poor conditions; and

·         Giving tenants who are illegally evicted, harassed by their landlord or forced to live in poor conditions the ability to reclaim rent paid to their landlord.

Read more on the Crisis blog.

‘Half-Baked’ Government Policy To Blame For Mass Council Housing Sell-Off

Sheffield city council has hit out after government figures revealed 749 council houses have been sold by Sheffield Council since 2012-13 but just 79 have been built to replace them – meaning 89 per cent of homes sold have not been replaced.  It is the third-highest sell-off rate of Right to Buy homes in England, according to the CLG. Jayne Dunn, cabinet member for housing at the council, said:  “It is a problem created by the Government, which does not give councils enough funding through receipts from Right to Buy to replace the stock that is lost. This is why we have called on the Government to allow us to fully re-invest money raised from sales in new council housing in the city, rather than having to hand over a sizeable proportion to the Treasury.”  Read more on the Sheffield Star website.

Right To Buy 2: Robbing Peter To Pay Paul

The government’s ‘Right to Buy 2’ proposal is a complicated mongrel of a policy, combining two very different elements. The plan is to let tenants of housing associations buy their social homes, with the generous discounts of the Right to Buy, and to fund those discounts by forcing councils to sell their social homes on the open market. It’s not surprising that not many people outside the housing sector have fully got their heads around it yet. There’s a lot of confusion about which homes will be sold, who will end up owning them, what will get built, who will win and will lose. In short, the policy is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s giving housing association tenants in one place a windfall discount of up to £104,000 off the price of buying their home, and paying for it by having a fire sale on council homes somewhere else. Read more on the Shelter blog.

Nearly 113,000 Council Houses Could Be Sold Off Under Expanded Right To Buy Scheme

Government plans to extend the Right to Buy scheme to housing association tenants could force the sell-off of nearly 113,000 council homes. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, 97 per cent of all council-housing stock would end up having to be sold off into private hands once vacant, housing and homelessness charity Shelter said. Under the plan, approximately 1.3million housing association tenants would be given the opportunity to buy their own homes at a discount. Even if the homes are sold-off, the Government's Right to Buy scheme could still suffer a funding shortfall of around £2.45billion over four years, Shelter warns. In London, Camden would see 11,714 council homes sold-off and Westminster, 9,213 or 76.2 per cent of council houses. Read more on the Daily Mail website.

Most Expensive Council Houses On Sale for £3 Million Each

In late July, two houses in Southwark went on the market for more than £3m each. There's nothing particularly unusual in this – houses sell for a lot more than that in central London. But what made this estate agent listing slightly out of the ordinary is that the two properties are former council houses. Britain's most expensive council houses.  Southwark council put 21 and 23 Park Street up for sale back in 2013, to raise money for new housing stock. The Grade II listed building, which needed £500,000 of work to make it habitable, was snapped up by a developer for £2.96m. The sale sparked an occupation protest in the property, accusations of social cleansing and questions over the ethics of flogging off social housing in expensive parts of London. Read more on the CityMetric website.

Right-To-Buy Extension Will Run At a Loss in Most of the Country

The extension of right to buy to include housing association tenants is proving to be deceptively complicated. Housing association tenants will have the right to buy their rented properties from housing associations with a significant government discount, however, unlike the original right-to-buy policy, the housing associations who own the homes will have to be compensated for those that are sold.  The right to buy will supposedly be financed by councils selling their most expensive council homes when they become vacant. The money raised will be used to replace the homes sold and to compensate housing associations for the properties they lose. Research by Savills shows that ministers have seriously overestimated the amount that would be raised through sales of council houses.  Read more on the Guardian website.

Council Housing: Sales – Parliamentary Written Answer

Emma Reynolds: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what discussions his Department has had with local authorities regarding the effect on their business plans of the sale of high-value homes.

Brandon Lewis: We are holding a series of meetings and discussions with local authorities to seek their views including the potential impact of the sale of high value council homes on their Housing Revenue Account business plans.

London Boroughs to Lose Thousands of Council Homes in First Five Years of New Right to Buy

Around 3,500 council homes would have to be sold in three London boroughs during the first five years of the government’s new right to buy.  Local authorities, including Camden, Haringey, Islington and Enfield, commissioned research ahead of the Queen's Speech to investigate how much of their 'higher-value' housing stock would be at risk from the policy. They found;

·         Selling off empty properties is not likely to be enough to pay for the right to buy discounts, to compensate housing associations for loss of asset, to build replacement homes and also contribute to a brownfield fund.

·         There would be an estimated time lag of at least two years from the sale of homes to replacement ones being built.

·         Families unable to get a council tenancy would face the prospect of remaining in overcrowded homes

·         Homeless households would have to enter or remain in temporary accommodation

Read more on 24dash.

A Double Whammy for the Social Housing Sector

The extended Right to Buy to housing association tenants signals a further blow to the viability of social housing. It comes on top of cuts in capital funding and welfare reforms that have hit social tenants disproportionately hard. Selling housing association homes represents a double whammy for the social housing sector: loss of housing association homes paid for by sale of council homes. The consensus is that the extended Right to Buy will further weaken an already shrinking social housing sector. Social housing will probably be barely 15 per cent of total homes by the time of the next general election. It is also likely that many of sold housing association homes will eventually be owned by private landlords. It is estimated that one-third of ex-council homes sold since 1980 are now in the hands of private landlords. Read more on the Left Foot Forward website.

Johnson Pushed on Right to Buy Extension

Boris Johnson has admitted there are ‘legitimate concerns’ about the government’s plans to extend the Right to Buy to housing associations. When quizzed on the policy by the London Assembly, the mayor said: ‘There are legitimate concerns that the city will have.’ Mr Johnson refused to condemn the policy and said it ‘could be made to work’, but he warned that he would only support it if it led to an increase in London’s housing supply.  The mayor, who earlier this year said the plan would entail ‘massive subsidies’ to housing associations, urged the government to ensure the cash raised from council house sales stays ‘firmly in London’. Read more on the London Assembly website.