790 Applications Under Right To Buy Pilot

Just 1.6% of households in the Right to Buy pilot schemes have made an application to buy their social home. 790 applications have been received by the five landlords operating the pilot. This is well down on the 7% take-up rate projected by academics at Sheffield Hallam University in February and the estimate of 20% made by a committee of MPs in October. The eligibility criteria for the pilot scheme requires tenants to have lived in social housing for 10 years. Many homes, including those built through Section 106 planning obligations were excluded from the pilot. In the main scheme many of these tenants will be granted a portable discount. Read more on Inside Housing.

NHF: Associations Need To Publish RTB Portability Policies

Housing associations must publish their own criteria for portable discounts before the Right to Buy extension is launched, the National Housing Federation (NHF) has said. In a briefing note, the NHF revealed that under the voluntary deal with the government, members will be required to design and publish details of local policies implementing the controversial discounted sales. Under the proposed Right to Buy extension, association tenants living in a non-eligible home will be able to use a portable discount to buy an ‘alternative’ housing association property. With hundreds of thousands of homes potentially subject to exclusions, there has been concern that difficulty designing the portable scheme could delay the implementation of the extended Right to Buy. Download the briefing from the NHF website.

Portable Discounts Could Slow Right To Buy

A lack of detail surrounding plans for portable discounts could slow the introduction of the government’s flagship extension of the Right to Buy to housing association tenants. Under the ‘voluntary’ Right to Buy extension, housing associations will be allowed to exclude certain properties from the scheme at their discretion. This is likely to include hundreds of thousands of homes built under Section 106 agreements, homes in rural areas and socially rented properties funded by historic charitable trusts. Tenants living in these properties will qualify for ‘portable discounts’ which will allow them to buy another housing association property elsewhere- an aspect of the scheme which has not been piloted. Read more on Inside Housing.

RTB: HA Tenants To Be Allowed To Use Discount Elsewhere In The Country

Housing association tenants who live in specially designed homes or rural areas will receive a right-to-buy discount elsewhere in the country. The expansion of right-to-buy to housing association stock will give 1.3 million more families the opportunity to purchase their homes at a discount of up to £103,900 in London and £77,900 outside of the capital. To protect the number of homes that housing associations have adapted or own in rural areas, residents living in them will be offered what has been coined a “portable discount”.  This means a rural tenant will be able to use the money to buy a house in an area with more available stock, most likely a city, while those in an adapted home could buy a similar dwelling where more of them have been built.  Read more on the Independent website.