Right To Buy Sales Drop By A Third In Past 12 Months

Right to Buy sales dropped by 35% in 2020/21 to the lowest yearly figure in eight years, according to newly published statistics. The government has put the decline, from 10,572 to 6,850, largely down to the restrictions introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.  A seven-week freeze on the housing market was introduced in March 2020 to stop the spread of coronavirus, effectively preventing most purchases and sales. This also stopped valuations, which make up a key part of the Right to Buy sales process. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/right-to-buy-sales-drop-by-a-third-in-past-12-months-73138

Letting Of Former Cornwall Council Houses To Be Investigated

Cornwall Council has outlined plans to clamp down on former council houses being used as holiday homes. The council has proposed setting up a dedicated investigation and enforcement unit to restrict the practice. Homes sold under the government's Right to Buy scheme are usually restricted from being used as holiday lets or as houses of multiple occupancy so they are protected for use by local people. It is believed there are dozens of homes being advertised online. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-58570565

Khan Sets Out Plans To Help House Afghan Refugees

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced plans to help the city’s councils and housing associations support the arrival of Afghan refugees. Mr Khan said he will expand his new Right to Buy-back fund to help councils purchase homes which could be used to resettle families arriving from Afghanistan. Housing associations are also being encouraged to apply for funding for suitable homes that can be delivered quickly. Read more on the Evening Standard website.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sadiq-khan-mayor-plans-help-afghan-refugees-london-b952414.html 

Right To Buy Replacements Hit Highest Level Since Discounts Were Hiked

The number of homes built or acquired to replace those lost through Right to Buy sales has hit its highest point since the scheme was reinvigorated in 2012. Government figures show that in the final quarter of 2020/21, councils in England delivered 2,060 homes using Right to Buy receipts, compared to 340 in the final quarter of 2012/13. This is the highest quarterly figure since 2012 when the government revived the Right to Buy scheme with significantly bigger discounts in a bid to increase sales. It is also up 23% on the 1,674 Right to Buy replacement starts or acquisitions made by councils between October and December 2020. See the full set of figures on the GovUK website.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/right-to-buy-sales-in-england-january-to-march-2021 

Khan Promises Funding To Help London Boroughs Regain Homes Lost To Right To Buy

London mayor Sadiq Khan has announced funding to help boroughs purchase former council homes lost under the Right to Buy over the past 40 years. The mayor’s ‘Right to Buy back’ initiative will provide money to enable local authorities and housing companies they own to acquire ex-council homes on the open market. Properties bought under the scheme, which must meet the Decent Homes Standard, would then be returned to social rent or used as temporary accommodation for homeless families. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/khan-promises-funding-to-help-london-boroughs-regain-homes-lost-to-right-to-buy-71566 

Council Seeking To Charge Leaseholders Up To £217,000 Each For Repair Works

Thanet District Council’s cabinet has agreed to tender a £2.8m contract for repairs – which it describes as “essential structural works” – at two buildings it owns on Ramsgate’s historic Royal Crescent. The council-owned buildings are divided into flats, with 12 tenanted and 10 leasehold homes, with the leasehold homes having been sold under the Right to Buy. Leaseholders in one block are facing bills of between £94,000 and £164,000 each, while in the other the proposed costs range between as much as £177,000 and £217,000. Read more on Inside Housing.

Inside Housing - News - Council seeking to charge leaseholders up to £217,000 each for repair works

Right To Buy Faces Further Criticism

New rules provide local authorities with more flexibility with regard to how Right to Buy receipts can be spent -  councils are now permitted to use RTB receipts to cover up to 40% of the costs of building new homes, as opposed to the previous 30%. Also, the deadline for utilising the proceeds of Right to Buy sales was increased from three to five years. The scheme, however, is facing mounting criticism over the extent to which the Treasury has profited from RTB sales, to date more than £47 billion. Official figures regarding how much has been invested directly into the social housing infrastructure have never been fully disclosed, leading many to conclude that the government is using RTB as a cash cow. Read more on the Real Business website.

Right to buy faces further criticism due to social housing shortages - (realbusiness.co.uk) 

Shocking Fall In Numbers Of Social Rented Homes

The number of council and housing association homes being let at social rent fell by 210,000 between 2012 and 2020, the Chartered Institute of Housing’s (CIH) UK Housing Review has revealed. The report found that 280,000 social rent homes have been sold, converted to higher rents or demolished since April 2012, while just 70,000 new social rent homes have been built. Right to Buy sales, which accounted for 120,000 homes, and conversion to higher affordable rent tenures, which accounted for 116,000 homes, were the two biggest reasons for the loss of social rent homes. Read more on the CIH website.

https://www.cih.org/news/uk-housing-review-2021-highlights-shocking-fall-in-numbers-of-social-rented-homes

Councils To Get Five Years To Spend Right To Buy Receipts

Councils will be given five years to spend the money received through the sale of homes through the Right to Buy programme, under a raft of changes to the process brought in by the government. Under the new rules put forward by the government in its Right to Buy consultation response, the timeframe local authorities have to spend new and existing Right to Buy receipts will be extended from three to five years from next month. This will also be backdated, and councils will be able to apply this to receipts received as long ago as 2017/18. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/councils-to-get-five-years-to-spend-right-to-buy-receipts-in-raft-of-government-changes-70073

Right To Buy Sales Plunge 43% To Eight-Year Low

Local authorities in England sold 1,548 homes under the Right to Buy between July and September 2020, down from 2,727 in the same quarter in 2019. A government data release said the sharp decline “may be due in large part to the lockdown restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic”. Home moves and sales were frozen for nearly two months last spring, but the figures published today represent a continued slowdown of sales despite the market being reopened from July. Between April and June, when the freeze came in, there were 1,549 sales in total – one more than in the following three-month period. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/right-to-buy-sales-plunge-43-to-eight-year-low-69249#:~:text=Right%20to%20Buy%20sales%20fell,the%20lowest%20level%20since%202013.&text=Local%20authorities%20in%20England%20sold,the%20same%20quarter%20in%202019.

MHCLG Records Lowest Number Of Right To Buy Sales In Eight Years

The number of council homes sold through the Right to Buy in the first quarter of 2019/20 was the lowest recorded for a single quarter for nearly eight years. In the period between April and June this year, a total of 1,545 council homes were sold to council tenants through the Right to Buy. The figure marked a 39% drop from the 2,513 homes sold through the Right to Buy in the same period last year, and was the lowest figure for council homes sold since 1,041 sales were recorded in the three-month period between June and September in 2012. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/mhclg-records-lowest-number-of-right-to-buy-sales-for-a-quarter-in-eight-years-68036?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60 

Right to Buy Scheme – Parliamentary Written Answer

Lord Porter of Spalding: To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to extending the timeframe in which local authorities must spend retained Right to Buy receipts from three years to five years.

Lord Greenhalgh: On 12 June, we agreed to a temporary extension of the next expenditure deadline of 30 June by six months, and wrote to local authorities to inform them of this change.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Lords/2020-06-18/HL5935

Right To Buy Directly Increases Affordable Housing Supply, Claims Pincher

The Right to Buy directly boosts affordable housing supply, housing minister Christopher Pincher has said amid multiple questionable claims made to a committee of MPs. Appearing before the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, the minister argued that the 120,000 council homes sold off through the policy “in recent years” have been replaced by 140,000 new builds. Pressed by the committee, he admitted the 140,000 figure represents all affordable homes completed rather than just council homes for social rent. But Mr Pincher maintained that the numbers represent “a one-for-one relationship” and that the Right to Buy “is increasing the housing stock”. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/right-to-buy-directly-increases-affordable-housing-supply-claims-pincher-66707#:~:text=Right%20to%20Buy%20directly%20increases%20affordable%20housing%20supply%2C%20claims%20Pincher,-News08%2F06&text=The%20Right%20to%20Buy%20allows,it%20receives%20from%20the%20sales.

Social Homes May Go Unbuilt Without Right To Buy Extension

Councils have demanded an extension to the time they have to spend money through Right to Buy sales before it returns to the government. The Local Government Association (LGA) warned that the coronavirus means much-needed new social housing could go unbuilt unless ministers grant the extension. Local authorities are only allowed to hold on to Right to Buy receipts for spending on replacement homes for three years until they have to give the cash back to the Treasury. But the LGA said many councils are worried they will not have time to spend the cash with housebuilding delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and called for the deadline to be extended to at least five years. Read more on the LGA website.

https://www.local.gov.uk/coronavirus-social-homes-may-go-unbuilt-without-right-buy-extension

Right To Buy Future Under Threat From £5bn National Discounts

Tenants have received discounts of nearly £5bn to help purchase their council home under Right to Buy (RTB) since the size of the discount was increased in April 2012, new analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) reveals. The LGA warns the scheme faces an uncertain future unless councils are given the flexibility to set discounts locally and retain 100% of sales receipts to fund replacement homes. The national RTB discount, set by government, currently averages 42% of market value. Since the Government increased the size of the RTB discount in April 2012, the average discount on a property has increased by 137% to more than £63,000. Read more on the LGA website.

https://www.local.gov.uk/lga-ps5-billion-national-discounts-threatening-future-right-buy

McVey Warns Councils Against ‘Frustrating’ Right To Buy

Reinforcing the government’s commitment to Right To Buy, Housing Minister Esther McVey told the Commons MHCLG would “look closely” at councils accused of frustrating home ownership initiatives. The accusation was made by fellow Tory Bob Blackman during a debate on council housing.  Blackman said many councils that have built council housing deliberately set up housing companies to frustrate the right to buy and urged an outlawing of the practice. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/mcvey-warns-councils-against-frustrating-right-to-buy/

Right To Buy Sales Fall To Lowest Level In Six Years

Councils sold 11,059 properties under Right to Buy in the year to March 2019, according to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) figures. This is the lowest level since 2012/13, when 5,944 sales were registered. Sales under the policy hit a low during the financial crisis, but picked up in 2012 after the government changed purchase incentives, including increasing the cap on the Right to Buy discount to £75,000. However, sales have never reached anywhere near their early and mid-1980 heights. Read more on the MHCLG website.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/850399/Social_Housing_Sales_Statistics_2018-19.pdf

Election 2019: Reports Labour Will ‘Drop Right-To-Buy Plan’

A report published over the weekend suggests Labour has dropped its controversial plan to offer tenants the right to buy their privately rented homes. The Financial Times reported the party has decided to abandon the plan amid fears the policy was ‘not workable’. It attributes the claims to “party figures familiar with its UK election manifesto”. Writing about the process of drawing up Labour’s manifesto, the paper goes on to say: “Senior figures involved in the process said that the private right to buy, floated by Mr McDonnell two months ago, had been dropped. Read more on the RLA website.

https://news.rla.org.uk/election-2019-reports-labour-will-drop-right-to-buy-plan/

Councils Increasingly Backing Self-Build Housing Schemes

More than half of local planning authorities across England have made concrete moves to deliver local plan policies which back the delivery of custom and self-build housing. Research by the Right to Build Taskforce (RBT) found 58% of planning authorities either had in place or were bringing on such policies, up from barely a quarter (24%) in 2015. But the RTB also found that few councils offered “the necessary meaningful support [for custom and self-build] within the spirit of legislation and government policy” and one in three adopted plans were failing to make any provision for such schemes. Read more on the Housing Today website.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/councils-increasingly-backing-self-build-housing-schemes/5102458.article

One In Seven Council Homes Sold To Tenants On Housing Benefit Under Right To Buy

One in seven council homes sold through the Right to Buy since David Cameron hiked discounts in 2012 has been bought by a tenant on housing benefit. In order to secure a mortgage necessary to purchase a Right to Buy property, a tenant on housing benefit would need someone else to provide the finance. In most cases, this is likely to be family members looking for an easy route onto the housing ladder but it could also be lenders seeking to profit illegally. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/one-in-seven-council-homes-sold-to-tenants-on-housing-benefit-under-right-to-buy-63193?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60