Right to Buy Council House

DaveLy

My friend lives in a council house with the ability to buy it at a discount, I'm a single guy and I was looking at ways to invest my money for the long term future, is it possible to buy the council house from my friend (so it's in my name) but I let my friend live there (draw up agreements legally etc.)?

p00hsticks

I'm pretty sure the answer is 'no' - it's your friend who lives there, and so it's his 'right to buy' - the right (and the discount) isn't transferrable to other people who aren't living in the property.

It would have to be bought by your friend, and there are likely to be comditions attached to the sale to claw back the discount if he tried to sell it on soon after buying it.

shop-to-drop

You can lend the money to your friend to buy it in their name. You can't buy it in your name and rightly so.

pedgepuk

Like the previous poster said, you can lend the money to your friend but not be able to have the home under your name.

You can however transfer the deeds at a later date to your name although this will have to be done after the period the local council/housing association allow your friend to sell the home without them clawing any discount back.

This used to be 3 years but I think a law change in 2004 upped it to 5 years with some housing associations in popular areas implementing a 10 year rule to which I find a bit extreme.

The law was changed to halt the mass influx of companies buying council stock on behalf of tenants (with the Right to Buy) and renting it back to them. This of course has affected the amount of social housing available in the UK.

McKneff

No, and rightly so.