Can you buy a council house if you don't live in it?

tiamai_d

The 1 bedroom council house next to us is empty again (either we are bad neighbours or 1 bedroom houses are just hard to fill) and we had always said that it would be great if we could buy it and convert it into one larger house (ours is a 2 bed double story, that is a 1 bed single story) as we need more room and as DS2 is disabled, it would give him a bedroom and bathroom on ground floor level.

So, do any local authority ever sell to non tenants or is it not even worth looking into?

Another reason we would like to buy it is that they keep making it into temporary furnished accommodation and then we get nothing but trouble (1 lad set it on fire, another threatened my then 2 year old son, another was going to court accused of raping a 14 and a 12 year old girl and the families found out the address).

aliasojo

Nope. A definite no-goer.

nearlyrich

Probably not but always worth asking I say, especially if your son has special needs it might help to sway them.

blckbrd

Council's do dispose of individual residential properties on the open market for one reason or another.

If the property has been identified for disposal then it would have to be agreed by the elected representatives so your ward councillor may have some info.

Whatever section of your council has surveyors and valuers (property services?) may be able to point you to a responsible officer but if they say 'Right to Buy' it seldom is!

G_M

councils are VERY short of property, and have VERY long waiting lists of people needing to be re-housed. So unlikely they will sell.

If you are a council tenant, the right-to-buy scheme lets you buy the property you live in, but that, of course, is why councils are now so short of property!!