Right to Buy???

Chrisl

Hi Everyone,

I currently live in a small village with my partner and her son and my first child will be due in November! We are currently living in a Housing association house, which is actually very nice and all the neighbours are nice! The problem is I work hard and pay all bills/rent on time but i just dont like the stigma which is assocated with the hosuing association but to be honest you would not notice that out house was! My partner works part time but only does about 8 hours a week and i only earn 25k a year which is not enough to buy our own 3 bedroom house! My partner has lived in the house for over 5 years and I enquired regarding buying our property but I was politily told that we cant buy the property! Now reading through all the literature on the net we meet all the criteria to be able to purchase the house but the housing assoctaion are saying that we cant?

Does anyone have anymore informaiton on this as I am sure we are just being told we cant buy the house by legally I am sure we can!

Thanks,

Chris

iamana1ias

I think it has to be a council house, not HA for R2B.

Chrisl

are you sure as I am sure you can from the HA as well, does anyone else know??

muskoka

I'm fairly sure you can buy it, HOWEVER its not called Right to Buy on Housing Associations properties. Its called something else - forgot what? sorry. Google your housing association & the website may well inform you if you can buy, how you can buy and the maximum discount allowed. Good luck . If you get no joy on their website, then write to them - they have to write back , dont they?

blckbrd

It's called the Right to Acquire.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/BuyingAndSellingYourHome/HomeBuyingSchemes/DG_066460

Running_Horse

Chrisl wrote: »

i just dont like the stigma which is assocated with the hosuing association but to be honest you would not notice that out house was!

If you are in a nice village and you can't tell its HA, then where is the stigma?

Chrisl

right I have emailed my local HA and below is their response:

The problem here is not with the occupancy of the premises, it is the location of the scheme. Certain properties are excluded from the Right to Acquire ( page 3 of the guidance notes) and that includes those properties in certain rural parishes identified by the Government. The parishes tend to be small and removing the right to acquire is a way of ensuring that the supply of affordable housing remains in rural areas. Rattlesden is one of the parishes listed as being exempt so no right to acquire I’m afraid.

Reading this I tak it there is no chance of buying the house??

ILW

If the discount was only 10k I would have thought you could do a little saving and buy on the open market.

Annisele

The Valuation Office Agency publishes a Right to Buy Manual, which does say that there is an exception to the Right to Acquire "where the dwelling-house is situated in a rural area designated by order of the Secretary of State".

I suspect that the Housing Association is right when it says that your area is one of those "rural areas". There's a great long list of rural areas in this Statutory Instrument, and a Rattlesden in Suffolk is one of them - is that the Rattlesden you live in?

Chrisl

Yes we live in Rattlesden, the problem is houses very rarely come up for sale in the local area and whem they do they are way out of our means!! If we would buy on the open market we would have to move miles out of the way as all the surrounding villages seem to be covered by this exemption!

Its not fair!!

Wee_Willy_Harris

Chrisl wrote: »

Yes we live in Rattlesden, the problem is houses very rarely come up for sale in the local area and whem they do they are way out of our means!! If we would buy on the open market we would have to move miles out of the way as all the surrounding villages seem to be covered by this exemption!

Its not fair!!

It IS fair, because without social housing, you couldn't afford to live there now.