buying my council house

hay77

Hi everyone

I am going to look into buying my council house in the new year. I have lived here for 12 years and although I would like to buy somewhere nicer this may be the only way that I can get on the property ladder.

Has anyone had their council home valued recently? How do the council value your home because it doesnt say anywhere that they come out and actually value it?

If the council have given you a price for your home recently did it reflect local house prices? My home is a two bedroomed house but I cant find any other homes similar that are currently for sale. The three bedroomed houses in the area are currently priced between £80,000 and £100, 000 (although some are priced much higher in worse areas).

Any advice or input will be helpful. Thank you.

tbs624

Google the VOA's Right to Buy Manual

marvin

Bought mine 3 years ago (valued 4 years ago) the valuation they had in my view was way out of the actual value, they went on house sales locally where most of the houses had already been bought and improved thus worth more. I think the valuation they did was just a desktop exercise no one visited to do a valuation, well they may have looked at it from the outside without disturbing me.

I appealed the valuation and got it down £20,000.

eamon

You should investigate how much to purchase. Your landlord will have all the relevant information such as the amount of discount and the process. But before you sign on the dotted line consider the following points.

You will be giving up your security of tenure.
Is your job/income stream secure enough to take on a mortgage and keep up with the repayments for many years.
If you fall behind with the mortgage repayments your home will be at risk.
There is no state support for those of us with a mortgage. The state will only pay the interest on the mortgage and from what I understand this help only lasts 2 years.
You will be responsible for the upkeep of your home i.e. you fund repairs & maintenance.
What is your street like? Are there other owner occupiers? Do houses on your street sell? Would you buy a house on your street? Would you recommend your street to your friends? And lastly has your home been through the "better homes" scheme? It may not need it but if it does you should wait until that is completed.

Hope all that helps

Sally_A

@hay77. the first home we bought was ex LA, we weren't council tenants but learnt the previous owner had bought for around £8k and we paid £24k.

The things we took into account were close distances to work, rather than buying on the outskirts for cheaper, we had a look at the houses around and could see that a good percentage had now gone into private ownership which meant a more stable neighbourhood. Facilities, good junior schools, shops, bus routes etc, all within a 2 mile radius of Bath City Centre (our view was the Royal Crescent, their view was us :rotfl:).

If your gut feeling is that your current area is under par, could you not move to a better postcode, surely you would still have the continuous council tenancy agreement (or doesn't it work like that?).

Whichever, get on the ladder, as paying rent is dead money.

Good luck!

poppysarah

If you waited a few more years they'd be taking valuations on prices having dropped...

Have you got a nice big deposit saved?
And it's def the place you want to live for at least 5 more years?

BitterAndTwisted

Don't get too excited: the discounts are pretty modest these days. The time when you could purchase a local authority property for a tiny proportion of the actual value are long-gone. Also note that as soon as you complete and return the TRB form all maintenance and refurbishment of your house will cease even if you don't decide to go ahead and buy.

squinty

The Council will value the property - they may have someone who can do this or pay a local agent to carry out the valuation.

If you are not happy you can appeal against this decision, and have a second valuation carried out by the District Valuer - the second valaution is binding and may be greater than the original.

Moglet

I've recently bought my council house. The council arranged for someone from HBOS to come and value the house and as my mortgage was with the Halifax, the same person did the mortgage valuation.

There was a difference of £10k between the two valuations, the mortgage one being the higher. I also had a building survey done with valuation and he valued the same as the council.

hay77

Thanks for the responses. Yes i now have a decent job so i could afford the mortgage and maintenance but at the present time i cant afford to move to a nicer area (unless I save for a good few years).

I was only asking whether people found the council valuations to be reflective of the actual value. I do not expect to buy my house for a tiny sum but I was hoping for a realistic, decent price plus a discount.

theartfullodger

Some councils (& HAs) no longer allow right-to-buy in some areas ,,, Check first??

e.g.

http://www.highland.gov.uk/livinghere/housing/councilhousetenancies/righttobuy/

& this may be useful if you've not seen it before...
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/BuyingAndSellingYourHome/HomeBuyingSchemes/DG_4001398