Buying my Grandparents council house : Right To Buy Scheme

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ash28 wrote: »

I don't really see your plan working to be honest - your grandmother at her age would not be likely to be to able to get a mortgage even with you as a guarantor.

Even if she was able to get a mortgage with you as a guarantor, the house would still belong entirely to your grandmother - you would need to seek legal advice on what would happen if she had to go into residential care and the house needed to be sold to fund that care. What if your grandmother died and your family decided to contest the will or whatever documents you had drawn up? Your parents? Brothers, sisters or other grandchildren.

However, if you lived with your grandmother for at least 12 months then you would be able to buy the property with her (even though you aren't a tenant) and you would be able to get a mortgage - the property would be jointly owned.

How would you prove this? I'm guessing your grandmother has her rent and council tax paid for her at the moment - if that is the case then the full rent and council tax would have to be paid if an adult working full time moved in with her - for at least a year.

Do you already have a deposit or do you need to save for one - at one time lenders were happy to take the discount as the deposit - I don't know if that's the case now. Probably not.

The questions you must ask yourself -

Has any maintenance or improvement work been carried out on the property in the last 10 to 15 years - if the answer is yes then you might have to pay for some or all of those.

How well is your grandmother? What if you need to sell within 5 years - the repayment of the discount will be on a sliding scale to the council based on the selling price and not the original valuation.

If your grandmother had to go into care would the council be able to put a charge on the house to be able to reclaim fees?

If your grandmother died within the first 5 years would the discount have to be paid back to the council?

If you sell within 10 years the house has to be offered back to the council - if they want it and if you can't agree a price the District Valuer will value the house.

Has the house had any adaptations? (shower instead of a bath perhaps). If it has it may be excluded from the right to buy.

Is the property in a rural area - if it is you may have to sell it to someone who has lived in the area for at least 3 years.

Are you prepared to pay for any maintenance the property might need?

I personally don't agree with the RTB and do feel if people can afford a house then they should buy one and leave the council properties for those people/families in genuine need.

A good informative post.

I feel that it is more important that the practice that Panorama exposed last year about greedy tenants subletting and making money illegally and it seems that council's do not care about 50,000 homes being taken away from people on the waiting list for a home.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13231419

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/uk-14380936

debtfreebyxmas

Well said I hope there are systems in place to stop this from happening! If I has grandchildren like that, I'd check my food twice before I ate it

junglejim2

Good luck to you Jeffers, if you can work it go for it.

Thatcher let the genie out of the bottle with right to buy so fill your boots.

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Do not rush in to buy as house prices in London and elsewhere as prices are going down and are forecast to go down more in 2013. Everyone should be careful about purchasing a property just now. Renting is the best option.

sharpe106

Why is renting the best option even if you only pay 500 a month rent then that is 6,000 a year do you really think the majority of houses are going to go down that much in a year? Some will yes but unlikely on the lower end of the market

J_i_m

Rents are generally increasing as well.

Gentile

Even if OP managed to somehow pull it off we would then find that he would then sell the property a couple of years later and pocket the cash. As it has been done by thousands of others in the past decade.

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Gentile wrote: »

Even if OP managed to somehow pull it off we would then find that he would then sell the property a couple of years later and pocket the cash. As it has been done by thousands of others in the past decade.

If s/he sold the home 2 years after the purchase s/he would have to pay the council back 3 years of the discount money back....as it is a part of the condition of the purchase. :cool:

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The councils put a charge on the property for 5 years therefore if the property is sold within 6 months after the purchase a pay back of the full discount to the council would be required, if it was sold after a year they would have to pay back 4 years of the discount. That would apply until the 5 years of the discount has expired.

It was only 3 years when incentive scheme was introduced in the 80's, it is 5 years now.

If the property was purchased by the OP perhaps that would save her GM going into a care home which may not be what she wants and would avoid by having a family member as a carer, (we all know about the care in some of these homes) also care homes would costs the tax payer far more in the long run if GM live for another 10 to 30 years, it seems that posters that reply to the OP are mainly concerned about their tax money is being spent and not what is best for an older person concern.

Amib19

Council housing is not funded by tax payers- council tenants still pay rent and assuming your grandmother paid rent for many years she prob brought the house several times over and it is a shame but you cannot purchase it on her behalf, I have encouraged my mum to try purchase her council house not for my benefit I already have my own home but that it seems a shame to lose the home me and siblings grew up in, and my mum is relatively young so hopefully has many years ahead of her. I think in these times when everything is hard and buying a house is out of the question for most people and the council have decided that they are no longer even considering people who are working but on a low income it is totally understandable why you have thought of this as an option. But have you considered moving in with your grandmother (if this is an option for you) you could them make an application to take over the tenancy in the future?