right to buy housing association tenants

G_M

right to buy housing association tenants

I too wonder how long this will take. I am looking forward to buying one or two. Will there be a limit on how many one can buy? Restrictions on age? Gender? Or will it just be a case of auctioning them off to the highest bidder?

lighting_up_the_chalice

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

Gaah.

If the housing association has a house worth 100K, sells it for 50K, gets 50K off the taxpayer, and builds a new house then the buyer is up 50K, the HA still has one house, and the taxpayer is 50K down. That's a direct transfer of 50K from the taxpayer to the buyer.

If the LA gives the HA 50K to build new houses without the sale, thenthe buyer doesn't exist, the HA has one and a half houses, and the taxpayer is still down 50K. The only difference is the 50K is retained by the HA, a charitable organisation, in the form of housing stock rather than being put in the pocket of a private individual.

And the HA ends up building half as many houses as it only has half the funds to do so, without the additional revenue from the buyer.

lighting_up_the_chalice

Maggie.Moo wrote: »

A few years ago, my mum had a letter from our HA offering our 3 bed house (built in 1997 - we've occupied it since) at a massive 75% discount on the market rate. Due to circumstances (being relatively poor and relying on housing benefit), she couldn't (and still can't) afford to buy it and wasn't really bothered anyway but she's likely to move out in a few years and it does seem like a wasted opportunity. At least we know it'll become available to people who need social housing though as my mum won't need a 3 bed house once we [adult children] move out.

HA's, who are in the business of renting properties, not selling them, do not tout for potential buyers among their tenants. If your mum got such a letter, it would be because she applied for RTB.

Unless your mums home is all but worthless, the maximum discount is well below your 75%.

Being generous, I think you may have misunderstood the letter.

restless6

have had the Right to Buy for the past 13 years and still haven't managed to do it!

So even if lots of new tenants are given that right, it doesn't mean they are going to be able to fulfil it!

Even though I have always worked, I am a single income with 3 children so cannot get a mortgage to the amount I need.
I expect there are many in a similar position.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

And the HA ends up building half as many houses as it only has half the funds to do so, without the additional revenue from the buyer.

But it still has the original houses left, so there's a net increase in the available social housing stock. Can you really not see this?

Even assuming (which is not necessarily the case) that the money paid to HAs is enough to cover building identical stock, any money from the buyer comes as compensation to the HA for the house they have taken off them. The only money being pumped into the system is from the taxpayer as that is being paid out with no compensatory return. Any additional housing generated is in private hands, and comes at the cost of the taxpayer effectively giving selected individuals huge deposits with which to buy houses at the expense of everyone else.

There is absolutely no reason that people in private rentals couldn't be given this money and told to buy new build houses...it would have precisely the same effect. Except of course that LAs don't have all this money to give away.

lighting_up_the_chalice

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

But it still has the original houses left, so there's a net increase in the available social housing stock. Can you really not see this?

There's no increased availability. The property is tenanted and, as a result, not available to anyone other than the existing tenant who was going to buy it anyway.

What there is an increase of is housing. The RTB tenant has a house, the HA has the funds to replace it, and the taxpayer only stumps up a proportion of that cost. If everyone exercised their RTB, under the Tory scheme, the number of new builds would match the current stock of HA social housing and the SH stock would not reduce. Under your scheme, we would be looking at half that number of new build HA Social Housing units. SH may increase, but there would be fewer housing units overall. And the cause of the housing issues we now face is a housing shortage, regardless of tenure.

sniggings

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

There's no increased availability. The property is tenanted and, as a result, not available to anyone other than the existing tenant who was going to buy it anyway.

What there is an increase of is housing. The RTB tenant has a house, the HA has the funds to replace it, and the taxpayer only stumps up a proportion of that cost. If everyone exercised their RTB, under the Tory scheme, the number of new builds would match the current stock of HA social housing and the SH stock would not reduce. Under your scheme, we would be looking at half that number of new build HA Social Housing units. SH may increase, but there would be fewer housing units overall. And the cause of the housing issues we now face is a housing shortage, regardless of tenure.

Based on the premise the Tories make it compulsory the housing stock is replaced, their track record on that is not good.

lighting_up_the_chalice

sniggings wrote: »

Based on the premise the Tories make it compulsory the housing stock is replaced, their track record on that is not good.

The HA's would have a vested interest in using the money to replace lost units. I don't think they would need any element of compulsion.

But, as I've already said, it ain't gonna happen, so don't worry.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

There's no increased availability. The property is tenanted and, as a result, not available to anyone other than the existing tenant who was going to buy it anyway.

What there is an increase of is housing. The RTB tenant has a house, the HA has the funds to replace it, and the taxpayer only stumps up a proportion of that cost. If everyone exercised their RTB, under the Tory scheme, the number of new builds would match the current stock of HA social housing and the SH stock would not reduce. Under your scheme, we would be looking at half that number of new build HA Social Housing units. SH may increase, but there would be fewer housing units overall. And the cause of the housing issues we now face is a housing shortage, regardless of tenure.

This is just nonsense. The LA for no reason is paying large sums of money to people who buy houses but ONLY if they buy them from HAs. Why? Why not pay people to buy privately built houses, if all you want to do is increase the housing stock and don't care about the social housing stock? if people can afford to buy their HA homes if given money they can afford to buy new build homes from developers if given the same sums of money. And if people can afford to buy new homes, developers will build them.

Not that this should happen...it's patently absurd for the government to randomly given certain people thousands of pounds for no good reason. Although of course, the government won't give it...they will force local authorities to give it, and cut that money from their other budgetary needs.

If you're going to say that new build homes cost more than HA homes, yeah, they probably do..which is why HA associations would not, in practice, be able to replace their existing stock simply on the proceeds of selling the old.

This whole farago is just a nonsensical scheme to promise free money to selected people who wouldn't have voted Tory otherwise. Judging from the comments here, it worked already. The scheme will of course never be implemented.

Marie2015

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

This whole farago is just a nonsensical scheme to promise free money to selected people who wouldn't have voted Tory otherwise. Judging from the comments here, it worked already. The scheme will of course never be implemented.

There is no way it would be in their manifesto if they did not think they could push it through. They have far too much to lose. As someone has mentioned earlier the number of tenants that could actually afford to take this up will be minimal so HA's resistance won't be as high as predicted. HA's are already obliged to sell their stock to former council tenants so there really is no difference.