Buying council house with a friend

theartfullodger

aj9648 wrote: »

....Is there anyway I can step in and help and buy it jointly with him? And use it as an investment. I already own my own home and could buy it with cash that I have.

Where does the legality of this?

The question/sentence "Where does the legality of this?" is meaningless (or is I just thick...?)

If you want to invest, please do so in the many ways there are, up (at least) to those paying 12% (yes, really, I have some funds in one). But could you kindly comment on the morality of exploiting your "friend" and the tax-payers bung to him in this way, please? A calm & polite question, not in any way a criticism.

Best regards.

cmajorseventh

4 potential ways you could support your friend.

1. You could view it as an investment opportunity for yourself and see if you can work out some sort of loophole which allows you to do this even though you don't have a right to buy a heavily discounted property under the right to buy scheme. It sounds reasonable that you would want some return on your investment but increase in value linked to the right to buy discount wouldn't be yours in my opinion.

2. You could arrange a private loan to your friend which could possibly be secured on the property when the purchase goes through.

3. You could support your friend to sort out their credit rating so that they can buy the house at a future date.

4. Has your friend had advice from the information line about buying your home on gov.uk? They might be able to point them in the direction of specialist lenders. These might be more expensive on rates but could still be cheaper for your friend than renting and keep the option of buying independently.

MrCH

Sad that this goes on in this country.

Cakeguts

And how do you expect someone with no savings and bad credit to maintain a home?

da_rule

00ec25 wrote: »

- no payments for 5 years then, once the discount repayment period has ended, he transfers part ownership to you based on its then value and the fact your loan to value ratio has increased due to the zero repayments

It would be 10 years, as the Council will have a right of pre-emption for this period so the property would have to be offered to them first and they would have to decline to purchase it before the equity transfer could take place. There are certain transfers that are exempted from this, but this isn't one of them.

McKneff

Is your friend on any benefits

00ec25

da_rule wrote: »

It would be 10 years, as the Council will have a right of pre-emption for this period so the property would have to be offered to them first and they would have to decline to purchase it before the equity transfer could take place. There are certain transfers that are exempted from this, but this isn't one of them.

the discount repayment period is 5 years

after that there is the pre-emption period. I was leaving it for the OP to find out how long that was for himself so that he has to do a bit of work in order to get his taxpayer funded bung.

sevenhills

aj9648 wrote: »

Friend of mine has been offered chance to buy his council at a ridiculously cheap price. However his credit rating and ability to get a mortgage is non existent and there is now way he can raise the capital.

Is there anyway I can step in and help and buy it jointly with him? And use it as an investment. I already own my own home and could buy it with cash that I have.

Where does the legality of this?

Whilst I was hoping to buy my council house a friend was prepared to lend me the money; but as I had a pension that I could cash in, I preferred to take that option.
I have a good credit rating, just not enough earnings/savings. Do you trust your friend to lend him/her all the money, maybe not.

SVFM

aj9648 wrote: »

Hi

Friend of mine has been offered chance to buy his council at a ridiculously cheap price. However his credit rating and ability to get a mortgage is non existent and there is now way he can raise the capital.

Is there anyway I can step in and help and buy it jointly with him? And use it as an investment. I already own my own home and could buy it with cash that I have.

Where does the legality of this?

Council housing exists to provide homes for those who cannot afford to buy.
I find it immoral that people in my view want to purchase something which they are not entitled to as an investment.
Glad to see that Councils are paying more attention to Right to Buy applications, questioning where the money is coming from etc. They are also pursuing many fraud cases where they feel there is being abuse of the system. If they didn't do this then it would be so easy for people to take advantage of vulnerable tenants by sharks who once they make their investment, evict the tenant, the tenant then goes back for another council property and is surprised when they don't get one.
There is a shortage of social housing and it is no wonder when people think practises like this are o.k.

ed67812

Unbe-f**king-lievable

I want to buy some stocks and shares as my investment. Any chance you taxpayers could just post me the money? Seems about the same.