Council selling flats

Somniac

Hi
I am a tenant of a council flat. The council is a London Borough but the flats are not in London. In the past year, as the flats become empty due to death or people moving out, the council has put them on the open market to sell the lease.
They have done this with about 5 flats in the last year. The flats are advertised in a local estate agent.
There has been no consultation about this move.
To clarify, these are not flats being sold by leaseholders. They are social housing flats previously occupied by council tenants.
I know the Govt has instructed councils to sell their most valuable properties but these definitely do not come into that category. Quite the reverse.
I wondered if anyone on here knows if this is legal?

lincroft1710

Why would you think it is not legal? Why would the council need to consult with other tenants in the block?

The council bought the flats to house people from their borough. As the occupants move on, the council has decided to dispose of the empty flats. It may no longer be an economic or viable proposition for the council to house people outside of the borough.

Norman_Castle

The council is a London Borough but the flats are not in London.

Any income from the sale will be part of that councils housing revenue account and can only be used for housing. Its possible they are being sold to fund properties in the London borough.

How far from London are they?

theartfullodger

Which party is in power at that council, please?

Cakeguts

Councils sometimes sell off properties that they don't want to modernise. It is easier to build new than try to fit a modern kitchen into a 1930s flat so they sell them.

da_rule

There are strict rules under various Housing Acts and Local Government Acts regarding how Council’s can sell their housing stock. However my understanding is that most of these rules only relate to housing stock that they own within their boundaries as they are the hosuing authority for that area (if they still own housing stock and it hasn’t all been transferred to housing associations etc).

As long as the proceeds of the sale goes to the relevant account (either Hosuing or some other department if the properties were transferred internally by a relevant appropriation first) there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. The Council may not want to invest money into maintaining properties outside of its own boundaries when it could use the money to benefit its residents.

Mossfarr

Our local housing association has been selling off the older housing stock for a couple of years now.
As soon as the properties become vacant they give them a good makeover and put them up for auction or offer them to first time buyers at a discounted price.

seashore22

You've last posted about this 2 years ago.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5394057

I don't suppose the answers will be much different.

Norman_Castle

Mossfarr wrote: »

Our local housing association has been selling off the older housing stock for a couple of years now.
As soon as the properties become vacant they give them a good makeover and put them up for auction or offer them to first time buyers at a discounted price.

My HA is considering selling their older properties as they don't make enough profit from them.

Somniac

lincroft1710 In the words of Bernie:I only asked.
seashore22 2 years ago they were being valued and had not actually been sold off.
Impressed you found the post though. I had forgotten tbh.
theartfullodger Tory

Otherwise, thank you for your inputs.
I must say the general tone of this forum is much more aggressive than it used to be.

[Deleted User]

I would be grateful if you could point out which posts on here are aggressive?