Council buying a house?

csgohan4

Norman_Castle wrote: »

This has nothing to do with rtb. There's a clue in the title "Council buying a house".

For the vendor not the OP, potentially anyways

TheGardener

Lots of reasons why a council would look to buy an existing property:
They need to increase their available homes - LL's charge a lot more to rent to councils, sometimes its just cheaper to buy properties to help with emergency accommodation - the fact it has been an HMO could be why.

Small group homes - this is the term used to buy homes suitable for small groups of looked after children to live in with carers - the days of large 'orphanages' are long gone (and rightly so)

Investment - councils need to make money - after 2020 when the government stops all direct grants to local authorities, councils have to make money somewhere in order to keep local services afloat. BTL works better when you already have the infrastructure to manage and maintain them.

Our local council is buying a lot of bungalows - they need them to provide homes for people who need accessible/disability adapted properties particularly where single elderly tenants (not subject to bedroom tax) need more suitable accommodation. This in turn usually frees up a traditional 3 bed family homes.

Cakeguts

They may want to buy it to turn it into supported housing.

steampowered

It is impossible to know whether the council will bid. I doubt even the estate agent knows.

It is also very possible that another potential buyer might make a higher offer. Who knows.

Most vendors are prepared to wait a few weeks to see what offers roll in.

Just put in what you consider to be a reasonable offer and go from there.

If you really want to secure the property, it can be worth offering a bit more to get it. If you aren't that bothered, leave the offer as it is.

da_rule

If it is being offered to the Council under their right of pre-emption under the right to buy then the Council have 8 weeks from receiving the offer to sell it to them to make a decision. If they don't respond in this time it can be treated as a refusal and then can be sold on the open market.

The fact that it is being marketed already suggests that this might not be the case, as most sellers either make the offer before marketing it (to save estate agents commission) or the need to make the offer is only 'discovered' by the solicitors once an offer has been accepted.

diggingdude

Is it a large house, guessing so as a former Hmo. May be that they have a large family they need to house and no current provision

rachael88

The house is unusual in that the accommodation is over 4 floors but the cellar is on the same level as the back garden. If you walk in from the front street level you have 2 reception rooms (currently bedrooms), the kitchen/diner is in the cellar which is also the access to the garden. it has 2 bedrooms on the first floor and a third bedroom in the loft conversion. All the rooms seem to be decent sizes but I wouldn't think it was ideal for most families with the cellar being the kitchen and only access to the garden, even if you used one of the reception rooms as a kitchen you'd still need to either build a fire escape to the garden or go through the cellar to reach the garden. Unless they don't plan on it being a family home.

rachael88

Just thought i'd come back to this thread, we were supposed to view the property today but the estate agent still does not have access.
I asked a few questions and was told the vendor is going through a company who is going through the estate agent. The vendor is not offering the council first refusal as they are cash buyers (according to the estate agent) but the estate agent doesn't know why the council have first refusal. When I asked if the property had been a council property in the last 10 years they said it looks as though it could have been.
I phoned the council and after being passed on to three different departments who all said they couldn't tell me anything as they didn't know I was finally put through to the department in charge of buying council properties. They informed me (after checking their system) that they have never heard of the property, all properties go through the gentleman I was speaking to and he had no dealings with it and if it were to be offered to them they would not want it.
I then phoned the estate agent back who said that the council have definitely shown an interest and she has a survey that has been conducted by the council and why would they conduct a survey if they weren't interested?
I am now completely confused by all of this and I haven't even been able to view the property!!! If there was a similar property at a similar price in the area I would have written this one off but there isn't.
My guess is the council have conducted a survey to say whether or not it would be approved again as a HMO and the vendor/company/estate agent have run with it as an excuse to hold bids for longer than usual, however I don't know.
I know no one on here can give me a definite answer but wondering if anyone has any insight or has dealt with a situation like this before?

agrinnall

rachael88 wrote: »

I phoned the council and after being passed on to three different departments who all said they couldn't tell me anything as they didn't know I was finally put through to the department in charge of buying council properties. They informed me (after checking their system) that they have never heard of the property, all properties go through the gentleman I was speaking to and he had no dealings with it and if it were to be offered to them they would not want it.
I then phoned the estate agent back who said that the council have definitely shown an interest and she has a survey that has been conducted by the council and why would they conduct a survey if they weren't interested?

I know nothing about council property purchasing but is it possible that the person you spoke to is only responsible for properties that are going to become council houses? If the intention is for for something else to be done with it, such as demolition, then perhaps it's another department that deals with that.

davidmcn

Also possibly a daft question but is definitely the same council you're talking about?