Right To Buy From Landlord (Labor Proposal)

FreshFruit

" Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has today proposed a new ‘Right-to-Buy’ scheme for private sector tenants to tackle what he describes as the “burgeoning buy-to-let market” and the problem of landlords who do not maintain their properties.

McDonnell said that, should Labour win the next election, the party would bring in legislation allowing tenants to buy their rental home – and not necessarily for the market price.

He told the Financial Times: “You’d want to establish what is a reasonable price, you can establish that and then that becomes the right to buy.

“You (the government) set the criteria. I don’t think it’s complicated.” "

-Source RLA News

anybody else here about this? It terrifies me. Apparently they would be able to buy it at a reduced market rate simular to the way the council right to buy works (up to 35%++ off) depending on how long they have lived there.

I imagined I had a 100k home, £350 mortgage/expenses and £500 rent, somebody rents it for 3-5 years and I make an OK return, but then they apply to buy it and i'm forced to sell it for -35% less, 65k? I'd have lost out big time.

Surely landlords would just kick tenants out after 2yrs? Get a new one in.

Read one article who said that decent landlords would suffer the most as they would be more likely to have long term tenants, the scumlords who have new tenants all the time wouldn't be impacted as much.

theartfullodger

Isn't this just like Thatcher's right2buy?

It's most amusing to see private landlords frothing at the mouth over these proposals: Especially as so many private lets were originally council properties sold under right2buy.

Cheers! Artful: Private landlord

Comms69

Think it’s a terrible idea, but it achieves Labours goal of not bein power

buggy_boy

The lack of detail in this plan tells you everything you need to know.

[Deleted User]

I think its just a little bit early to panic right now. 1) A General Election has to be called 2) Labour has to win 3) Then there would be white papers, consultation etc. Still no guarantee laws would be passed. 3) Legislation covering this would have to be passed. Doesn't normally happen in a day or two.

While things are very uncertain right now, none of the above are certain to happen. Worry about it if there is a General Election, see if Labour gets in, and see if Mr O'Connell is still an MP, still Shadow Housing, and policy remains the same.

I'm not saying its impossible.., but likely.., no.

steampowered

I don't understand why people seem to apply logic when they hear announcements from private bodies, but throw all logic out the window when it comes to hearing fairly pie-in-the-sky reporting about politics.

At the moment this is just pie in the sky stuff, not official policy. If it was to become official policy there would be a white paper setting out what is actually intended, followed by the full legislative process.

There is no particular reason to think why a discount would apply.

Cakeguts

Who is going to want to buy a badly maintained property?

Cakeguts

I suppose it would include build to rent properties as well so that would be the end of those?

davidmcn

As with any other scare story about supposedly crazy Corbyn/McDonnell policies, worth bearing in mind that it's been a long time since opinion polls have suggested Labour are likely to get an overall majority. Any Corbyn-led government is likely to be a coalition of some sort, not one with the sort of landslide victory he'd need to start passing radical leftwing policies (given the likely opposition from some of his own parliamentary party).

[Deleted User]

Cakeguts wrote: »

Who is going to want to buy a badly maintained property?

I agree, when the one private LL I had was trying to sell, I was burning to tell propective buyers about the damp problems, barely working boiler with the wrong circuit board in it that he didn't bother to replace with the correct one, let alone replace the decrepit boiler, electrical problems, hole in the roof, state of the roof, lack of insulation, the condition of the extension that had been done etc etc but I was kept away. But thank goodness he didn't manage to sell it, I guess the prospective buyers weren't so stupid. It was the last property anyone should buy, particularly not at the high price he was trying to sell it at.

He evicted me so he could sell it, then carried on renting with an increased rent, decorated the place, replaced the decayed flooring but I have noticed he's had quite a few void periods since then. Sometimes Karma does land where it should.

onwards&upwards

davidmcn wrote: »

As with any other scare story about supposedly crazy Corbyn/McDonnell policies, worth bearing in mind that it's been a long time since opinion polls have suggested Labour are likely to get an overall majority. Any Corbyn-led government is likely to be a coalition of some sort, not one with the sort of landslide victory he'd need to start passing radical leftwing policies (given the likely opposition from some of his own parliamentary party).

Lol, the Tories have only had a majority for 2 years in the last 9 that they’ve been in power and look what they’ve done with it!