Right to acquire Housing association house

Zambarsteeth

I have just put in an application for right to acquire with my Housing association. The house was built in 1980 and a family I know lived there for many years renting it off the local Council. They purchased the house off the council in 1997 and kept the property for 5 years before selling it in May 2003 to a housing association. I was the first person to rent the property from the housing association and moved in in Nov 2003.

 I have just received an email and it goes like this:

"Thank you for your Right to Acquire application form, after further investigate I can confirm your property does not qualify for RTA as it came into the organisation before 01.04.1997
Please see below the guidance for the RTA
Right to Acquire
Eligible tenants must occupy a qualifying property. To qualify the property must either have been:
Built or bought by a housing association after 31 March 1997 (and funded through a social housing grant provided by the Homes and Communities Agency or local council)
Kind Regards"

Surely the 5 year gap in social housing ownership would mean I do qualify for the RTA as the property was purchased after 1997 by the association.

Does anyone have any advice on this please, many thanks

dimbo61

Well you need to write back or email them or both !
Get proof of posting and inform them that you know the property was purchased by the HA in 2003 and ask to speak to someone 
Can you check on Rightmove sold prices and print off the page about the house ?

tinytiddles

I think the issue here is that the property purchase would have to have been funded by social housing grant as part of the affordable home programme or by a grant from the local authority as well as being acquired after 1997. If the HA bought the house from the family using its own funds then it wouldn’t qualify for RtA unfortunately.

Norman_Castle

Zambarsteeth said:

Eligible tenants must occupy a qualifying property. To qualify the property must either have been:

Built or bought by a housing association after 31 March 1997 (and funded through a social housing grant provided by the Homes and Communities Agency or local council)

That might be the problem. Ask for a fuller explanation.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5809e538e5274a67eb00001a/RTA_booklet_2015_-_full.pdf

HampshireH

Zambarsteeth said:

I have just put in an application for right to acquire with my Housing association. The house was built in 1980 and a family I know lived there for many years renting it off the local Council. They purchased the house off the council in 1997 and kept the property for 5 years before selling it in May 2003 to a housing association. I was the first person to rent the property from the housing association and moved in in Nov 2003.

 I have just received an email and it goes like this:

"Thank you for your Right to Acquire application form, after further investigate I can confirm your property does not qualify for RTA as it came into the organisation before 01.04.1997
Please see below the guidance for the RTA
Right to Acquire
Eligible tenants must occupy a qualifying property. To qualify the property must either have been:
Built or bought by a housing association after 31 March 1997 (and funded through a social housing grant provided by the Homes and Communities Agency or local council)
Kind Regards"

Surely the 5 year gap in social housing ownership would mean I do qualify for the RTA as the property was purchased after 1997 by the association.

Does anyone have any advice on this please, many thanks

It was built before 1997 and they may not have used council or agency funding.

However there are many other exclusions to RTA eligibility. So many properties are not eligible. It is completely seperate to the Right to buy the former tenants would have had based on their tenancy rights.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/capital-funding-guide/10-right-to-acquire

It's most likely down to the funding though.

Zambarsteeth

Thank you for the replies
The property sale is on rightmove dated 21st May 2003.
It could be down to funding but they have not said that in their reply, they have only given the reason "I can confirm your property does not qualify for RTA as it came into the organisation before 01.04.1997"
I have emailed them and I also phoned them yesterday to get more information. The guy on the phone wasnt the person dealing with the case but looking at my file he could not see the 5 years the house was in private ownership, he could only see it was built in 1980 etc. Fingers crossed

HampshireH

Zambarsteeth said:

Thank you for the replies
The property sale is on rightmove dated 21st May 2003.
It could be down to funding but they have not said that in their reply, they have only given the reason "I can confirm your property does not qualify for RTA as it came into the organisation before 01.04.1997"
I have emailed them and I also phoned them yesterday to get more information. The guy on the phone wasnt the person dealing with the case but looking at my file he could not see the 5 years the house was in private ownership, he could only see it was built in 1980 etc. Fingers crossed

They will have that on file for insurance purposes. A lot of generic housing management systems fail to allow two dates, build and bought (or owned). It's like the designers of the systems never took into consideration buy backs. 

They are more likely going to have to dig out the paperwork or case files to find the draws and confirm them. Same with funding. That information won't be available to anybody except the teams involved in the purchase. Your frontline  housing officer etc won't have direct access to any of that.  

Marvel1

You can afford property so buy one of the many for sale.

Pass the HA to someone else in need like you were.

Zambarsteeth

Marvel1 said:

You can afford property so buy one of the many for sale.

Pass the HA to someone else in need like you were.

I would if I could afford it. I can just about afford this property with the discount, there is nothing else in this price range so I will have to move out the village unless something else comes up I can afford. I have been in the village 43 years and have family here including a mum who relies on me to help her out. The housing could pay for 2 or 3 properties by selling this one

HampshireH

Zambarsteeth said:

Marvel1 said:

You can afford property so buy one of the many for sale.

Pass the HA to someone else in need like you were.

I would if I could afford it. I can just about afford this property with the discount, there is nothing else in this price range so I will have to move out the village unless something else comes up I can afford. I have been in the village 43 years and have family here including a mum who relies on me to help her out. The housing could pay for 2 or 3 properties by selling this one

Are you in a rural village?

Zambarsteeth

Yes and no, its quite large now and has just has another 200 houses built which includes social housing. I suppose it depends on the definition of rural village. 10 years ago there were 6000 people living here, that number has certainly gone up