End the Right to Buy Now

SAP_Saver

I think that you are all missing the biggest issue here and that is that migrants and seekers of asylum are placed higher on the lists than local people with lower incomes. As for the comments about people being lazy there are the odd few (thank the Lord I am not one of them) out there who are good hard working people earning the average income <£21,000 even as a couple gives you about £75,000 mortgage, and they live in areas where such money would not buy them a caravan! These people may not drive and have children in local schools and be close to family and not want to move to areas where prices are as low as £70-80,000. Remember the ave. Asking price is now £200k... it is not as easy for younger people to get ahead and the council provide affordable housing and if those young people can buy cheaper it is a good thing for them. If they sell within 5 years maybe they should forfeit 50% of the profit above the rate at which house prices rise. But the scheme should not be stopped just managed properly. I think there are too many opinionated people on this site that just want to moan, this site is about money saving and beating the big companies and becoming suave consumers not snobby neighbours...

davilown

The biggest problem with the property market is all those people who have more than one house. why should they be allowed to buy an additional house to supplement their income when we are so short of appropiate housing?
There needs to be a big change in the way second homes are bought. take the 40% off inheritance tax and add it to second homes instead. that way there would be a massive increase of cheaper houses on the market.
When those with second homes decide to sell, don't tax them, just the buyers. at least this way is could prevent any of the homes coming on the market.

another way is to supertax the income from a second place from rent etc 40% would put most people off and thus decrease rental prices.

Yes I know you'll all moan at me and say its a silly idea but something needs to be done. It would almost certainly induce an economic crisis and crash - but hey, at least all of us earning a reasonable income could then afford to buy our own houses without paying silly amounts of money.

My mother-in-law bought her council house for £17k 10 years ago in a place call hayling island, hants. that same house in now worth nearly £1/4 million - its not right!

:beer: monster

THAMES_2

I know that there are genuine people out there that need assistance with housing and thats fine. But so many are using the system to make money instead of working harder - lazy. When I purchase a house I do not want to be next door to someone who is paying next to nothing rent or a hugely discounted price on a £575,000 property. This has happened to me in Berkshire with two young people, who had a baby (they could ill afford). He works 9 to 3 ( I should be so lucky). They have no shame in stating how they use the system. I'm off to bed now, up at 5.30am because I live in the real world and have pride.

lapat

let me tell you a story.....
my ex-misses had an affair and run of with the window cleaner(no joke) but good ridance guess what she copped for the house as i couldnt afford to pay here out i got some cash off her for the equity but it went on my cc's she had run up

so when i finnally settled down again i could only afford to rent we were lucky to get a council property.7 years down the line we bought the property from the council spent a fortune doing it up as they did absouloutley nothing to it and i mean a bare strip we did.
we sold it and made double what we paid for it including renovations but within the 3 year period as we had found and needed a bigger property.we paid back 33% of our discount to the council with no quarms as they through there right to buy scheme put us back on the property ladder.
on the road i lived on there was 261 houses and the council through there own words said there was in excess of 70% bought on that road alone and due to that fact crime had rduced in that area by 80% why because even the council tenants were proud of where they lived
i will not knock the right to buy scheme as it made our lives better and we had a happy community on our street that still said good morning to each other because these people were a working class neighbourhood.that had worked hard to make a proud place to call home that all the kids could play together without bunch of drunken hoodies on each corner

Poppy9

The RTB scheme hasn't worked very well for everyone. It was a good few years ago but I remember whole council estates having to be demolished due to problems with the concrete structure of the houses. The cost to repair was too great it was cheaper to rebuild. Unfortunately the tenants who had bought under the RTB were not compensated, repairs were upto them.

claz

i agree mostly with is is being said in this thread reagrding abuse of the system

a serious review of council housing needs to be undertaken as 10 onths ago my partner and i tried to get a council house and failed miserably i am disabled and wasn't working at the time and just wanted somewhere until we got on our feet or rather until i got out my wheel chair

however, when i went to my la almost the first question i was asked is when is the due date of the baby!!! this really p*ssed me off as you would imagine

i was then told at the end of the interview that i was not classed as a prioty and would have to go on the waiting list which my step sister with 2 children has been on for 2 years!!!!

there seems to be no fair way of refusing people and allowing people to rent council houses

subsqently i lived in the living rooom of my boyfriends house for 6 months until i could work (now looking bad working is a really bad idea as i am worse off now in terms of health) so we could afford to purchase a bungalow. i could never live in a house as i can't walk up stairs very well

i hate seeing the immigrents in our area as they are all living in council houses and it seems to me that they are given priority over local people

in my opinion if you are a foreigner then you should not be entitled to any kind of benefits etc you should get tempoary housing for one month when you arrive so you can get a job and find somewhere to rent but that is it