Conservative 'Right to Buy'

A policy that has only just been announced, with legislation yet to be written, has not been implemented?

Like I say, I’m a critic, but you do nobody any favours by claiming that the policy announced today contains a reduction in social housing stock, as it doesn’t.

Ok. You’re right! It definitely, categorically won’t lead to an actual reduction in housing stock.

Anyway…. about my Nigerian uncle, and his millions….. seriously, he’s as honest as the day is long. You can’t lose…

Are you in?

It’s OK folks, the universe is safe, normal STW service has been resumed 😆

I am pretty sure she said that they had to do this now under legislation but they had not

extra homes sold under Right to Buy will be replaced by a new home for affordable rent nationally, with money from extra sales put towards the cost of replacement

So they have already said this has to happen and it has not

What makes you think this will now happen?
As I said the Home secretary was most unclear as to what would magically happen to alter this fact. Perhaps you can clarify for us? [ you are wrong please stop digging]

https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/helping-people-to-buy-a-home/supporting-pages/right-to-buy

I was absolutely incredulous when I heard this on the radio as I drove to work this morning. And apparently the best rebuttal Labour came up with off the cuff was ‘it’s not fully funded’ Jeabus!

If I was a housing association, and this gets through I’d just sell all the houses and shut up shop. Penalise a HA by legislating right to buy, then again by mandating they replace/build another . You’d really not bother would you?

Anyway, it’s such a stupid idea, it will be easy to blame it’s abandonment on a coalition agreement come mid-may. Cretins.

A policy that has only just been announced, with legislation yet to be written, has not been implemented?

Like I say, I’m a critic, but you do nobody any favours by claiming that the policy announced today contains a reduction in social housing stock, as it doesn’t.

You’re aware that this is an extension of a 32 year old policy?

If I was a housing association, and this gets through I’d just sell all the houses and shut up shop. Penalise a HA by legislating right to buy, then again by mandating they replace/build another . You’d really not bother would you?

Would those be the houses that they were given in the first place?

Where did you think they got the houses from?

led to many councils transferring their housing stock to housing associations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_association

I can’t see the problem with this policy. The old big house that require a lot on maintenance are sold and replaced with more a modern house requiring less money to maintain and better energy efficiency too. As a tenant I know which I would prefer.
As for councils not building enough they should stop wasting money so they could build more homes. My dad is a council tenant. Him and his wife only in a 4 bedroom property. In a period of a year whilst the council were modernising the street they fitted double glazing and decorated all the rooms due to the plaster repairs around the windows. The kitchen was replaced 2 months later, it had only been in for no more than 3 years and the council decorated the kitchen again. The central heating boiler was then replaced, no faults with the previous one. The new one had to go on an external wall so they ripped out the new cupboards and fitted a whole new kitchen then decorated it for the third time that year. This was the same scenario for the whole side of the street. The other side had a handful modernised then nothing.
On the flip side of that a mate also a tenant of Leeds Council. His house might as well not have windows they leak so badly, boiler is constantly being repaired and the most of the sockets are broken and have been for the years he has lived there. He could do with the extra bedrooms as his boys are bit big and old now for bunk beds.

great article:

This is a very ineffective way to support the aspiration that many have to become home owners. Apparently, the Conservative Party believes it can raise £17.5billion to support this policy. Over the course of one parliament, that is enough money for housing associations to build over a million new homes for shared ownership. That is a million households getting a foot on the housing ladder and a million new homes built. That, to me, is aspiration and ambition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/davidorr/right-to-buy_b_7060418.html

😯

What local authority is that ?

Can’t believe the Tories haven’t learnt from the past. Normally I’m right leaning but this failure to grasp the housing issue has at least made this floating voter float the other way.

extra homes sold under Right to Buy will be replaced by a new home for affordable rent nationally, with money from extra sales put towards the cost of replacement

there is another trick being played here – council owned houses are being replaced by ‘affordable’ housing which has lesser rent controls

unaffordable housing (grauniad link)

the comments about the largest houses being put up for sale as a mild form of social engineering is very true also, Shirley Porter would be proud !

binners – Member

So selling 20,000 houses and building 2,000, year on year, isn’t actually leading to a reduction in social housing stock?

Could you talk me through that?

It’s because we’ll fill them with twenty times as many immigrants, we’ll have to, I’ve been promised!

fin25 – Member

It’s OK folks, the universe is safe, normal STW service has been resumed

Best stop masturbating on this train then. 😳

What I find amazing with this is that, if all sides now recognise that there is a housing crisis, the tories solution is to repeat the most influential policy which created that crisis. Of course the reality is that the tories don’t recognise a ‘housing’ crisis, but a ‘home owning’ crisis, but that’s a difference the vast majority of the electorate will neither recognise or be bothered about.

The decline of council housing isn’t just due to the right to buy.

Massive swaths of council houses were torn down across the country because they were falling apart.

Go to Elswick/Scotswood/Pottery Bank in Newcastle and see all the areas that have been completely torn down and not replaced.

I remember excouncil housing being sold of for quids in the mid 90s in Newcastle, there were deals on it being redeveloped, but the cost of mainting it was crippling them.

If you know the area opposite M&S Brothers, the Halal supermarket/wholesaler – those houses there were bought of for peanuts, and turned into single bedroom bedsits, owner is doing very nicely now.

What local authority is that ?

Leeds City Council.

5thElefant – Member

It’s in the tory interests to have more people property owners and give them a leg up so they’re not a burden on the state.

Social housing is not a burden on the state it’s self-financing, the build cost is recouped through years of rent.

Unless of course it’s quickly sold at a 70% discount of course. But who would do something that stupid ?

So the council builds houses with governmnet grants, borrowing or other means, then is told by this lot that they have to sell the properties off cheap to sitting tennants, and loose rental income, while still having to fund the borrowings and maintance on other properties.

What is needed is more social housing paid for by the state without making private landlords wealthy through Housing benefit payments

I’d like to see figures showing the return councils get on their social housing, they get a lower return than the private market?

I am most amused to see that even the Telegraph are breaking with the Barclay Brothers’ “to hell with journalisitic integrity, just get Cameron back in” policy with this commentary piece.

Love that Torygraph piece, quite a few of us self confessed Tories on here also very disappointed with this pathetic idea.

What’s the difference between the announced policy and the current right to buy housing association properties?

Described here:
https://www.gov.uk/right-to-acquire-buying-housing-association-home/overview

6,180 of 15,875 properties sold by Wandsworth Council under the right to buy are now rented out privately ………. 977 landlords own more than one of these properties, with one owning 93

Multi-millionaire Charles Gow is a buy-to-let landlord who owns over 40 former council flats ……….his father, Ian Gow, was the Housing Minister under Margaret Thatcher[/url]

Labour councils in London are leading the charge in terms of selling council homes. Has anyone actually claimed that currently councils are building as many homes as they sell ? The Tory policy was that balance would have to be maintained in the future. Labour did nothing to stem the flow of sales during their 13 years in charge.

Also as above many Right to Buy tennents sold their houses for a profit and moved to cheaper areas pocketing the profit. As the ex council houses aren’t so popular with private buyers many where bought by BTL landlords.

As above Housing Associations are commercial ventures and I do think there would be a legal challenge.

We need more social housing not less and the government should be building it.

What’s the difference between the announced policy and the current right to buy housing association properties?

Described here:
https://www.gov.uk/right-to-acquire-buying-housing-association-home/overview

right to acquire has smaller discount which means few do it and it is far more manageable for the housing associations, they can and do budget for it.

Weird thing about this whole thing is that whilst the goverment does subsidise the sector with grants to help build new homes (and these are vastly reduced on what they were) Housing Associations are not public sector. The are not for profit companies. They are not owned by the govnerment. These are not the Government’s assets to give away. Not like the council house sell off in the 80s which were at least public owned (albeit even there it was actually local government not national government) This policy is effectively nationalising a company’s assets to sell them off. Very weird for a tory government to do.

Right to buy- where will council tenants get their mortgages and deposit from?

Mortgage from a bank like everyone else and as for deposit, what do you think the discount is?

An item on R4 this morning about Holy Island – nothing tao do with the election etc – a woman who lives there says many of the council houses sold cheaply in the 80’s are now rented out as holiday homes.

i think any mortage company would be quite happy to lend a 95% mortgage on 30% of the value of a house. I think they’d almost prefer the owner to default. thats a superb return on risk.

This policy is effectively nationalising a company’s assets to sell them off. Very weird for a tory government to do.

Not really. The Tories can be bordering on socialists when they choose too. It only seems to depend on who the beneficiaries are.

Mortgages are based on the value of the house, not the sum paid do if there is a 70% discount from valuation to price then rhe mortgage to cover the entire purchase cost would be 30%.

i think any mortage company would be quite happy to lend a 95% mortgage on 30% of the value of a house. I think they’d almost prefer the owner to default. thats a superb return on risk.

The bank doesn’t get to keep a profit on a forced sale and any charges have to be reasonable as determined by the courts. I assume you’ve just made a typo but the bank would be lending 95% of 70% valuation using the 30% discount, I strongly suspect the Housing Associations will aggressively challenge any discount as well as the actual right to buy.

Seems an idiotic policy to me, fraught with difficulty – not least if there is demand for rented accommodation in general (assisted or otherwise), how does selling off stock help?

A more pragmatic approach would be to look at:

A.) Supply side; chiefly planning and land use or restrictions to.
B.) Problem of un-utilised (investment) homes.
C.) Demand in terms of having some better control on immigration.

Haven’t read all posts so sorry if someone has said it but…

It’s this just one of those “throw it away policies” to be used as a bargin chip for the horse trading once coalitions start to be formed.

As such it’s still rubbish and leads to the question …. which are the main parties “real” policies and which are just put in or pumped up to be “traded” later?

Guess it’s a down side of coalition goverments

Can someone explain to me how this bit works-

councils will sell off their most expensive properties as they become vacant and the money can then be put forward to newer more affordable homes.

So what happens in London boroughs when they sell off large/multi bedroom houses then a family comes into the borough and needs rehoming.

Where are they going to build these houses?

Where are they going to put these families?

In my council- ALL the houses (excluding flats) are exactly the same. Say lots buy up. Where will the ‘new’ houses go? Space is tight round here.

Green belt?

Cameron (correct me again)- is looking to ’empower’ the ‘working man’ but also create more construction industry need?

Where are they going to put these families?

Nowhere near London, thats for sure. Stoke? Birmingham? Southend? I believe they’re some of the alternatives presently on offer. This is all part of the continued social cleansing programme in the capital

Where will the ‘new’ houses go? Space is tight round here.

As in the past, they’ve absolutely no intention of actually building any new ones, no matter what they say now. And you’ve just highlighted one of the excuses they’ll use as to why not!

I’d better get buying some houses round here then to offer to rent. Quids in, cheers for screwing the taxpayer with short term politics, longterm debt.

Are the eligible properties any different to the existing ones in the current HA RTB policy? ie State funded HA houses.

https://www.gov.uk/right-to-acquire-buying-housing-association-home/overview

Can someone point to a link to the detail of the ‘new’ policy? The blue party’s website isn’t especially quick to navigate.

that torygraph piece is pretty amazing when you notice it’s written by Julia Hartley-Brewer, who is so right wing I would bet she’s on the david icke lizard list!

It’s always interesting to hear the criticism of Conservative housing proposals by Labour, but as is always the case, it’s instructive to look what Labour run administrations actually do with the powers they have already got.

Two examples that have been in the press down in that there London recently:

Labour run council leaves 100’s of their own properties empty for up to 14 years:
http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/local-news/empty-homes-hounslow-costing-taxpayers-6685035

Labour council leader with 2 full time political jobs complains about housing shortage whilst renting out his own £1m home as an HMO and himself living in social housing provided for him by a Housing Association:

http://tinyurl.com/m3hvfmw