Conservative : Right to Buy to all housing association tenants
 

http://media.skynews.com/media/image...-1-720x960.jpg
[David Cameron announces extension to right-to-buy housing policy
PM promises to extend Right to Buy to all housing association tenants
Discounts of up to 70% to allow 1.3million families to buy their home
National Housing Federation said the subsidy will cost taxpayers £5.8bn
Claimed it was effectively worth £100,000 for each family who benefited
But the Tories said it would be funded by making councils sell off homes ]


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3XIx2djH9

Hmmmm, I am not sure it is a good idea to be honest.
We need more council houses and more housing association houses rather than selling them off.:shrug:

Yeah that's it Dave, sell off our council houses when we've got millions of people on a waiting list :clap1: well done fam

This was on paper a great policy of Margaret Thatcher's.
Had it been done in her time in a way that prevented former council homes getting into the hands of multi property owners, who then let the homes at ridiculously high and then higher rents.
Also,had it been the case that income from the sell offs, resulted in more homes being built, that sadly didn't happen.
Then it really would have been a superb policy.

I was made aware of problems for people in local authority housing who got into heavy arrears due to the bedroom tax/charge and was stunned to find in a same street, houses still under local authority rents and also houses that had been bought,then sold which were being rented out by a private landlord.

Almost next door to each other,the local authority property had rent that was over £300 less per month than the one privately owned and then rented out.

If that is allowed to go on again,then this is really a bad thing to resurrect as a policy.
The answer is not going down this route at the present time with a low renting housing shortage.
If there is local authority housing in place anywhere, then now, it needs to remain like that, at least until a lot more houses are built.
Otherwise it is going to go the same way as it did before,with many ending up selling eventally,and the property having massively inflated rent charges for someone else coming into the property.

In principle, I could support this when a great deal more housing has been built over the years but not at this time.
I feel this is a bad time to do this and in my opinion,it hasn't been thought out as to the consequences overall well at all.

Selling off houses cheap so people can sell up and relocate to Spain is not a vote winner

they will not be

I don't think it should be a vote winner and neither do I think at this time it really will turn out to be.

The article you posted reads discounts up to 70 per cent?

Yes but that 70 per cent off
for those that want to Buy their own Housing Association Home

aren't some of these housing assocations set up as charities? I know several houses built for single mothers valued at £300,000+ with charitable donations and tax payers money

Just proves what a useless bastard he is.

Well said.

My brother is trying to buy council house he rents so it benefits some people.

I'm against it for two reasons. Firstly, this country desperately needs social housing so I can't see the benefit of selling accommodation off cheaply. Secondly, people struggle to buy a home and most would not be eligible for any kind of social housing, so why should some people be able to buy a property for up to a discount of 70% while others rent or live with family while they save to get together a deposit? Sounds hugely unfair on all levels.

:clap1:

So allowing people who live in good quality social housing the right to buy those good quality houses and promise to build another house somewhere else sometime.....hmm

Sounds a bit nonsense tbh ... Not sure who stands to gain, this will effectively make the housing problem worse as more rentable social housing is sold off.

Another hare brained badly thought out unnecessary stupid Tory idea designed to appeal to whom...exactly ??

A real vote loser....

Excellent observations.

I don't understand why someone would not be eligible for social housing, anyone who places their name on the social housing list are assessed without discrimination positive or negative.
This is a divisive hateful decision and one I fully expected from the conservatives.

If one sold really did equal another built there wouldn't be a problem, but it's never going to work out like that, so it'll just be a repeat of what's happened over the last 3 decades. Genuine council tenants buy and live in their house, which is in theory fine, but they only stay for ten to twenty years. Then the relatively small mortgage is paid off, so they either sell up and the house is bought by a private landlord, or they decide to have a pop at renting it out themselves to fund a second mortgage on a new house.

The result is everyone else stuck in renting, paying bloated prices for ex-council properties. The only realistic prospect for many first time buyers ends up being to get into a council house and then buy it... Except that there are hardly any left.

It's just a mess really. I do understand it in theory - you're in a council house, you work your way up financially, you get to a stage where you can afford your own home but you don't want to move because you have friends / family / kids schools / a life where you are. But the only way it works realistically, is for the property to only be buyable at market value (could even be bottom end valuation - but no discounts) and the money goes straight into a pot used to build a new council home in the same council area immediately.

Completely agree!

We had to save up for our deposit and bought our house in the 90's, we then moved to a bigger property for our expanding family, so therefore bigger mortgage, our neighbours lived in a council house and last year bought it for £45,000, if we put our house on the market it would sell for around £150,000, this isn't fair, when we bought our current house 13 years ago it was £65.000 so they still got their house for £20,000 cheaper than we did 13 years ago!

No wonder this country is so ****ed up!

They will have their mortgage paid in 5 years, whereas it's taken us 25 years to pay off (and we still have 8 years left), that means they will be mortgage free before us:rant:

It beggars belief!

I don't mean to be rude but that just sounds like sour grapes, it's not the fault of the tenant that there is such a huge discount is it?
There has to be some incentive to take on an ex council property, they're not in many cases the best built or maintained houses with the minimum standard offered when there are repairs to be made.
I believe this is the reason for offloading this type of property, the cost of maintaining them to a decent standard structurally and environmentally is just not financially viable, hence the sell off.

Totally agree Ruby. Some people get so used to living free and being subsidised and this just gives them more free stuff. Why should some people expect to get a cheap house because they're council or housing association tenants? So many people would never stand a chance of ever getting social housing anyway because of the massive shortage. They can put their name down and languish on a list forever or they can work hard, save and buy a property only for people who do get into social housing to get a cheap house! It's ridiculous and unfair but so reflects the benefit culture of this country.

Yes this govt just love giving the poor free stuff. It's a fallacy that council house tenants as a group are unemployed, some are yes as are some in the private rented sector.
Social housing as a construct was affordable housing for all, that stands.
As they've been sold the waiting lists lengthen for the remaining stock, with a disproportionate amount sold in certain areas leaving those wanting to live there disadvantaged, that is not the fault of the existing tenants.

I don't think anyone is blaming the tenants Kizzy, if I was offered a house cheaply I would jump at the chance, its the unfairness of it, many housing association homes were built alongside homes that were sold as that is how many builders got planning permission by allocating a percentage of the homes to social housing, the quality of the homes are exactly the same as the homes sold to people who saved and got a mortgage, so how can it be fair that someone is paying a 150,000 mortgage whilst three doors down someone will be paying a 50,000 mortgage for the same type of property which would sell on the open market at the same price?

This policy isn't exactly encouraging people to go out and save to buy their own home, it will push people to apply for social housing so they can get a cheaper house I would have thought.

Do you not think? ah well I may be mistaken it seemed the tone had changed and it was distinctly negative towards social housing tenants.
I know in some areas this was the case and during the advent of social housing there were those who felt a council house was tantamount to a state handout too, had they been given the foresight to see 40yrs down the line that the sell of would occur and would benefit from being a social housing tenant they may have swallowed their pride?
There are also huge sections of council housing that are prefabricated jerry built concrete boxes, Livett-Cartright homes for instance, they're steel framed structures built in 1953 to last 25yrs... still here and being sold with the rest of the stock as perfectly habitable dwellings.
Maybe it isn't fair, but they want these 'houses' off they're hands asap before they all collapse preferably. The fact that it's creating an 'us and them' divide also is perhaps just a happy accident.

Both my sisters live in housing association houses, one lives in a victorian terrace property, the other in an ex local authority house, they have both claimed benefits for most of their adult lives.

The victorian property would normally go for around £100,000, so is it right she gets it for £30,000?

Absolutely not!

We need these houses to be kept as social housing as not enough houses are being built.

And i live in an ex local authority house (we did not buy it off the council!) and it's a good solid strong house and not on the verge of collapse:smug:

I'm not sure why you're cross, because your sisters don't work or because your house originally sold for less but you didn't benefit?...
What would the alternative be, to not sell any.. to turf out the current tenant and sell at full market value?

I just think if you want to buy a house you should save for it, and social housing should be kept for the most needy and vulnerable in our society, and to be honest we bought our house when the prices were good, so we didn't lose anything in fact we've gained, it's the fact that our neighbours have been given a house whereas we've had to work for ours.

I could say the same about my dad, is it fair that he's never worked a day in his life (only cash in hand if you know what i mean), then he gets to buy his council house at a rock bottom price, when other hard working people have to work for theirs, my dad would get a full refund as he's been in social housing for over 40 years, however he's paid no tax, no national insurance.

How on earth would he get a mortgage then if he'd never worked?
If you work and have a lifetime tenancy, agree to take over the responsibility for the maintenance of the house then maybe this is the reason for the discount? It's on a sliding scale therefore if you haven't been a tenant that long the discount would be relative.
Again social housing isn't and never was for the poor and needy it's for everyone, not everyone wishes to buy and affordable rents were and are preferable to some.

There are ways and means, last thing i heard was his step son in law was looking into buying it.

When i was homeless at age 17, i applied for social housing, i was told there was a 2 year waiting list, that was in the early 1990's, so i got a job, lived in a private damp flat with no heating, then moved to a shared house, then got a better job, saved up a deposit to put on a house.

The problem is that people can't do this now because house prices are so high, there's an affordable housing shortage and selling social housing stock will only create, more homelessness.

:clap1::clap1::clap1:

What a simply refreshing and brilliantly honest post Ruby.

That would be impossible, there is no way that anyone other than the tenant can purchase a council property, if your father was too old or insolvent there would be no way of securing a mortgage in his name.
It's sad that you had that experience so young and I don't think you were advised very well by the sound of it.
I agree the housing stock should never have been sold, it is young people as you were that suffer, people on benefits who cannot get a mortgage to buy and those who do work but on 0hr contracts with no fixed monthly income, no mortgage company can lend against those.
So in reality it is those who managed to live either at home or in private rented property whilst they were on the housing list, worked and bought their houses from the council who benefited. Nobody living free or languishing on welfare would ever be in a position to purchase any property.

Do you think the government want to sell these houses, so that they are off their hands? It must be very costly to keep up maintenance on these houses, that way if social housing no longer exists, it will all be down to private landlords to offer rented housing.

Council budgets are getting smaller and smaller, maybe that is what the Conservative government are thinking, get rid and they're someone else's problem!

I do worry for my daughters, how the hell are they going to afford their houses?

I've said exactly that, you're not reading my posts are you? :laugh:

It actually isn't impossible, it's very easy for a tenant to say that someone is living with them.

A family member claims to be living there, provides the money for the house and the tenant then stays in it until they die or moves elsewhere, the house belongs to the buyer or at the very least is jointly owned and is more than likely to be put up for let for an expensive price or sold on for the market price.

There is nothing wrong with people in housing association properties buying the house they live in but they shouldn't get a heavily discounted price at the tax payers expense and if it's not at the tax payers expense then were is the cash coming from? also if a housing association is forced to sell at a huge discount they will then not have the funds to replace that house in the same area.

In a housing crisis the likes of what is happening now this plan just doesn't make one iota of sense.

To add to all that Cameron is attempting to sell off properties that he doesn't have a right to, he doesn't own them and shouldn't be able to force the sales, he really is attempting to buy votes with this idea.

:hehe:I have read your posts, it's just you've articulated your posts better!

But some of the council and housing association stock are very well made as in my family and neighbours instance, around my area 2 years ago, all council houses had new kitchens, boilers and central heating, and new kitchens put in, just for 1 house that would be over £10,000.

My neighbours got a good deal!

Exactly this happens alot here in London, family members raise the cash, the tenant then buys off the Council for cash, then sell on at a vast profit and relocates to a cheaper area outside of London.

That's what my stepmum and dad were on about doing:(

I now think there's a hidden agenda, sell off the social housing stock, and let all the homeless, vulnerable, people as well as those on low incomes and living in poverty eek out their own existence, it wouldn't surprise me if trailer parks started to pop up everywhere like in America.

Ruby friends of mine sold their house in this area as the wanted to trade up to a bigger house in the same area, their house was well maintained as it has been their family home for 10 years, a housing assocation came in with an offer and bought the property for market value so whilst I would agree some Council properties are not well built or maintained, this is not the case for all of them.

I agree Cherie, all of my family live in very well built housing association/council properties, my house is ex local authority, built in 1949, nice big rooms, big garden, drive to the front, as i've said in a previous post, i did not buy this house off the council.