Reforms promised for Right to Buy

The government has confirmed its intention to make further reforms to Right to Buy with the intention of helping councils to better protect and rebuild depleted housing stock.

Right to Buy lets eligible council tenants in England buy their home at a discount.

Planned reforms to Right to Buy include:

• Increasing the minimum eligibility period before tenants can apply to buy their homes to ten years. This is currently three years.
• Discounts are being amended so they start at 5% of the property value and increase by 1% each year up to the maximum discount of 15% of the property value or the cash cap (whichever is lower).
• A new build exemption period means that new social homes cannot be sold under Right to Buy until 35 years after they are built.

The government is also reviewing how to prevent vulnerable tenants from being pressured into buying and how the Right to Buy scheme applies in rural areas.

To help councils to provide new social homes, maximum cash discounts have already been reduced to £16,000 to £38,000 depending on the area. Councils are also able to keep all the funds raised from a Right to Buy sale and can put this money back into building and buying more homes.

Discounts have also been limited so that the sale price cannot fall below the amount spent on building, repairing and maintaining the property.

The government has confirmed that the planned reforms will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows.

See: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/right-to-buy-overhaul-to-safeguard-social-housing