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I'm a home owner and wouldn't want to deny anyone the pleasure or the sense of security you get from owning your own home but I've been pondering that question after exploring the effects of the Right to Buy policy for the One Show.
The statistics are pretty stark. In the last eight years twice as many affordable homes have been sold off than have been built.
It is pretty clear what that means. The National Housing Federation, which represents not for profit housing associations, produced the figures and says they show the stock of affordable homes has fallen by 300,000.
And there is no shortage of demand for council or housing association homes. The number of families on waiting lists has grown by 61% - almost 600,000 people - over the same eight year period.
The credit crunch is predicted to lead to a wave of repossessions and rising unemployment which is only going to make the shortage worse, pushing up the numbers on waiting lists.
Yesterday the Government said it would bring forward millions of pounds of spending on social housing. The worry is that the credit crunch means housing associations won't be able to borrow the private funds they need to make new housing developments happen.
This leaves us with a growing problem - longer waiting lists but fewer homes.
So should Right to Buy die? Or can you think of a better solution? Add your comment below.
Comments
If right-to-buy was suspended then the people that might have bought are unlikely to buy elsewhere, so it doesn't free up any more houses but just means that there are more old housing stock that the council has to maintain when they could have sold it on.
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I don't understand when they say there are not enough council houses. I used to work in Knowsley and Warrington and both councils has hundreds of "voids" empty council houses and we used to be asked if we knew anyone who wanted a council house as the council are peanlised if they have too many voids.
signed
Erika Lucas
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Regardless of right to buy, there are still the same number of people who need housing. The now privately owned houses are not laying empty, people living there would need council housing if they did not have their home. The key is to build more houses, taking away the right to buy will make no difference.
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Although council houses are sold, its not as if they dissapear, people are still living in them, they aren't exported. So in fact no council house has gone.
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I totally agree with katym609. Suspending the right to buy doesn't mean that people will move out of their council houses, so how would suspending this right make a difference?
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I have worked since I was 16, and I now own my own home. I have no kids and am single. I am taxed at every turn.
If I had not bothered to study, got a couple of kids by the age of 17, I could have got on the council waiting list and got a house quite quickly (single people are perpetually at the bottom) then I could have bought it and sold it on for a great profit, all the time getting this benefit , that benefit and this credit for not getting off my arse and doing a decent days work.
No wonder Euro citizens love coming over here, our benefit system caters for those who have never lifted a finger!!
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I think they money received from Right to Buy should be used by the councils to build - or convert - more social housing. Seems a bit of a no-brainer to me!
Lynda
Lewes
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Why don't the councils buy repossessed houses, instead of building as according to the recent news, repossessions are on the increase. this would save the banks and building societies money and increase the council house stock levels. The unfortunate people who may have their house repossessed could then stay where they are and pay rent to the council instead of a mortgage.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
agree with Katym609 to a large extent. suspending right to buy will achieve nothing.
there are a huge number of new house builds that have been suspended due to the credit crunch, why doesn't the govt finance the completion of these properties? or when a house that is likely to be repossessed gets to that point, why can't the govt take over ownership of the property - would mean people wouldn't become homeless.
or even buy up repossessed properties to use as council homes
the houses are there, but are sitting empty, there are a huge no of empty houses in the SE that need relatively little money spent on them to bring them up to the correct levels for inhabiting.
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thank you for trying to put me out of a job!!
i am employed to value council houses in england and you are now advocating stopping this practice.
before you start trying to get this stopped please consider others.
you are ok you are employed by the bbc (as i would consider considerable wages to the taxpayer)
very angry!!!
stress week wasn't stressed until you started tonight!!!!!!!!!!!
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One solution is to refuse developers permission to build non-affordable housing until the backlog in an area is taken up. i.e. make them build affordable housing. Many councillors will hate this.
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Basic maths.
Sell a council house = new build thereafter.
I struggle to understand, a Labour Government in particular, has not really planned this area very well.
Prescott gave a thought to Gypsies and their plight, so why not plan ahead for the obvious needs of the rest of our society.
Helen Drury Nottingham
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The biggest problem with the ‘right to buy’ is not the selling off council houses. But rather the government taking a full 75% of the receipts from sales which prevent the council from using the proceeds of the sale to ‘rebuild’.
CM Isleworth
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As sent already to Today and PM
>To: Today/PM
>From: John Busby
19 October 2008
Subject: Northern Rock
Having now acquired a de-mutualised building society, the state should now “mutualise” it by paying off all the non-depositor creditors, relieving it of its bad borrowing, so that it can revert to being a proper building society with just domestic deposits.
If it then re-possesses the houses of defaulting mortgage holders, it will simply pass the upkeep of those made homeless to the state and local authorities. The state's problem is also exacerbated by the re-possession of houses mortgaged by other banks.
Let Northern Rock then buy the insecure mortgages from other banks, perhaps at a substantial discount .Northern Rock can then temporarily convert its own and its acquired mortgages to rents, while allowing its tenants to revert to ownership at some later date when house prices have risen again.
Given that the state has to pay for the consequences of re-possession and homelessness, this could be the cheapest solution and has the advantage of an eventual recovery of the losses. An unemployed man or woman has little chance of finding a new job without an address and the stability of retaining a secure base for his family would provide the breathing space for finding another job.
By nationalising Northern Rock, the state has acquired a suitable vehicle for restoring the housing market and easing the current emerging social problems.
John Busby
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I have never been in agreement for the rights to buy of tenants in council housing. The houses are built for those who cannot afford to buy.
A tenant should look elsewhere if wanting to own his/her own house.
I know of a particular village in Cornwall where tenants have sold their houses at a great profit.
One example of the asking price of an old two-bedroomed property in this location is £380,000
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Your maths are illogical. If 300,000 council houses are sold - that means 300,00 council house tenants are housed in non-council housing. The houses don't just disappear.
The chap with special pleading because due to drink problems and not being able to pay his mortgage, lost his house - basically it's all his own fault - why should that make him eligible for subsidised housing?
On the other hand - I do believe councils should be free to re-invest in housing the money they get from sales of council housing - if they wish.
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we have a right to buy house as this was the only way we could have bought a house if this had not been an option we would have still had a rented council house so there would have not been any more houses to rent as we would have still been in it
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not all council/housing association tenants have the right to buy there house you have to have been a tenant since before 1988 to buy, i don't believe they shouyld scrap the right to buy because it's the only way some people can afford to own there own property, i've been a tenant with an association since 1994 and can't buy my property but i can't afford to buy a private house either i'm on a good salary
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Hi if the right to buy was scrapped how can it make a difference. The people in the council houses would still be in the same houses they are in now. The woman you showed who bought her house would be in it whether she bought it or not.
You might as well retain the right to buy but start building additional houses as soon as possible.
Scrapping the righ to buy wont release any houses for anbody on a waiting list.
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if we sopped all the immigrants coming into this country then maybe the people that deserve the houses would have more chance of owning there own homes. they r the reason that e have to keep building more houses and that the country is such a state. LOOK AFTER OUR OWN BEFORE WE LOOK AFTER OTHERS!
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The right to buy is the only way that a lot of people can ever buy a house. Why isn't it possible for the councils to buy up some of the flats and houses that are standing empty on building sites that nobody can get a mortgage for? Some of these properties are half built.
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I'm 26 and I don't have the right to buy - because I work full time and earn £24k a year but can't afford to borrow enough money to buy my own house and am not entitled to any state help. I don't really understand why council tenants should be more entitled to buy a house than me.
I see why council tenants who bought their houses in the 70's for a very small amount should now be able to make huge profits from their houses.
I am upset about the state of the housing market in general, not just about social housing, but I do not agree with the right to buy.
The government needs to invest a lot more money in building affordable housing for everyone, not just for those who need state assistance.
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It's not that there are not enough houses, many are empty, it's that England is overpopulated, this need sorting, GB as a whole is an overcrowded congested place.
Drop the population.
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What rubbish everyone on the pprogram talked tonight. If no one had bought their council hose they would have still lived there so no more houses would have been available for new tenants. Have you all lost your marbles?
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I work for a housing association in development and we've stopped all new developments. It also doesn't look like we're going to do any next year either, which of course will put me and 100's others out of job.
Why isn't the Government pumping money into us like it did the banks. If we (RSL) can all start building again then that puts 10000's back into work, as no industry has been hit worst than the Construction industry........ Make sense?????????
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The problem with right-to-buy has been the lack of replacements for the houses being sold off.
Perhaps there should have been a requirement for any money received from the sales should have been used to build more homes.
Where I live, the average price of a 1 bedroom flat is £100000, the average pay is £16000, (How can you get a mortgage based on that) and there is an 11 year waiting list for a council house.
There is also an large amount of new builds described as 'a collection of luxury 4 and 5 bedroom family homes, from as little as £235000'
There should be a requirment to build 'a collection of affordable family homes at truly affordable prices.
We need to do something now, or we will be back to families sharing homes is crampt conditions (slums), while those that can afford it live in comparative luxury.
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What a pointless feature. I would have thought that the vast majority of council house tenants would be far more concerned with staying in employment in the present climes rather than trying to buy there home.
Even if they were inclined to proceed with the right to buy what are the chances of them being offered an affordable mortgage right now? Not likely me thinks.
Pointless feature - Must try harder!
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I have always owned my own property and therefore I am not biased one way or another in favour of the right to buy. However the commentators during the film
suggested that the right to buy reduced the availability of social housing. This cannot be the case because if the tenant remains in the property paying rent it is not available for relet. If the property is sold under the RTB the funds can go towards building new social housing units.
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Right to buy should be scrapped NOW. It's been a way for some people to make thousands of pounds profit and has left local councils with less housing for those in most need.
Perhaps as well as scrapping right to buy the government could also help out by buying up all those houses currently being re-possessed by the banks we now have a major stake in.
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I have run an exchange website since 1999 and have definatly noticed that there are less properties every year. I also have 100s of folk asking me if I can help them get a council property which sadly I cannot. The government must start too build more homes to replace the ones sold.
regards dawn oconnor
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Leave the right to buy alone. Every one of your contributors diagnosed the real problem which is a dearth of house building. Stopping the right to buy will do nothing to solve that fundamental problem. By stopping right to buy it will stop more properties entering the housing market and will actually push prices UP, re-inflating the housing bubble and hurting first time buyers and the mortgage market. If you want more social housing then you have to deregulate the whole housing process especially planning and taxation. Councils also shouldn't be responsible for building new social housing because they are very poor at managing money and work hand to mouth. The private sector is much better at development and so they should expand help for resident's associations.
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I work for a Housing Association in Scotland and am a critic of the Right To Buy. Within our organisation and other Housing Associations with charitable status, the Right To Buy was suspended in 2002. Thankfully this means that we can provide a substantial amount of decent housing.
The Right To Buy has not only decreased the number of available Council housing, it has also gotten rid of the better stock. Council housing, although sought-after, is often seen as the last resort amongst many.
The latest remedy to the situation has been Councils buying from Developers who cannot sell all of their properties. This certainly provides Council tenants with brand new homes but it increases costs.
Development is the most cost-effective way for Councils and Registered Social Landlords to supply affordable housing. The Government will hopefully aid them in releasing more development grants.
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If there had been no right to buy the people who were living in council housing then would still be living in them and there would still have been a housing shortage. I have been living in france and there if you live in social housing when your circumstances change ie earn a greater amount or the number living in the accommodation falls then you have no chice but to move to alternative accommodation either in the first case private or the second smaller. My aunt lived in a 3 bed council house all her life even when her children had left home and her husband had passed away. For many years she continued to live in this house although she was repeatedly asked to move to a smaller dwelling. While I sympathized with her, I also thought it wrong that one person should continue to live ina house that would have suited a family. I think there are many cases like this. I could go on forever about this subject.
Pat Hutchings.
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I think this is a very difficult situation , where some people will gain others will loose out and when it comes to having a roof over your head this is going to be an extreamly awkward descision to make. I bought my council house a few years ago that I had waited just under 8 years for, yes that is great for me but what about the other people who are still waiting 8 years or more, the way things are now they have probably no chance , you have basically to wait until some elderly person dies which is dreadful so you can have a decent home for your family,I do think that many more houses need to be built and the right to buy should be suspended at least until the economy settles down fingers crossed its soon.
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I agree with Scubagirl. If the people who are buying are in a position to obtain a mortgage then they should buy on the open market like everyone else. The idea of council housing was to provide for the less fortunate who couldn't afford to buy. The council house tennants wait until the house has been modernised at our expense and then buys at a reduced rate. Why??? The houses should be valued and they should pay the full amount. I have known where members of a family have bought their parents home in order to sell for a profit. Also, when a house is sold a further one should be built in it's place.
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I think that right to buy should be put on hold and central government should stop taking the cash from the sale of council properties and allow local councils to rebuild more council homes now. I had to wait over one year and half for my council home and I could not afford a mortgage or a private rental so council renting is my only option, its this or a cardboard box! This is one of the reasons why tenants have voted for our homes to be transferred to a housing association from next year, it means the cash from sale of homes can be kept local for improvements to remaining properties. James in Aycliffe.
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i totally agree that the council should be using the money they make from selling the houses to create more. my son and girlfriend are both serving members of the british army between them they have served for 15 years and done a total of 5 tours of duty in iraq both serving without complaint and doing there duty for there country they have lived at barracks in germany for the past 5 years (and whilst living there they pay council tax) but now they are leaving the army for various reason one being that they are due to have a baby in january they have been told because they are still at this moment being paid by the army because of maternity that they must rent privately because they have no chance of housing but because landlords are charging the top rents (because dhss will pay it for unemployed which is what private landords prefer ) they cant effort to pay rent and have any chance of a decent lifestyle so after all the service to there country they are just abandoned and left stranded what a country we live in
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i wonder how many of those who bought their council houses would have moved to buy a non council house had they not been offered the one they live in? very few i suspect. like the lady interviewed on the one show, i'm sure its improved the lives and sense of well being of many former tenants.
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we did do the right to buy way back in 1996 but by 1998 we were facing eviction due to poor health i think now that if your in a position to buy then it should not be council property my self and husband and daughter whom has 2 under fives have been on council waiting list since 1998 and been told another 12 years we made a mistake i wish the right to buy never even came in and i do believe it should be scrapped i also think for every devolpment site of housing should donate a certain amount of houses to councils no one is helping the council and i think now they should
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Surely, all people who live in council houses who have the right to buy will still occupy the same houses whether they are buying them or not. Councils should be allowed to use the money from the sale of these houses to build more houses. Stopping the right to but will not free up any more houses.
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I would like to know where the Government have spent all the money that they have recieved from 'right to buy'? We are privately renting a property that is in very poor condition (damp and freezing cold) and even with the points system we are 30th on the list in our area and have been on the housing list for three years and we will never be offered a council house as other people will be given priority for different reasons. We can't afford to buy a house and there are no places to rent affordably. It seems ludicrous to me to have sold off our Council housing stock and really our grandparents paid tax to help build these houses that have now been sold off and have left us in a housing mess.
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i recently read that there are thousands of empty properties around the country. why cant the government use these to house people. people in social housing shouldnt lose their right to buy!
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One of the reasons the policy was introduced to allow you to buy your council house is the income from sales will be invested into building new houses, are we going to borrow yet more money to build those houses that are needed for the homeless. The country has enought debt just now. Andy W
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The government knows that allowing the immmigrants to flood into this country will and has put a strain on social housing because they demand to be house specially if they have children-
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What nonsense on the one show. There may be a problem with social housing but it has noiting to do with right to buy. Probably 99% of those who bought council houses would still be tenants in them today if thay had not bought them. So how does this impact housing availability? The more people who take responsibility for their own houising the more channce those that really are in trouble will get help. But right to buy is not the problem - typical politicised nonsense. With no vested interest.
Yours
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My partner and i live in a council house, but as we live in a rural area with less than 1500 inhabitants, we are declined the option of 'right to buy'. It doesnt matter to us at the moment as we are not in a financial position to buy anyway, but we dont feel that the 'right to buy' option is the problem. The simple fact is that anyone who gets a council house, is not going to move as the rent is cheaper and you can pretty much do what you like to the house, as long as you are improving it and have asked permission first. They have bigger rooms and bigger gardens and everyone knows that as long as they pay their rent and respect their neighbours, then they can stay there. We are hoping that one day we will have the opportunity & the money to buy our house, but in the mean time..if we didnt live in this council house, we wouldnt be able to afford to live as comfortably as we do now...
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Sorry but am I missing something?. How would scrapping "the right to buy" increase the ammount of available social housing. Surely if a council house had not been bought by the tenant then still only one house exists but occupied by a tenant not an owner. The problem was that the revenue from sales was not reinvested in further housing projects. Good luck to all who bought their council houses and stand on their own feet.
Further more, what right does a person, who has drunk himself out of a life and a job, to demand that he has a right to a roof over his head, he had one and he blew it so why should tax payers now subsidise him??
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Whilst the desire to own you own home is completely understandable, this shouldn't be allowed to trump the needs of others who require social housing. RTB should be suspended until there are enough new houses being built to meet demand.
@Katym609 - if people want to stay in their council house then that's fine. But if ownership is important to them then they should turn to the private sector - thereby stimulating demand for new build, and freeing up social housing for people who can't get a mortgage. More new build=more supply=lower prices so we can all get the housing we need.
Lack of housing and high prices are at least partly caused by RTB. One more of Thatcher's chickens coming home to roost.
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It's a great idea to stop the right to buy for a few years but more houses need to be made avalible.
What about the young adults born in england that have finished schooling and wish to move out of the family home?!?! They never get the houses.
They never get there chance to have there own home as they dont earn enough to be able to have a morgagte and council houses are full with teenage mums, imigrants and lazy folk who dont work!
The system is unfair to the honest working folk!
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I completely agree with scubagirlie. My partner and I have done exactly the same - we have saved up for our own flat and we don't get any help at all! All the while there are people who have the right to buy their council homes & then sell them on to make a profit! Or leave the home to their families who can also profit. I think the homes should be there to help people who need the help, and if those people would like to own their own homes can save up for a deposit like others! From what I understand the monthly payments are next to nothing, for example £360.00 per month against our £1,000 mortgage! If we only paid £360.00 per month we could save up thousands of pounds really easily! The people that need help should get it I agree, but once they get to a stable place again with their finances, they should be asked to move on, or at least pay the market rent for a property. Everything should be relative. I get really mad when talking about this subject, and really could go on!
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Social housing has a NEED, the availability of affordable secure rented homes for those who need it. The poor, the sick, the elderly and the dispossesed.
If someone can afford to buy or rent at full Market theycan in the open Market. Selling someone a home at a 50% discount to enable them to afford it is not a solution either in the 1980. Or 2008. Selling public property at a discount to gain political support is immoral and has led to the current housing crisis.
This policy has also helped give us our housing booms an now bust as people who have no
Option but to buy are forced into the private sector due to non availability of social housing
This was the worst political decision ever but then when did polititians think of the long term
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When are the government going to shut the borders, stop bowing down to Europe, put their own people first and chuck out those who weigh us down and really do not contribute?
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Here is the real problem here. No doubt it wont ever be aired as people dont like the truth.
Why are there so many single people, or married couples, in 3 or 4 bedroom council houses? The answer is simple: They "qualify" for a 3 or 4 bed house as they have lots of children; yet they dont earn enough for a normal persons mortgage - ie: normal people are subsididsing them having kids. Thisis wrong. Then, when those kids grow up, the married couple are on their own, YET the council never ever reviews their situation and force them to give up their now roomy house to move into a 1 bed flat. The Govt should FORCE all council houses to have a review when their kids leave, and give those 3 bed houses to families.
Also, why do councils bend over backwars to house single mums who dont know the father of their child and house them. Surely they took the pleasure, they should pay for it. Why should we taxpayers constaaly subsidse the immoral, and shamelss people in this way? Can the BBC get the Housing Minister on the One Show 2mrw and ask her the question: "How many CouncilHouses of 2,3,4 bedorrms actually have OLY a married couple in them (or single person).
The answer would shock you, thats why no-one will ever be brave enough to ask it.
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Council houses being sold on is only one cause of the shortage of good housing. I would like to see everyone have the opportunity to live in a property that is secure and decent. But, buy to let, property development and the sale of social housing is making it clear that greed is more important than ensuring everyone is properly housed.
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Council housing was made available for people who for whatever reason did not or could not afford to buy their own home. If people wish to buy their homes then they should do so outside the council housing stock. We have been in our council house now for more than 30 years. When we got married we had to make a choice between buying a house or having a family and living in rented accomodation, we chose the latter and have been very happy with 3 daughters and 5 grandsons.
This really does annoy me that so many council houses have been sold off. We live in a society where you must own your own home and the right to buy has been great for some, but for those it was supposed to help ie; those that cannot afford their own homes it has been a disaster.
Stop the right to buy now and lets have council housing doing what is was supposed to do, be there for those who need it and not a cheap option to get on the housing ladder.
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I felt I had to comment as I feel very strongly about good hard working folk being able to buy their council house after years and years of paying rent and getting nothing in return except a few bits of upgrading along the way.As for the low housing stock, look back to the 60's and the horrendous multi story blocks that were built then knocked down again. All the so called anti social estates are not being policed properly and look around the country and you will still find masses of empty homes all in dire need of repair.
As for the guy who was interviewed, if he wants to drink and mess up his life so be it, but dont class his misfortune with the whole of Britain's council house waiting list 's. What is he expecting? and I tell you now if he had a chance to buy his council house he would do it.
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The 'Right-To-Buy' was a fabulous gift from the Conservatives for those who would never otherwise have bought property. The plan was for a property owning democracy. Unfortunately, it didn't happen, for reasons outside the scope of this blog.
The downside has been that social housing, readily available for those born in the 50's and before, as they got to their 20's, was no longer available for the generation that followed. This generation have been forced to either buy, or be at the mercy of a private landlord, paying far more relatively speaking, than would have been paid for a council house. I think that the following should occur:
The situation should revert. People should not be allowed to buy houses, which are earmarked to 'house' those who cannot afford to buy a home for themselves. We are only an island, we cannot build limitless properties - we don't have the land. I also think we should go a stage further - council homes should no longer be 'homes for life'. When individual circumstances change, such as when the family grow up and leave home and the partner perhaps dies, the person remaining should be made to 'downsize' in order to free up the two or three bedroom home they are occupying on their own, for a new family. Individuals should be requested to live in accommodation which is smaller and more suited to their needs and their new situation.
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I agree with the comment made by oldvine that councils should by up properties where the occupants have been unable to keep up their mortgage payments.
The governement announced today that they want banks to lend more so why don't they let people who have fallen into mortgage arrears pay them rent instead? 1showfan
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You can only buy your council house if you live in it or in other words you are on the council list, so by buying you are contributing to reducing the list - or have I got it wrong!
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i would love to buy my council house..but the council i rent from say you had to be a tenant before 1994,wich i think is so unfair..the government say they try to help first time buyers,,but i have not yet seen the fruits of that!!all i get told is that i havn't been a tenent long enough...how are we(the fisrt time buyers)supposed to get on the property ladder with out any help at all.
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There is one thing that everyone seems to be missing with this debate...........if the Government was STRONG enough to stop the imigrants from coming into ENGLAND it would then free up more council housing. Also one must not forget that the population increases yearly!
What is the actual difference with someone living in a council property for all their life - as opposed to someone buying the property and living in it all their lives?? It helps the Government for the income from it also they do not have to maintain it - which is an added outlay.
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Why don't the government buy up some of the unfinished moth balled inner city building sites. There are lots of empty and unfinished homes that builders can't sell. They could rent the homes also finishing the rest of the homes giving valuable work to the building trade so helping the local economy and going some way towards reducing the council home shortage.
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Not only do we need to scrap the "right to buy" council houses, we also need to scrap the "buy to rent" policy..
England is only a small Island, so we should only have a single home here.. If one home is not enough, then people can always buy another one abroad...
James.. Cheshire..
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agree sell 1 house build another
only thing were are the houses going to be built most folk would turn into nimbys!!
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I agree with scubagirlie. I also feel that people in council houses should be means tested as many council tennants get the houses when they are unemployed and then get themselves a job and remain in the houses paying council rates. They should be either be made to pay market rate or to move into private rental accommodation and actually pay like the rest of us do! People that get the houses when the have children get to keep them when the kids have left home, should they not be moved into one bedroom properties which would then free up properties.
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I have always voted Conservative but did not agree with the right to buy.
I enquired why the money gained from the sale of these houses was not used to build more. I was told it was held in trust and has been so since the right to buy was introdused. So this cash is just gaining interest but is of no real value. Council and social housing should be just that and not be alowed to be resold.
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Hi, why do you think suspending the right to buy will free up any housing,the people who've bought thier house will stay there whether they own the house or are a tenant Regards Allan sargent
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why was a north east council allowed to sell all the council houses to a private company !for HUNDREDS of pounds per house instead of THOUSANDS and shortly after the housing chief doubled his salary and stated in a national newspaper hes worth it !
disgusted
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I don't understand how you think that a 1 1/2 year wait is a long time! We have been on the list for nearly 10 years. The reason? We are in work-assisted housing. The problem? It is a mobile home on the edge of a quarry in an affluent area. We have no chance of getting a council house in our area, and we are likely to be evicted at any point because the quarry is due to close. We have been paying council tac all this time, and our children are at local schools. To get council housing we would have to move everyone into an unknown area at a moment's notice. All we are offered is part-share housing, and that is out of the area too!!
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we bought our council house as a way to get on the property ladder. It was against our principles as we were strong labour supporters. However we were both professional people and could not get a mortgage - this was in the seventies- and so this was the only way to get on the property ladder. we sold our house after 3 years and bought and sold a few times until we were able to get a large 4 bedroomed house in a third of an acre in the southeast of england. it would have taken us much longer to get there without buying our council house.
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The current government can do a lot to sort out the UK's housing problems if it really wants to!
But does it?
Cash from the Right to Buy (RTB) has been withheld from local authorities for over 20 years now (and continued by this current government) to prevent them (LA's) from building new urgently needed social housing. The cash receipts from the sale of council houses, goes straight into the Treasury coffers!!!
Well done Chancellor!
The government also is aware and has been for some time, that there are currently over 750,000 empty homes in England alone and yet does almost nothing about it - see www.emptyhomes.com for full details!
Finally, the government continues to carry out the 'wholesale demolition of perfectly good homes in the Midlands and the North of England under it's Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder (HMRP) Programme!
If you look at the above information, you will that it is not 'rocket science' that if the goverment were to tackle these housing issues, then there would be no need to stop the RTB!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please sign the online petition to Gordon Brown... then please pass it on!?http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/HMRPathfinder/
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Thanks
DJ Johne
Barnsley
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I have never posted a blog before!
I have very strong feelings about buy to let, even though I live in a flat which began life as social housing. It had been private well before I purchased it, at full market price. Having worked abroad for some years I had a house in Yorkshire to sell when I moved south to work. My return was in 1985, not a good time to sell a house! I was able to rent a housing association flat near my work place. Once my own house was sold, I realised that it was not appropriate for me to rent for about £80 a month with a teacher's salary; there were far more needy cases. I had also to sign that I could not buy to let, which was what I expected, and was right. I think youngsters have a problem. Cambridgeshire is not cheap. My previous school eventually purchased houses to let at reasonable prices for young staff. Traditionally people rented homes - many young couples used to live with one set of parents until they had money to buy or let elsewhere!
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We are in the midst of many pressures on our housing stock but the worst of all worlds was not allowing councils to use the money from the sale of houses to build more. As more people bought their council houses less was availble to youngsters who could not always afford mortgages. Now we have the situation that young people can't get a foot on the property ladder because of the greed of those who are and the lack of affordable stock. The press don't help with their stereotypes about single parents and youngsters. Sure, there are a few who abuse the system but what could one say about those that earn millions of pounds but pay less tax than someone earning the minimum wage? Isn't that an abuse?
We need the housing stock to increase or there will be mayhem and chaos as more people become frustrated and angry with those who abuse the system at their expense. That's why the French recvolution happened. Do we want that?
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Here is the real problem here. No doubt it wont ever be aired as people dont like the truth.
Why are there so many single people, or married couples, in 3 or 4 bedroom council houses? The answer is simple: They "qualify" for a 3 or 4 bed house as they have lots of children; yet they dont earn enough for a normal persons mortgage - ie: normal people are subsididsing them having kids. Thisis wrong. Then, when those kids grow up, the married couple are on their own, YET the council never ever reviews their situation and force them to give up their now roomy house to move into a 1 bed flat. The Govt should FORCE all council houses to have a review when their kids leave, and give those 3 bed houses to families.
Also, why do councils bend over backwars to house single mums who dont know the father of their child and house them. Surely they took the pleasure, they should pay for it. Why should we taxpayers constaaly subsidse the immoral, and shamelss people in this way? Can the BBC get the Housing Minister on the One Show 2mrw and ask her the question: "How many CouncilHouses of 2,3,4 bedrooms actually have OLNY a married couple in them (or single person).
The answer would shock you, thats why no-one will ever be brave enough to ask it.
John of Evesham.
PLease mention on the Show.
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My daughter and her partner cannot get enough 'points' to even be considered for a council property despite having been born in the village and worked all their working lives for local firms. They now have a baby and need to move out of their unsuitable private let on the 1st floor with no fire escape, no parking, knee height windows etc (it was all they could get and afford before baby came along) but find that they are being passed over by people from out of the area. The council officer who visted them said these things did not count for anything!
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Perhaps I m being a bit thick hereand probably running the risk of being accused of being racist but here goes,over the last 10 yrs does anybody know how many immigrants to this country have been given council houses, given this goverments obssession with keeping information on everything some one at the BBC must be able to get this information from somewhereand just one last point can anybody tell me of another country in the world that would give a council house to someone who has contributed absolutely nothing to their country over one of its own indigenous people.
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Scrapping the right to buy will make no difference to the number of people either on a waiting list or to the number of houses available to house them.
Regardless of if the house is being rented or has been purchased, the house is occupied and therefore not able to reduce the waiting list.
What should have happened is that the money raised by the sale of tenanted houses should have gone to build new ones, this was the principal of the right to buy and is still as valid now as when first introduced.
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Hi I live in Dagenham Essex and was lucky enough to buy our house back in 1994, with the help from the council on "cash insentive scheme" we were given £11,000 to give up our then Council house to buy wherever we wanted. Dagenham was the cheapest place to buy and was suitable for us.
We now have a situation whereas we do have enough housing but have too many people coming into the country eventually getting the houses with a substantial amount of money from the councils "cash insentive scheme", I do not know if this is still the case today. So of course there are no more houses to rent.. Especially in Dagenham.
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Yes the right to buy should disappear!
Council homes need to be for housing those in need not investors. Those that wish to buy their own homes (as I have done without the cushion of a right to buy property) should be helped to buy on the private market with part-buy/part-rent properties so that the cost is tailored to individual budgets.
Neither should the right to buy be allowed to return on political whim in order to win votes because it is too open to abuse - how many of us know of family's that have bought their relatives home as an investment? Therefore if we manage to banish the right to buy this should be enshrined in law so that future generations are actually able to access council stock appropriately again.
No wonder the UK's housing market has been distorted over the years!!!
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Why shouldn't everyone be able to have the right to own their own home?
It is probably the only way most low paid workers can afford see something something for their money after working hard all their life.
The government is at fault here, they should have invested monies gained from council house sale in building new stock.
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If people had not bought their homes, they would still be living in them as tenants, so there would be no more houses available. It is not the buyers who are to blame, but the Councils which did not build new ones, and the Govt which did nothing either and which for the last ten years has let every Tom, Dick and Harry and all their relatives into the country, few of whom had houses in their luggage.
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With regards to the right to buy, my mother bought her home off the council under this scheme back in 1990 and lived there for 17 years.
One would have thought that with the money the council would have made from these sales that they would have built more houses therefore creating more affordible housing for others!
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH THE MONEY FROM THE SALES OF THESE HOMES!
Dont blame the scheme as it has help many people get on to the property ladder and establish them selves as home owners and create a home to raise their children in!
Scrapping the scheme is just shifting the blame and it doesn't help find homes for those on the housing lists!
If you get rid of the scheme there will still be people waiting for homes!
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The right to buy is the only good thing any goverment has done. It gives you pride in your own home, which you are more likley to look after and improve.
If they want more council houses, stop the people coming into the country getting them straight away in front of the current people that were born here.
Councils should get families who pay their rent out of flats and into houses. Put people who dont pay or not even trying to pay rent into the flats. How can councils justify putting single parents who know if they get pregnant will get a place into houses, while hard working families with children have waited for years for a garden.
Why? because council employees cover each others back. Why was the millions lost in foriegn banks not used for building council houses. And why hasn't any mp said how when they are moaning about having no money for services they have all this money sitting in a bank. They don't need that much of a saftey cushion. Oh it does make me mad
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I live in a council house and one day I may buy it, that’s my right, but it’s the council’s reconcilability to replace it with the money I pay for it.
Also the problem of less council housing is not that of them being sold, why because whether or not that house is sold it will still will have a family / person in it, so making it unavailable.
The real problem is the council and private building just has not kept up with the increase of people coming into the UK.
More low cost houseing built on reclamed land with a mix of private and council house's
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The problem,in it's simplicity,is the lack of council house per se.The sale or not of existing council owned properties will not generate or diminish the number of houses available,this can only be achieved by a comprehensive building programme to ensure adequate numbers for the bludgeoning population which after all is due in part to ongoing government policy.If nothing else such a programme would help the construction industry in these difficult times and certainly deal with the basic responsibility of any developed country that of housing it's populace.It may also be of interest to add that the origonal sell off by the Thatcher administration was to put the collar of financial responsibility round the neck of the millitant tendancy of the lumpen proletariate.
William of Newbury
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Both of my sisters purchased their large council houses with the "right to buy"scheme some years ago, at the largest possible discount. With the property boom, they both sold for a huge profit, and now live in large detached houses. My husband and I saved, and bought what we could afford when we married. We managed a small semi, in which we still live. Fair or not? Perhaps there should be a clause whereby a council house that is purchased can only be sold back to the council? Then the social housing stock would not disappear
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As always the BBC uses the extreme to argue a point, this time the reformed alcoholic who is homeless. Although important and relevant, those living on the margins are just one issue. The wider issues are for people who are setting up home for the first time, starting a family. My parents moved from inner city slums to great council housing and raised 4 children, all of whom went onto buy their own homes. If it weren't for the social (council) housing of the 50/60's then who knows where things would have gone. We were not unusal this happened throughout the estate. Familes need affordable homes, the right to buy, although popular needs, to be reviewed, whilst recognising that a better social housing build programme needs to run alongside.
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Hello my name is Sylvia,I am very concerned about council tennants loosing there home and having to go into the private sector I have lived here nearly thirty years and bought my three children up here please let me know what this means and who it applies to.thank you sylvia
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Dear Adrian & Christine
I work for a major Housing Association (HA)and the right to buy is only a small part of the lack of affordable housing available today. The government agree that not enough properties are being built to keep up with the demand however do not ever have enough grant monies to give to the HA's. On top of that the planning departments in the councils are slow to react and actually slow down the process for affordable homes to be provided. This coupled with the need to provide every new affordable home to comply with "Sustainable homes" substaincially increases the build cost so much so that the HA cannot find a contractor to build the properties for that price. In the current climate and with major housebuilders and thiei supply chains going out of business the government are effectively making affordable housing unaffordable which severly reduces the number of properties being built.
Bob from E Sussex
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i am a council tenant and am actively involved on a lot of tenant participation groups, and I thin kthe right to buy should be scrapped, and also ask the government about the £196million pound they are earning on council tenants rent that they take from every council in England ,which they are then supposed to distribute to councils who cannot afford the upkeep of their properties, but they are not doing this hence the huge amount of tenants money sitting in the coffers of central government, and we the tenants would like to have it back. Linda from Gravesend
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"I could have bought it and sold it on for a great profit, " No 6 Scubagirl.
I didn't buy my council house to make profit I bought it as my home. We are still living in it after 35 years so we haven't deprived anyone of a home. You don't make a profit anyway unless you don't have to buy some where else to live. Part of the problem with social housing shortage is that a lot of houses are allocated to single parents who deprive "families" of a home. In my area where the social housing is controlled by a housing association they seem to be able to build new homes, it's all about money being made available and allocation to genuine needy not greedy.
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I was given the right to buy 20 years ago and it changed our life as we couldn't afford to find a deposit or buy our own private house. Anyone who buys their own house are long standing tenants and would probably still living in the same council house now. The goverment should have put the money they made out of these houses into more property, but that didn't happen.
I agree we need new houses, but is it not true that the first people on the housing list are asylum seekers as couples, secondly it's single asylum seekers before our own homeless are offered one.
If there are such a shortage of houses why don't the council offer to buy the houses that are on the market and why are they boarding up perfectly good houses that could be inproved instead of pulling down.
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stopping buying is not the answer, stopping giving immediate priority to unemployed single parents and immigrates is the answer
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please sign the online petition to Gordon Brown... then please pass it on!?http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/HMRPathfinder/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DJ Johne
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problem, no problem say the council. Rent privately. The council are discriminating against wage earners AND single men. We are told they have no houses unless you are a YOUNG SINGLE MUM back to the good old days. Why oh why can't ANY council come up with a FAIRER system
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Most people live in council houses long term so their will be a shortage if higher numbers are needing rented accomodatio. But if the money raised from selling houses was re-invested in new housing stock the councils would have a stock of new houses built to a higher standard to most of the post war stock they have now. These houses would need a lot less upkeep than the old stock and would be quite cost effective also greener as the would be built to current buildind regs. I would still be in this house I have occupied for 30 years weather I owned it or rented it, so it makes little differance to the overall available housing stock numbers.
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Although I have never agreed with the right to buy for the sole reason that if you can afford you buy your own home you should do so and release the council house for those who can't. To buy the council property at a reduced rate and then sell at a profit is not what social housing is about.
However, there is the issue of all the empty run down council properties that are left to be vandalised, the council should be managing the maintenance of these properites better so that the people who need the social housing are getting the support sooner rather than later.
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I agree with the right to buy .
My wife and myself luckily managed to get a council house in the early nineties. After ten years of renting we asked the council if we could buy the house and they agreed. You get a large discount if you buy and we bought a 80k house for 19k. It was the only way in which we could afford to buy a home .
And now we have at least got something to leave our children in the future.
But the Government must fund the councils to build replacement homes to cover the ones sold off .
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I agree with the right to buy but I do beleive the the local coucils have the right to retreive the money they outlayed in building the house so that they can build more houses.Iif you want to buy after renting for ten years the cost should be cost of building less the amount of ten years rent and so the sooner after building you wanted to buy the more it would cost and the longer you have rented the house the cheaper it would be. I think that this is a fairer system than that at present. and nobody really loses out.
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I know a Bosnian family who have lived here since their war. They are in a council flat and have had many benefits thrown their way for a long long time. Is the war still going on out there, because it's strange that such people are able to stay here for such a long period of time. Nothing against them as people, they're taking full advantage of what has been given to them. But for the real British citizens who are born and bred here and should have more rights they surely are parasites. They're not needed, and I can guarantee that there are hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions like them, taking up potential homes of the British. Send them back, the war is over, let their government sort them out, not our government and the tax payers of this nation. You never know, our people might have a place to live then!
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I became homeless two years ago andhad to move into my parets home. I contacted two of my local councils to apply on the housing list. One said that I might aswell be pond life as I was single with no dependants!! very nice. The other placed me on the list and told me it would be about three years.
I have now got my very own flat through the local authority and housing association. I still cant believe it, it fabulous.
If they dont scrap 'the right to buy' for a limited period the feeling I am now experiancing will not happen to others. I dont want to buy my flat, I am more than happy to rent (my opinion) I just think that thi opotunity should be avaliable to everybody.
My sister is a single parent with two children and there are no homes for her family, imagine how I feel getting a home but she has to carry on renting privately, watching every penny so she can pay the extra on the rent the council dont give plus heat, feed and clothe her children.
Its not far, scrap it for a while, get the country back on its feet then maybe start it again with fixed critiria.
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I agree with all the comments above regarding immigration. If people want to come to this country they should have enough money to house, cloth and feed themselves, along with their whole family. Immigrants should not get any sort of handout (including council housing), you want to come to this country you work to stay here. ENGLAND IS AN ISLAND WITH ONLY SO MUCH SPACE - if we are not carefull there will be no going back and people born in England will become the minority.
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Denying people the right to buy their council house means that they are condemned to paying rent and getting nothing for it at the end to leave any family. The shortage of housing would not be so bad if immigration were curbed. To be able to buy your council house, you must have been living there for a number of years already, so have already paid a lot of rent.
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My Council (southwark)cannot afford to repair or adequately manage its housing stock, I bought my house under the right to buy scheme 20 years ago and have made my house and the area around it much better for myself and others.
Remember Westminster Council and dame Shirley Porters 27 million pound surcharge for willful misconduct (allegedly getting friends to purchase council housing and so promoting a conservative council), well what about the willfull misrepresentation by Southwark, I live in a 3 storey terraced town house and had to fight to get tenants their right to buy as the council were stating that these houses were FLATS simply because Labour wanted council tenants and thereby promoted a labour council
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Hi, I found the report on Council Housing very interesting. I work for St Leger Homes of Doncaster which is an Arms Length Management Organisation, owned by Doncaster Council in South Yorkshire. I don't think, Margaret Thatcher should have introduced the Right to Buy Policy back n 1979 but you can't turn the clock back. I agree with the idea that Right to Buy should be temporaily suspended because there is now such a huge demand for affordable social housing. Not eveyone is in the fortunate postion of being able to afford to buy their own home. There are currently 16,000 people on the Housing Waiting List for Council accommodation in Doncaster and I cannot see that list decreasing anytime soon.
The Government needs to provide funding to the ALMOs and Housing Associations to help build more homes this might go someway to easing the problem a little.
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I am a tenant of a housing association and I don't have the right to buy due to the housing act in 1997. I have been on the social housing waiting list since 2002. I am wanting to downsize to a smaller property, I am in a four bed property, wanting a 2 bed, but have yet to be offered any property. Leave the right to buy this is the only way some people can afford to buy a home. But he council needs to make better use of it's housing stock, as i am sure other families are wanting either smaller or larger properties more suitable to their needs. More housing needs to be built.
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The lack of housing has recently been exacerbated by the increase in the number of students attending university. A number of houses were purchased and are now let to students, by landlords cashing in on the upsurge in numbers.
John (worried WBA fan)
Stourbridge
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I think that there should never have been a right to buy a council house. If you could afford to buy a house then you should never have been in a council house in the first place. Council house's should be only for families that are on a low income.
You can see what's happened now. The previous government's have sold them off at huge discounts and found that it costs more to build new ones than the price they got for the old ones. So now were short of council houses.
What do you say to people like me & my family that have worked hard all our lives but have to pay full rent for a property with no hope of buying. We aren't given a house at a huge discount.
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I live in a council flat with my disabled husband and 11 year old son and if it was not for social housing we would not have the home we have today i think they should suspend the right to buy scheme as there is not enough housing now there are 6000 council propertys where i live and 6000 on the waiting list. They should build more and stop the right to buy
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I know that Right to Buy takes council houses out of the rental market, but surely the people who live in these homes would have to live somewhere, and the vast majority would not have moved out of their council homes in any case! The sale of a council home does not make much difference therefore to the overall balance of available homes. The issue is that successive governments have not allowed councils to build new homes to replace the ones that have been sold. What is needed is more social housing provided either by councils or Housing Associations.
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The council are no help if your home is repossessed. They will say that you have intentionally made yourself homeless and ban you from even being on the housing list for 2 years!
This happened to me and my four children 4 years ago.
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48. At 7:19pm on 25 Nov 2008, dreamporsche wrote:
Sorry but am I missing something?. How would scrapping "the right to buy" increase the ammount of available social housing. Surely if a council house had not been bought by the tenant then still only one house exists but occupied by a tenant not an owner. The problem was that the revenue from sales was not reinvested in further housing projects. Good luck to all who bought their council houses and stand on their own feet.
Further more, what right does a person, who has drunk himself out of a life and a job, to demand that he has a right to a roof over his head, he had one and he blew it so why should tax payers now subsidise him??
totally agree
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Council housing shortage should not be a problem as last year dispatched did a program on the housing shortage and figures say there are more empty council properties than homeless and people on list combined, approximatly over 600 000 empty homes that they never will or wont fix up they also investigated and cound pout council saying properties that people live in are condemmed and need to vacate,, but when investigate the councils had put planning applications in to private builders to knock down and uild luxery houses, this goverment needs to start rebuilding cheap housing for the lower paid and stop protecting the rich
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if 300,000 buy and stay in their houses then 300,000 are off the waiting list. The advantage is that they have to do their own maintenance. Plymouth city council are shifting all council properties to an housing association, as agreed by majority of tenants because they expect full programme of modernisation of heating ,bathrooms,kitchens etc. Wait till they get the rent reviews once work is completed, even though government funds are available. Why could'nt the government provide the council with adequate funds?
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I've been retired from Local Government service for 6 years, but recall when the 'Right to Buy' scheme was introduced. Sadly, at the same time, Regional Government departments made it more difficult for local housing authorities to meet criteria for the building of council houses. We all knew that more would continue to be needed and waiting lists would lengthen.
More help for local authorities would begin to correct years of backlog.
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I do agree that the immigration situation is getting out of hand. Where I live they are getting housed before our own people which is disgusting, my gran watched my granda die by the back door of their council home she put in to move as the garden was killing her and had to wait 15 years as there were none, having flashbacks every day and struggling with the gardening.
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I live in local authority housing and while I support right to buy I feel very strongly that for every house sold another should be built.
The other side of this argument which is never mentioned is the effect that the lack of social housing has on council estates. I became a council tennant 15 years ago, these days it seems that due to a lack of social housing the majority of people who get to the top of a housing list and get to move into social housing either have drug, alcohol or mental health issues or have a basic inability to live a decent and civilsed life, this makes life on council estates very unpleasant and I live on far from the worst. At least if there was a decent amount of social housing stock the effect of the above mentioned people would be diluted and it may be possible to live a calm and peaceful life without having to adopt the approach of keeping your head down and having as little as possible to do with the neighbours just as a means of survival.
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Would it not make sense that any council properties build before 2008 could still fall in the right to buy legislation but any new build from 2008 onwards could be social housing that would not fall into the right to buy legislation?
Anyone on a council waiting list then has the choice of either wating their turn for a pre 2008 property that they would be able to buy or take a post 2008 new build that they know they would not be able to buy
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The main reason why there are insufficient houses available is nothing to do with 'right to buy', and only partly due to increased immigration. The biggest single factor is the breakdown in family life, resulting in increased separations and divorce. 50 years ago the average household was 5 persons. now it is 3.75.
Social housing needs could be accommodated by private landlords, IF more tenants on benefits were prepared to look after the properties in a proper manner. I speak as a landlord who does offer a right to buy to my tenants, at a discount to market valuation, 2.5 % per year of tenancy up to 25%. As a result my tenants stay and look after their homes.
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I think its a shame for people that are on the waiting list when there is houses out there locked up with no-one in them (like a street in Dudley for example does any1 know whats happened wiv those houses?) Not right tho, i agree!!!
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Obviously a subject people are interested in. Social Housing is what it is - there should be NO RIGHT TO BUY! Simple as that. This type of accommodation is there for the needy and subsidised by us tax and rate payers (and ritghtly so)... NOT for immigrants. If people wish to own their own home - which lets face it everyone has, in this beautiful free counrty of ours then they move in to the Public sector. As a home owner, I would have to ask why would anyone want to own anyway. We bought for security and something to hand on to the children. Im single now - its a struggle I was made redundant last year, got another job, never claimed benefit and on a 4 day reducing to 3 and supporting a son in further education........ my point..... when Im old they will sell my house and make us pay for my nursing home place. If I had opted for the renting sector then if Im out of work social pay for it, I can spend, spend and spend my money on cars, holidays etc because I dont have to worry that I wont have a roof over my head, because if im renting the government will help me. There are two mentalities one, you do it for yourself the other is you take all you can get. I opted for the first but seriously think that was a big mistake!
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Council right to buy will be my only chance to own my own home. My aim will be to own mine and pass it down to my children so that they will not be homeless if something was to happen to me.
All council housing is being taken up by foreigners that jump the queue going before others that have been on the waiting list for years. When council homes had been bought the money should have been reinvested into purchasing property for people on the council waiting lists.
With many repossessions on the increase councils should purchase the homes that face repossessions and rent the properties out to the families saving them from the possibilities of being homeless.
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The right-to-buy is only the tip of a very very big iceburg. Cutting off the RTB would be a disaster for many as it may be their last avenue for buying a property. However this appears totally, inline with the government’s policy of constantly kicking first time buyers in the teeth at every opportunity they get. The government needs to start heavily taxing second homes and buy-to-let properties while at the same time building more new homes (not appartments that no one wants) . The government however, will never ever do this because they have too many fingers in the pie. Instead they continue to give BTL tax breaks and relax planning for existing home owners while at the same time building fewer and fewer new affordable homes. WHAT A MESS!
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Become the minority, we have already become the minority. OK that might not quite be true, but I'd like to see some figures.
I think that this country has gone past being saved. It's absolutely gone down the pan. I'm not being dramatic, but look around you. This isn't England any more and that is the real problem.
Well done Labour. Roll on the next election when you will be out on your ear. Conservatives brought this scheme in, Labour make a joke of it by bad management.
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As I see it the sale of council housing is a good idea but the problems arose when there was massive discounts and as a result council stock was greatly reduced virtually overnight.
Like a lot of policies of the eighties and nineties it was bowing to popularity, ill conceived and not thought out to logical conclusion.
Why not sell council stock at, or above, the going rate that way people who like their home can buy it regardless, not just as an investment. This way all the con-men and speculators, who have no intention of staying in the neighbourhood, would leave the homes to those who deserve them.
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Not everyone in a council house is a teenage mum or a scrounger!! My partner and i have 3 kids, we both work full time and we pay our way! We were lucky enough to get a housing association house years ago, which offered low rent accomodation to us when we decided to leave home. Back then these houses were only offered to people with a family connection in the village. As our family grew. we exchanged houses and eventually came up trumps when one family asked us to swap our housing association house for their 3 bedroomed council house because they liked our village better. We were lucky, but we both work really hard and we arent on benefits either!!!
On another note, my mum then gave up her 3 bedroom council house for a much smaller 2 bedroom one when we left home, and the only reason she got a council house in the first place was because she had one disabled son, one son dying of leukemia and 2 daughters and her marriage broke down! Dont be so quick to judge people and dont be so stereo typical of people in council houses.. one day your circumstances could see you losing your home & your family and then you may have to stop being a snob and accept that not everyone is as lucky as you or has such a good start in life either!!
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Isn’t it more of a case that there is just a lack of housing full stop?
The “Right to Buy” is a great way for people who other wise would never be able to buy there own home to do so. There is also a great need for an adequate number of council houses available for those who need them. Cancelling the “Right to buy” would not create any new council house vacancies, as the current residents would remain in the same council house (Un-purchased). In my opinion the “Right to buy” scheme should continue, but a percentage, if not all the money gained from selling the council houses to the “right to buy” residents should be put back into building new council houses, hence increasing the number of available houses at minimal or no end cost to the council.
This idea could be taken further. The Government is looking to increase public spending in ways that will help the economy. Couldn’t they spend some of this money on housing projects? This would give a “kick start” to a struggling construction industry. It would also provide an increase in available council houses. This would have added bonuses for the government as they money they had spent would be going towards an actual asset and can be sold at some point in the future to make its money back (or even for some profit). It seems this would be much more sensible than tax cuts where the financial expenditure can only be redeemed at a later date by avenues such as tax increases.
Regards
Glenn
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How can right to buy be blamed for the current social housing shortage, I bought my home using the right to buy scheme, if this had not been available I would still be living in my home as a tenant, which must be the case for thousands of council properties and if all the money raised by the councils had been used to build new homes this would surely make up for the small number who have used this scheme as a money earner.
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Perhaps I am in the minority but surely if the classification for attaining Council property only rested with the fact that a person was born in this country then the wating lists would be considerably shorter. I am not suggesting that immigrants are not housed by the council but those that seek benefits here should not 'jump' the list purely because of their unfortunate circumstances. Being born and bred in this country seems to count for nothing now, perhaps that is why so many people decide to move abroad..........
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I feel there needs to be permanent social housing and right to buy housing. The government should have looked at this before cutting vat etc..on a temporary basis. It should have started spending any money on the building of new housing stock for Social Housing thus creating much needed jobs in the building industry and therefore all the assosiated trades that go with it. I feel this would stimulate the economy more than a 2.5% vat cut. Any new Social Housing that is built from today would have to remain as such. Old housing stock remaining available to buy. Maybe giving people that do want to buy in future some kind of incentive to buy private housing based on rent paid?.
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Hello,
Freezing the right to buy for now makes sense, I also feel that when tennants of council homes find themselves with more space than necessary (ie: kids grown up and left home leaving a 3 bed. house occupied by 1 or 2 people) they should move into something smaller to help other families raise their children.
I recently found out that after 10 years of being on the waiting list, I have been removed as I will never accumulate enough points to be housed by a council/housing association scheme.
I just Thank God that we have a roof over our heads, there are many families who don't or soon won't because of the state of the economy.
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I am a homeowner who bought through the right to buy scheme some 30 years ago. Then a few years after that our local council sold most of their housing stock to housing associations. Now my son and his family are in desperate need to be re-housed, due to the fact that they have a severely physically handicapped 3 year old son. They have been given a top priority banding to be re-housed as they live in a 2nd floor flat without any lift access. they have been on that list for 2 years and are still waiting. Even if We hadn't bought in the right to buy scheme we would probably still be living here. so this house and many like it are out of the running. What the councils should have done is re-invest the money from the sale of the properties into building more housing stock. It's a no win situation.
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Very few first time sales of Council homes have taken place since the reduction in the level of discount. And now add the credit crunch.
Removal of the RTB would make little difference in the near future to the overall housing stock.
Sales that are made in London are resales to buy to let landlords looking for profit without any expenditure on improvement. This stock will not return to social renting without some other encouragement.
Since Govt stopped local authority use of rtb receipts for building there has not been stock replenishment of housing suitable for families. The expectation of Govt that private builders would be able to fill the gap is clearly wrong. Hence unsold houses of the wrong type.
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The case for Lincolnshire: The total stock of social housing was sold to Linx Homes and the only options offered to East Lindsey residents is the District Councils list of private landlord properties. As we folk in rural Lincolnshire are, in the majority, on just above minimum wages, it's almost impossible to get private rented housing, the option to buy is beyond us and the waiting list on Linx Homes is as long your arm, depending on who's arm is being considered. I looked today on the district councils (ELDC) notice boards to see what we as hard working family of two working parents of two boys in full time education and struggling to pay the rental fee on the house we rent each month, were entitled to and the only way we could get on the points listing was to say we could not afford to pay our rent and were being served with notice by the landlord.
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Because of the credit crunch and houses being repossessed. Why don't local councils buy them up as they are cheaper than the market value! They either keep the original tenants in who are then entitled to housing benefit which goes back to the council, or other council tenants, which again are entitled to housing benefit which would go back to the council and pay off what is owed on the house.
From experience I have council tenants in a property, these have been evicted from their previous house, which is on a council estate, which is on at a very cheap price. They are entitled to £750.00 per month in housing benefit. If the council had brought their repossessed house, £750.00 per month would have covered the debt on the house and have paid for it in approx 20 years time. There seem to be a lot of empty houses (no chain!) advertised.
There are companies out there that are buying houses and renting back to the original owners!! The council could do the same thing. I am not suggesting this is the solution to the housing problem but its a start.
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Sorry Tonco, those not born here shouldn't be housed by the councils.
Time for Britain to close it's borders and only allow those who can bring something to this nation, and provide for themselves in doing so.
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right to buy should not be scrapped BUT people who buy there houses then sell them should not be given another house.
they should be made to rent privately, or be made to pay there profit to the council.
i live in a small village wear several people have brought there council house sold it then been given another.
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The sale of social housing should have been stopped the moment that New Labour came into power. It is now so obvious that there is a deperate need for rented accomodation in this country, thank God for politicians of the old school like Austin Mitchell, who maintains a principled position on this worrying issue. Social housing should always have remained a provision for families who are not in a position to buy property, it should never have become an easy way to make a quick profit.
Besides which home ownership for many families is a total fallacy, for after all you are nothing more than a tenant of your bank or building society for most of your productive adult life. and in fact have far less security of tenure should your financial position run into difficulty.
Of course the provision of social housing is not a right. Councils and housing associations must look very carefully at terms of tenancy and ensure that existing and prospective tenants adhere to said terns.
There are far too many deserving cases on waiting lists, to allow for abuse of the privilege of a home.
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While I would not wish to spoil anyone's chance to improve their lives by owning their own home and the right to buy scheme has certainly helped many people to join the property ladder,there is another aspect that was not mentioned in tonights feature. ~Just how many former right to buys have already been repossessed?
Many tenents were encouraged by less scrupulous lenders to borrow against the immediate equity in the property. In my hometown a lot of former tenents went from paying an affordable rent to more than double in rent payments. The nature of my job means that this is not hearsay but fact.
If you look at the property's for sale advertised 'with no upward chain' I can almost garuntee they are former right to buys. The question is , what happens to all those properties and what do all the families who have been evicted? The properties usually end up as expensive private lets and the familiesreturn to their former landlords for assistance with re-housing. Given the current difficult financial situation and the depressing prospect of more job losses even those former tenents who have been prudent and sensible with their borrowing face possibly losing their homes. What happens to them?
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The right to buy was an immoral piece of legislation. There are two flats nearby, that were bought by the children of elderly parents, in the parents name, but sold by those same 'children' for personal profit when their parents died.
The RTB takes homes out of the social housing system. The Thatcher Government made certain that the money could not be spend on replacement homes or capital expenditure on the remainng social housing either.
The worst effect of RTB was that we lost the best stock and were left with the dross. It limits the options of disabled people in that there just isn't the accessible accomodation available to meet the needs presented.
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I think that social housing should be increased with Councils being tasked with moving elderly tennants into sheltered housing or flats, to prioritise families getting houses with gardens. The right to a council house for life should be reviewed. High rise and walk up flats should gradually be phased out for maisonettes or houses. Single pregnant women under the age of 18 shouldn't automatically get a council house or flat, but should be moved into group hostels where they can be taught parenting skills under the watchful eye of health visitors. The effect this would have is reduce those girls getting pregnant as a way to get independance and a flat, and relieve the pressure at the bottom end of the list allowing it to reduce.
We have been on the council list for three years, and are tennants in a council flat, but have been told we have no chance of a house unless we are drug addicts, recovering alchoholics, I am willing to abuse my wife, or am seeking asylum, I will also do better if I am unemployed, and have another child in the hope it is a boy. We are married, I am working on a medium wage, and have two girls, so we can kiss a council house goodbye.
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selling houses for as little as £15,000 was crazy, the people that bought them could not at the proper market value, how can the council biuld new houses for that silly price, dont sell any more, renting is the way forward
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Sasjade1 croydon london
My family and I have been waiting for a council home for over 7 years. There are 5 of us & we live in a 2 bedroom house. I am disabled and also have a daughter with down syndrome, I use a down stairs room as a bedroom with my partner and my daughter has to use the sitting room as her bedroom. Which means that my daughter is put to bed in our room and then is woken up and moved when we are ready to go to bed. My step daughter has 1 bedroom has she is studying at uni and my step son has the other bedroom. We have been told that our local council croydon has no idea when they will be able to house us. So for us suspending the right to buy and having a massive building scheme seem to be our only hope. I appreciate that people like to own their home but they don't have to live like this and not all of us can afford it.
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I can understand the concern about selling council houses, but no-one has asked the question "what has happened to the money received from the sale of the houses"? This was supposed to go to building new council houses. Where has the money gone?????
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I think they should stop the right to buy until yhe housing shortage has been sorted out. I also feel they should stop the homelink system, my partner and I have taken it in turn's to sleep on the floor or the sofa with a 2 1/2 year old for the past 31/2 years, We live in a 2 bedroom house with 17yr old 11yr old and the baby. The older kids cant share due to the fact that my 11 year old can't have dissrupted sleep as it causes problems at school for him, We as a family cannot afford to buy or even rent anywhere bigger> although we've been told we're top of the list for the past year there still no matter how many house we bid on enough social houssing for us just to gt that 3rd bedroom so my daughter has a bed to sleep in!!
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The Right to Buy does not decrease the number of Council houses available; becase I still live in my house,as does everybody else who buys. What I object to is, as my Local council is doing, at the moment is; spending money replacing BOTH Kitchens AND Bathrooms in all the Council properties, regardless of whether they need it, or not. (And most do not,according to the tennants!!) This money could have been spent building more houses/ flats; and maybe rehousing single (older) people (currently in 3/4 bedroom houses) into smaller; more suitable; accomodation.
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I think one of the problems with the housing situation is that councils have allocated homes inappropriately. For example, I know of several occasions where single parents with only one child have been put in 3-bed family homes, giving them the luxury of a guest bedroom! Surely if a 3-bed council home becomes available, families that require that much space should get preference, regardless of how long people have been on the list? Under-occupancy will only continue to lead to more people to house with a lack of homes for them.
Also, rather than build more houses, why don't councils consider buying properties that are already on the open market? On my street alone, there are 4 houses for sale, 2 of which are empty because the former occupants have been put into sheltered accomodation. Rather than the time and cost of buying land and then building, why can't they try to boost their local housing market by looking at buying these types of houses?
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My parents, who had three children and both worked purchased their council house appox late 70's, they got a huge reduction on the market value and managed to pay the mortgage off before they retired. and although i will probably benefit from the house when they pass away, i'm not sure the right to buy was a good idea.
Many people who purhased their properties through right to buy suddenly found themselves able to obtain credit cards and loans against the property. In the early 90's when interest rates where high right to buy owners made up a large percentage of repossessions
For my parents it was very positive like the lady interviewed, but 'm sure there are lots of stories of how the right to buy caused nothng but grief.
People especially the young have been forced into the private rental market which is expensive and properties may not be well maintained.
I am a homeowner and like the feeling of owing my own home but do not think it is for everyone. In europe many people rent and it is acceptable and not looked down upon
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The current labour goverment prevented local councils from reinvesting in the returns from selling council housing in new stock.
Setting the income against the Goverment Support Grant.
David Green
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"The right to buy was an immoral piece of legislation. There are two flats nearby, that were bought by the children of elderly parents, in the parents name, but sold by those same 'children' for personal profit when their parents died. "
Martyncr, why shouldn't the children of elderly people who have no doubt given a hell of a lot, probably fought in a war as well, not make a profit for such service to a nation.
Lets let all of the scum and immigrants of society benefit instead.
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people who bought there houses could still be living in them, but if they had still been in council hands when they die other tenants would move in the instead of their childeen making huge profits
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RIGHT TO BUY IS NOT THE PROBLEM with the high demand for Social/Council Housing. Since 1989 Assured Tenancies (without the right to buy) replaced the old Secure Tenancy (with the right to buy), so the only Right to buy is with pre 1989 tenancies, and there aren't that many of those around now.
The problem is the issue of ALTERNATIVE ACCOMODATION BEING TOO UNAFFORDABLE. Mortages are expensive and had to obtain and maintain, but PRIVATE RENTING IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE. THIS IS ENTIRELY DUE TO GREEDY LETTING AGENTS. Private renting was a reasonable alternative to home ownership, until the Estate Agents spotted a way to fleece more vulnerable people. It is now cheaper to have a mortgage than to rent a house. It is also easier to obtain a mortgage as the checks, references and guarentors Letting Agents insist upon and charge for are unecessary and unreasonable, due to the short term of an AST. Some demand 6 months rent in advance. How can anyone manage that? AND NO ONE IS WATCHING OR MONITORING THESE GREEDY PARASITES. It's time someone exmined thier practices and IMMORAL PROFITS. There is now no choice but to seek Social Housing as everything else is impossible or unaffordable.
Another practical solution is to put a FINANCIAL CAP ON THOSE LIVING IN SOCIAL HOUSING. When their income exceeds a limit where alternative housing is affordable, they should give up the tenancy and let someone who really needs it have it.
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Then lack of social housing is not a result of the right to buy. It is due to a lack of government will. After the second world war the government instigated a house building programme with a target of 250,000 houses a year. This target was achieved by the then Labour government. The Conservatives then promised to build 350,000 houses a year. They succeeded in achieving this target.
This surely shows that the only reason a shortage of housing exists is lack of any meaningful effort by the government.
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Hi, I grew up in Barking and Dagenham and bought my council house in the eighties, we then sold it and moved to Norfolk ten years ago.
There's nothing wrong with selling the council houses but the money should have been used to rebuild more council houses. The Conservatives under dear old Maggie would not allow the council to use the money.
I still have ties with the area as my parents and sister live there, unfortunately now the only people getting council houses are illegal immigrants etc meaning the local youngsters have no chance of ever being housed.
When the MP for the area, Margaret Hodge, brought this up in parliament she was accused of sounding like the BNP. It's sad that decent people are not allowed to voice an opinion without being accused of racism.
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This whole debate is a distraction from the main issue, which is,why was the revenue generated not reinvested to create more social housing?
The lady who bought her council house and spent her hard earned money maintaining and improving it would still be occupying it as a tennant, if she had not excersised her right to buy.
She and others like her have saved the councild millions and we have been failed by the government's policies!
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Mrs Thatcher was brought in RTB because the cost of updating and refurbishing all the post war council houses was not affordable. The RTB concept allowed millions of people to realise a dream of owning there own home. It has helped regenerate large council estates and made them better places to live. RTB should continue with a possible ammendment to the discount structure.
Housing association property has cost a fortune and has been ineffective at filling the gap, adapting this scheme to include all classes of tennants and offer future RTB on these properties with no requirement to buy a portion up front.
Newcs
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There is a solution to the right to buy that I am surprised has not been mentioned so far. I believe housing associations in some areas have operated a scheme in the past whereby long-standing tenants, who wanted to buy a property, were given a sum of money as a deposit to buy on the open market. This meant that the property they were leaving, when buying their own home, would return to social housing stock and so two families would benefit. Why didn't the councils do this in the first place? Getting a decent deposit is always hard to achieve even if you are on a decent enough salary to pay a mortgage instead of rent. However, the cost to the councils of freeing up a home for social housing whilst allowing someone to own their own home would be a lot cheaper than building new ones. This would not create new stock but would stop the drain and re-house some families.
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I wonder if we went abroad, would we be given benefits, houses etc?
NO WAY, we wouldn't even be let in. This country is a disgrace to it's own people and that is the real cause for so many problems.
Political correctness has gone mad, crime has risen as a result, pride has reduced, simply the nation has become diluted. Absolute disgrace. The nation just can't support those that it has allowed to take advantage and now we are all suffering because of it. This was once a great nation, it is quickly becoming a laughing stock.
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just spoke to a collegue in scotland most councils and housing associations in scotland have stopped selling council houses to tenantswho moved in after 1/10/2002. this has made no difference at all in fact homeless levels in scotland has went up.
most people who bought their homes would be living in them anyway so no new homes there.
the problem is councils were not allowed until recently to build new houses thus both conservative and labour governments are to blame.
another problem as pointed out the amount of immigrants allowed council homes.
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I have always disagreed with the selling of council homes as there will always be people on low incomes who need affordable housing. Twenty years ago I went to the council when I found myself being evicted from a bedsit that did not allow children(I had a baby boy) I was put in bed and breakfast then was given a temporary accomodation at a private rent (although it belonged to a housing association @ £256 per week, remember 20 years ago) the whole reason I went to the council was because I could not afford private rent. I have always worked so therefore had next to nothing to live on, and did 3 jobs. I spent nearly nine years in tempoary accomodation, and was then offered another tempoary accomodation, the person who owned this house had been in bed and breakfast at the same time as me been given a permenant home, bought it then rented it out to the council for homeless people!!! Luckily for me I was working and he only wanted people on benefits. The housing association eventually gave me the permenat tenancy for the first house (after I had paid most of their mortgage) I was offered the house @ £80,000 but as I had been paying such a high rent I had got into considerable debt(only just paid off) and had not been able to save for a desposit so I couldn't. I have to date paid £96,000 pounds in rent since moving in 20 years ago, if I wanted to buy it now I would get a £2,000 discount @ £320,000 I really can't afford it. If I had been given a council accomodation in the first place I would have saved and moved out and bought my own place, but there was already a shortage then 20 years ago. The housing associations and councils should give (not loan) people who have always worked a good deposit to move out of the council homes and buy on the private market to free up council places. In all the time I have lived here I have maintained the house. I have cost the council/ housing association nothing. (Also my rent is higher than my brother's mortgage on a property he bought 12 years ago)
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When my Dad first was offered a council house it was on the understanding that it was temporay housing until you could afford a house of your own - a short term help. we went without foreign holidays, a car and Mum and Dad scrimped and scraped to buy their own place. It wasn't until their 3 daughters left home that things got easier for them and they were able to go away on holiday. imagine how they felt when the tenants stayed put and used their excess cash to buy new cars and foreign holidays then were offered their houses at a greatly reduced rate - sickening.
Forward a generation and my husband to be (at that time) lived in a holiday resort in the West Country, we would have liked to satrt off in a council house as we were on very low wages with a baby to bring up, but houses were given to non-locals who worked the summer in the resort, rented a 'winter let' and demanded to be rehoused when the summer season started. We also scrimped and scraped and borrowed from family to get our first home, then watched as ex-tenants had an easy life.
We do not need to suspend the sale of council houses - we just need to put them on for full market value and the perk would be that the tenant is the only person allowed to buy. If anybody then applies to buy then thay can go private instead.
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There is a need for council housing to help those in society that are unable to house themselves. But the right to buy reduces the housing stock available to fulfill this need which was the fundamental purpose of creating these properties in the first place.
Selling council houses at a discount also unfairly creates wealth to those who buy their council house which is paid for by tax and council tax payers.
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What do you get for being British?
Laughed at by all of the foreigners taking advantage of you, and treated disgracefully by the most "politically correct" waste of space government ever known to man.
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I think I am fairly lucky that I can see this issue from both sides. As a child I was brought up in council housing and most of my extended family live in council housing so I see the importance of having plenty of adequate council housing available for those who can't afford to own or privately rent. However recently I have just moved out with my sister and we privately rent a former council flat. If the opportunity for people to buy their council property's didn't exist then people like myself who are not able to afford to buy our own homes and are not applicable for council housing would be less likely to find suitable and adequate accommodation. It may be wise to temporarily halt the buying of council properties in some areas where suitable social housing is sparse but this may not need to happen everywhere. Although nowadays if people can afford to buy their council home, they can afford to buy a private home so at the end of the day people who can afford a mortgage will not be the knid of people requiring social housing.
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The right to buy is most certainly not the problem regarding the (supposed) lack of social housing. Please just think about it following my prompts 1,2,3, before I outline what the problem is.
1 a) Any family needs a home. b) The families in question also have a home. c) It happens to be a "council house". d) They have the chance to buy it. e) So they do.
HOW DOES THIS ADD TO THE HOUSING WAITING LIST? It can't do can it?
There are a certain number of households in the country (ignoring any influx from abroad for this stage of my "argument". I suggest logic nothing which can be argued about).
2 Having undertaken the right to buy the authorities then have the money from that purchase to go towards building another house.
3 The authorities are also relieved from their obligation to maintain that property (which was most of the idea of the right to buy in the first place. Properties had been long neglected and were in dire need of some maintenance) which again allows them to have money available for new-build, or other methods of acquisition, eg at the moment mopping up properties on the cheap where people haven't kept up with their mortgages.
I could say more.
The problem really is rather different from that which isn't so much apparent, as is "broadcast" along the lines of brain-washing by repetition, and it is hard to see through this it seems.
Authorities hold public assets, we call council housing, but it is public housing, ours, it belongs to citizens, the councils are merely stewards of our assets, or should be.
For many years they have creamed off rents and used them for all sorts of purposes, very often completely wasteful purposes, and even worse, sometimes harmful purposes (another story, not for now). Any steward has a duty of care regarding maintenance. They have not performed this to such an extent that recently hundreds of thousands of properties have suffered from such neglect that the LAs have actually given them away to a comparatively new species, only lately "mushrooming" into view, called the Registered Social Landlord. The LAs have asked their tenants "do you want to have your home suffering from continued neglect, or, can we give it a way to RSL x y or z and they will do the necessary work?" So of course the tenants in desperation (as they can't raise a home loan themselves for the work) vote to be handed over.
Those who do not get asked are the rest of us as in "Do you mind if we give away as a free gift billions of pounds worth of public assets as due to our negligence they have become a liability?"
Now I could say a great deal more regarding the "points" system, and how that skews people's behaviour.
But I will whizz over a stack of related issues that anyone interested might find on a website "Defend Council Housing" to bring to your attention quite why I have been so obliged to know about these things.
Last week my appeal to the High Court was submitted regarding the inappropriate-ness of the compulsory purchase order on my home, which I own outright (freehold and no mortgage) for a second time. I had one CPO quashed, deemed unlawful, 2 years ago. So, English Partnerships merely started all over again, using their never-used-before delegated powers intended for contaminated / derelict brown field sites.
My home is just one of 400 dwellings that has been subjected to this. Much of the funding for doing this to us came under a much criticised initiative called "Housing Market Renewal". Supposedly it was to address housing market failure. In our orderlands of the 400 properties affected 131 were empty when we received the first CPO. Of those 127 were owned by the RSL, and over the previous 5 years they had deliberately made them empty, paying families up to £5,000 to go. For some families that was very welcome. For other social tenants it was not so welcome they valued their homes and communities.
So the RSL orchestrated that our neighbourhood was "underused and unsightly" and therefore the rest of us should lose our homes! Most people have now given up the battle, many have actually died fighting, miserable in the last months of their lives.
Now I fight to prevent the precedent being set as the thoughts that such behaviour by a totally unaccountable quango really scares me, as does it additionally scare me that English Partnerships have now been conjoined with the Housing Corporation which is responsible for the activities of social housing. Together they can change the long-held tradition recognised world wide that an Englishman's home is his castle.
There are a great many other issues that if one extrapolates are equally frightening and utterly damaging, but I have said quite enough for now.
Final points: 1) the HMRI "research" was paid for by the RSL, nothing more than a property developer in disguise, empowered unlike any normal private enterprise to be a very damaging "animal".
2) I am hoping government finally do hear me before they come up with any more "gravy trains".
3) Housing Market Renewal, for housing market failure has mutated meanwhile, now called hosuing market restructuring, as when we pointed out some of the houses had been bought for over £250K it was quite apparent there was no failure. The people that fought back did better than the more vulnerable, who were what most people would call cheated out of their homes for a pittance. You can't put a price on a home (of 40, 50, 60, 70 years). It is much more than a property.
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The local councils should be allowed to use the money from sold houses to make community living complexes that the private sector wouldnt build. These buildings would lend themselves to singles [young and old], single parents and senior citizens who could then pool together for any common services that they wanted.
We cannot keep building houses with gardens for everybody.
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Seems like others are thinking the same as me. Surely you need people to move out of council houses to free them up. Stopping people from buying them won't make any difference.
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It was an interesting piece but the right to buy whilst having an effect on social housing its not the people who have purchased the houses who are to blame but the councils who did not reinvest the money in new housing when these houses were no longer available. Equally those people who purchased their house would most likely still be living there renting them. Nowadays, social housing comes under the guise of partbuy part rent which if you really look at the ins and outs of it really is NOT AFFORDABLE. I would love to buy my council property but £16,000 is all I would get off the asking price which is totally inflated by the local council in this market. I am stuck here as I cannot afford to buy on the open market so I still need housing. I truly wonder what the country would be like if the right to buy was not permitted. Most folk would still be in social housing, perhaps or maybe the inflated house prices would never have occurred as no one would be able to afford them! In addition those people who have bought leasehold properties are charged vastly over inflated prices when it comes to council repairs, actually this covers the costs of any repairs to the buildings leaving the councils with minimal outlay. Most folk who purchased flats I bet really regret doing so.
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Here's how it works: when a council tennant dies, the property is then available to be relet to new tennants. If the property has been bought, it doesn't revert to the council, but is sold on at a hugely inflated price from the one it was originally sold at, as private property. So, yes, it does, in the long term, lead to loss of availability.
I have been homeless, with a young child, and it is no joke. This was through no fault of my own, except for trusting my ex partner who left us in the lurch. If it wasn't for social housing I don't know what would have happened to us. I was lucky, having a child, but those without kids have no hope.
This situation is urgent and really unnecessary in a country as rich as ours. Everyone should have the right to a roof over their heads, but not everyone should have the right to buy IHMO.
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You make no reference as to why only 1 house is built for every 2 (or I would have thought it was more like 3 or 4). Every house sold is sold at a significant discount to the tenant (or in truth more likely the tenant's grown up family) whose already subsidised rent may well have been paid for many years by benefits.
If the tenant wants to buy it should be at full open market value of the property!
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We do not live in a council house. My parents did and We have relatives who do. We live in Northern Scotland and in this area the right to buy has been suspended because it is a pressure area with a big waiting list.
We feel that the criteria for allowing tenants to buy there house should depend on
1. manageable waiting list
2. a build progamme to replace bought houses.
3. A minimum tenancy of 15 consecutive years.
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Surely imigration must have a huge impact on housing in this country, maybe this is the crux of out housing problems and not whether people should have the right to buy their own council houses.
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With so many houses being repossessed and this likely to rise in 2009; together with the lack of council housing available for the resulting homelss. I wonder why the Government does not buy the homes of those who can not afford to pay their mortgage and rent them back, thereby getting back their investment in long term rentals. This would create more employment in the council. Furthermore debt owed to banks wil be reduced. Private companies are doing this and it has become a lucrative business.
In addition those who are renting from the council finding themselves in a financialy better position could then apply to buy back the hohuse they lost or elsewhere, stimulating the housing market again.
Does tihs not pose a significant lower risk to the economc crisis than borowing more and making tax cuts to a nation that could face a huge rise in unemployment? Is this feasible?
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I do not buy the case for a council tenant buys their house – so they are off the list so no house is lost. There are not enough council houses, that is why there are waiting lists.
Regardless of why you are on a list surely we live in a country that cares about people regardless of the circumstances that have made them homeless or in need of council accommodation. I would hate to think that the British public are so uncaring that it believes you don’t deserve a home if you have a drink problem etc. it doesn’t say much for our humanity and compassion. We all make mistakes in life none of us are perfect.
I don’t know if council tenants had to find a deposit to buy their homes, or if they were offered loans by councils, or if they had to fund the purchase through banks or building society mortgages. I am also not sure how council properties were valued, but I would be surprised if they were over valued or suffered from the crazy pricing competitions that the housing market has gone through - the boom bubble.
I believe that the following would help relieve the housing shortage
· Suspend council tenants right to buy.
· Before reintroducing the right to buy in the future councils must commit to replace properties sold, to ensure that they are able to meet waiting list demands.
· Councils should be funded to start house building programs immediately so giving a boost to the building industry.
· Stop the token ‘affordable housing’ gestures that are put on developers and ensure that all properties built are affordable in the shot term.
Home owners facing repossession should be able to seek council assistance to prevent the loss of their homes. By negotiating with the council and lender it should be possible to reach an agreement that would allow the council to take a stake in the property at risk. As a made up example this is how I think it could work:
House Value £110,000, House Mortgage £100,000, Monthly repayment £ 400
Maximum affordable monthly repayment £200, Arrears with lender £5,000
Council agrees to buy a stake in the house to the value of £55,000
This clears the arrears, and reduces the monthly payment to £200. The council and the original owner now jointly own the house. The council stake in the property remains at 50% so if the property increases in value then their investment also grows. If the property value goes down then their loan should still remain at £55,000. This way the council win in any event, their investment is not lost.
If at some point in the future the owner is in a better financial place then they should (like other council tenants) have the right to buy back the councils stake in their home if that is what they wish to do. The value of the re purchase would need to be agreed to ensure that the amount is reasonable and reflects the market property movement.
I realise there are administrative costs to this proposal, and that the scheme would need to be managed and co-ordinated, and be legally binding but I believe it would still be cheaper than having to find and fund council homes for families who have gone through repossession and are now homeless. It would also stop banks penalising people who were lent to irresponsibly by banks offering 110% mortgages on properties, which were simply not affordable at the rate of 5 or 6 times peoples incomes. It would also stop the banks forcing repossessions on homes that have significantly depreciated and have left owners with large negative equities that are not cleared when houses go to auction When this happens it seems to me the only people who gain are the property sharks and banks.
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With so many houses being repossessed and this likely to rise in 2009; together with the lack of council housing available for the resulting homelss. I wonder why the Government does not buy the homes of those who can not afford to pay their mortgage and rent them back, thereby getting back their investment in long term rentals. This would create more employment in the council. Furthermore debt owed to banks wil be reduced. Private companies are doing this and it has become a lucrative business.
In addition those who are renting from the council finding themselves in a financially better position could then apply to buy back the house they lost or another elsewhere, stimulating the housing market again.
Does this not pose a significant lower risk to the economic crisis than borowing more and making tax cuts to a nation that could face a huge rise in unemployment? Is this feasible?
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right to buy what about bought properties to sell back to the council,i found myself in that situation only this year we own a 4 bed house we decided we wanted to sell up so first port of call the council we offered to sell north east lincs council our house,and their answer was no they are given a budget to spend and we was told they wanted to purchase at least 64 private properties but could only afford to purchase 4 at the time,fact is they offer to sell houses to gain money because when given the option to buy back they say no,on two occasions they were offered or asked if they could buy our house on both occasions we was told no,but i think people on low income should have the right to buy thier own home but i think they should put a timeline on it and only offer the right to buy for persons whom have lived in the property a certain lengh of time e.g 10yrs or more.
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My mum and dad bought their coucil house after renting it for 20 years. Admittedly she got a good reduction but it was the only way they could own their own house for retirement. Perhaps they should have carried on renting it and that way the benefits would be paying their rent now that their retired and keeping up the repairs. They did the goverment a favour as did many.
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The National Housing Federation (who are the mouthpiece of Housing Associations in the UK) got it half right when they called for an end to the Right to Buy of Council houses.
What they (conveniently) failed to suggest was an end to the flogging off of ALL Council houses to private companies (Housing Associations) in the form of Large Scale Voluntary (ha ha ha) Transfer.
In 2001 Sunderland Council flogged off 36,000 Council Homes to a newly created Housing company for an average price of less than £7,000 each.
The (then) Director of Housing of the Council was very much in favour of creating a new private company, his salary then was something in the region of £65,000pa. Today the same person is the Chief Exec of the Housing company and his salary is around £210,000pa. Readers will form their own opinion on that.
In Sunderland the number of new homes for rent which have been built since 2001 is disgracefully low. We have a multi million pound private housing company run by (in the main) a bunch of ex council officers.
God help the homeless in Sunderland
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houses was built for the lower class of families who could not afford to buy so why should people with money to buy go into a council house and then buy it , and all so i feel that when they wish to sell it should go back to the council from whom they bought it , there should allso be an agreement that when the family ,(say of four ) goes into a three bed room council house and that family reduces over the years should be made to move so that a larger family could move in. I know of three single people living in a three bedroom house where a flat or bunglow would be better for them ,So i feel that when you enter a council house you should have to sign to move when you no longer need a large house. I say no to selling coumcil house give them back to the people that cannot aford to buy .
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In response to true-realist's comment.
I believe you have old, out of date information.
Council's do NOT favour single parents (or teenage mums) - my local council certainly doesn't.
Any one under the age of 18 legally can not sign a tenancy agreement, claim JSA and many other benefits are also excluded to that age group.
No matter how hard done by we feel, there is always someone struggling more than we are. Instead of blaming, pointing the finger and accusing the Government and/or Local Council's we should be grateful for what we do have and be prepared to share it with others. Life is too short to spend it miserable and complaining!
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Council houses should not be sold off. Regarding lack of them why can't these unused containers be adapted as per a tv programme sometime back where they are fitted out fully and fairly cheaply. Surely something like this could be used to help solve this problem or back to the prefab construction of years ago. At least people could be in clean, warm premises.
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The 'right to buy' should never have been introduced in the first place. Sold to aspiring Mondeo man and the rest of a gullible electorate it was as much to do with taking power away from local Councils as it was about giving people a stake in a property-owning democracy.
Councils were left with the worst properties and poorest tenants - those who could not or would not pay. Those fortunate enough to buy got a bargain, as the houses were sold off at a discount compared with their market value. Would a private landlord let a tenant convert rent to mortgage? Of course not. So why should the public sector?
This cut-price selling off / give away of the nation's assets helped create Lawson's consumer boom (new furniture, extensions, etc) that eventually led to an earlier recession. Councils weren't in a position to realise the true value of the nation's housing stock, nor were they in a position to benefit from the capital increases by a windfall tax. In rural areas many building plots have been sold off from those former Council houses and the owners have made large gains at the taxpayers expense.
So why else did we give away such a large chunk of our housing stock? Economy in a mess perhaps? UK manufacturing had already been forced to its knees in an attempt to curb the Unions so why not generate a false economy based on consumption of foreign made goods and an invincible service sector?
(Ok, Gordon - next time lets create an economy based on credit. What do you say?
Mmm, sound like a prudent idea to me Tony)
We should be building more Council homes but this time we've run out of things to seel off to pay for it...
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We live in a housing association house which was previously council owned. We were able to keep the wright to buy. Although alot of people seem to think that people who can't be bothered to work live in these situations I'll ask you to spare a thought for the thousands of people who have no choice. We as a family are in a low earning bracket purely because we have a child who needs a carer, myself, so that only leaves one earner. Even with the discount they offer, it is still an unreachable goal for us, but is the only goal we have to secure some sort of future for our children.
Taking the wright to buy away makes no difference to the housing stock because it is still being lived in. The only thing it would do is take away any opertunity for family's, with low earning capacity, to build a future.
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The people who have bought their council house are not responsable for lack of housing stock.They to have to have some where to live. The houseing stock is the fault of our Goverment.
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I note, and agree, that the right to buy is not the main issue. It is the failure of successive governments (and local councils) to replace those houses which were sold.
But, then one has to remember that houses are not built without funding and we all know where that comes from - Tax payers. There is a limit to how much they will tolerate as we can see from today's situation. It is a problem which requires much finesse and I am not certain who will take a decision to build more houses. Perhaps it could be achieved by not handing so much help to third world countries. If you have not noticed - the U.K. is now part of the third world!!!!
G S Perry
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I understand why a few councils, like the one in the area I live are applying for pressured area status to suspend the right to buy. They do need to conserve the stock. The root of the problem is not the right itself but the way it was set up. When it was brought in any money from a sale went back to central government and wasn't then given back as ringfenced money for the re-building of more stock. Now we are in desperate need of social housing. And what are the goverment wanting to do? Give more money to building companies to for developments than at most give 20% of it to housing associations and even less of that is rentable. What they need to give money to the councils to re-build a stock of houses, then allow the councils to re-invest the money from the sale of council houses back into th stock.
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I find some of the logic surrounding the story strange, everyone has to live somewhere either in private or social housing, therefore if a house is occupied it does not matter if its private or social, no one else can live there anyway and removing the right to buy a social house will not make properties vacant or increase the availability of the stock. What it does highlight is the fact that no social housing has been built in this country for approximately 30 years, hence forcing an increase in the waiting lists for such, or worse still, forcing young couples to take on loans/mortgages that they are always going to find difficult to afford just to put a roof over their heads.
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The reason more single parents get social housing is not because they get preferential treatment, it's simply because they are more vulnerable and have less disposible income. THEY CAN ONLY EVER EARN ONE SALARY, as opposed to a two parent family, which can earn twice as much if they so choose. Lone parents have to shoulder whole responsibilty if their kids get sick, which means leave off work without any form of pay, and on minimum wage that is no joke, believe me.
Yes, those with children get more help, again, because they are more vulnerable and parents have to juggle caring for kids with working, which often means they aren't able to take on overtime.
Incidentally, I live on a council estate, and the vast majority of families here are working, and all are white british.
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i think stopping right to buy is a great idea. im currently on council waiting list and have been for 3 years. i stay in a tiny one bedroom private rent flat with my partner and 4 month old son. we apparently dont have enough "priority" to get a house yet. From what ive seen locally to have "priority" means you have to be a drug addict, alcoholic,an ex offender, or 16 years old with 3 kids. and im not exaggerating. i wrote letters to my local council and local newspaper who did an artical on the situation. young mums are being attacked in the street and robbed, theres stabbings and all sorts, im terrified to live here! DONT YOU THINK THAT SHOULD QUALIFY ME AS A PRIORITY! a mother living in fear of her sons and her own safety?
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When I worked as a Housing Officer in the 80's/90's it was illegal for a Local Authority to use the receipts from sales under RTB to build new properties, only Housing Associations could build, generally properties of a lesser quality and at a higher rent than Local Authorities.
It was evident then that this housing crisis would happen. When you have a Central Govt. hell bent on destroying Local Govt. it was all too obvious. Unfortunately in 1997 we got a Govt. that seemed to think Thatcher was right, so the problem got worse.
It is about time local people were able to vote for local government with the power to provide for their community, and not be hamstrung by Westminster.
This country still suffers from mad cow disease even though the mad cow was elected nearly 30 years ago.
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People shouldnt have children unless they can afford their own house. It is not right that tax-payers should subsidise single mothers one night stands.
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We all know people who have had children just to use them as a bargaining tool to get to the top of a ladder. Its wrong and immoral.
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This Govt should take all children off their parents who cant pay their own way. That would stop the benefit reliance by these people, that way the deent 5% would actually get off their bum, get a job, afford a mortgage and pay their own way. THEIR REWARD? They get to have their children back.
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Until we stop this giveaway society where a few will subsidise the majority shirkers, it'll never change.
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I Work for a Council as a homelessness officer and I am seeing many more repossessions from the right to buy then ever before. One problem is people taking out unaffrodable, high rate loans to buy the property or, even worse, thinking that the property market will grow and grow and take out further loans which they cannot afford often lying about their income to get the loan in the first place!!! Then they become homeless... Should the Council then have to give them another house when they have had loans and loans for holidays and cars??? I say no. There is enough need especially from young families living with relatives that need affordable housing and it is being taken up by people who should never have brought the properties in the first place. This, complicated by immigration with low wages and unemployment places an huge strain which cannot simply be met.
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Perhaps local councils could buy houses about to be repossessed and rent to the owners thus avoiding more people on the waiting lists. I agree with a stop of "right to buy" for a while.
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there are thousands of un occupied houses on social housing estates all over the country, the problem may be that the previous tenet made them unfit for habitation or that no one wishes to move into that area. If better use was made of the current housing stock the the sale of council houses to long term tennets cold continue
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Surely it is irrelevant if there is a Right to buy or not, when councils are selling their properties when they become vacant and worse. I rent a flat in Hammersmith (London) and at the moment when a flat or a house becomes vacant, usually as the previous older occupant has died. The council do not fill the flat with someone from the waiting list, but sell the property instead. They have been doing this for the last 2 years. We recently had a leaflet from the Labour Councillors stating that "the Conservative Council have approached property developers and offered to sell 800 homes on the West Kensington Estate, so that they can be knocked down to build luxury offices, hotels and apartments. A number of other estates in the borough have similarly been offered up to property speculators including Queen Caroline Estate (near Hammersmith Bridge) Ashcroft Square Estate (near Kings Street) Lytton Estate (near North End Rd) and White City Estate (near Wood Lane)". Where is the sense in this, there must be thousands of homes involved in this plan? When there are an estimated 350,000 people in London on council waiting lists. Plus Hammersmith and Fulham council now give some of the worst terms for council tenants to buy their homes, only knocking off 16% of the estimated asking price of the property, so still leaving the properties too expensive for the average earner to afford. It seems to me that H&H Council do not want any council property on their books, they just want to sell off all the estates, forget about the people who live there and sit down and count their money
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190. At 8:31pm on 25 Nov 2008, sammi_lou wrote:
Reply:
No, it shouldnt make you a priority.
Why dont you both get a job and get a mortgage. Then you can buy your own home.
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Also, if you have a 1-bed flat, what in your right mind made you have a baby? Surely the decent hing for the kid woulod've been to waituntil you had a decent place. NOw this kid will only know squallor, robberies in the street and you've unwittingly started a vicous circle. Give it 16 years and I bet any money your kid will be the one askng for a house for ts "3 children".
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Why buy a Range Rover if you cant afford the fuel, so why have a kid if you cant afford a house?
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Logic, dear, logic.
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Oh, that's great, so tearing kids away from their families just becaust they are poor is going to make such a better society! Visions of romanian orphanages and bernardos (of which my grandfather was a frequent inhabitant due to poverty) springs to mind.
How enlightened!
That will never solve the problem. I work full time, but there is no way I could possibley afford private rents. Not unless they start either forcing rents down, or putting wages up.
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I speak to many people who are ashamed of living in a council house, who are ashamed to be in that low earning bracket, but because of stituations beyond thier control this is all they have. Yes there are a small percentage of people taking advantage, but the majority want to make a better life for themselves. Wright to buy has given a lot of people some self respect, why take this away.
I read that someone wants to start the prefab era again, why don't you put a stamp on thier heads aswell to go with the painful social stigma a lot of people would go through.
This isn't just about housing, this is about self respect, giving people the chance to give there children a head start in life. Why shouldn't they be given the chance just because they work hard for less.
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I dont know why there is so much talk about the right to buy depeleting the housing stock. Yes we need to build more social housing for low rent, but if those people then stay put in the m for years they also stay in them for years then they also should have the right to buy them. The people living in the houses that they bought under the right to buy scheme will in general still be living in them now so the houseing stock has not been diminished as no one else would have been offered them anyway. There are just many more people living in this country than there was living here in 1979. I have always owned my own house since I was 22 years old always thinking that paying rent to someone was a mugs game and giving me no security at all. THe first thing that one pays for out of earnings is the roof over your head. The next thing is food. I was brought up to not owe more than I could afford to pay and I am 62 now and still live by that value. I brought all three of my offspring up to understand that if you dont work you dont eat! If people have lived in their council housing for a number of years and looked after it and want to stay there and own it themselves the right to buy is an absolute right they shlould keep.
Trouble with the world today everyone wants something for nothing, celebrity rules and hard work isn't seen as some thing to be proud of. Thats why the country is in the bloody mess that it is in perhaps the reason for the world mess even, everyone spending on credit and no one able to pay it back. Credit borrowing should be a GCSE subject, it would be more use to the majority of kids than humanities or algebra or science.
Margaret Thatcher got this country out of the mess that the previous Labour adminstration had got us into and we need another strong willed person of her ilk to get us out of this one cos it wont be Gordon Brown and his lot who do, thats for sure as they are even now contributing to the further problems that will beset us in the years to come.
They couldn't organise a knees up ina brewery.....or words to that effect!!!!
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i bought my council house in 1986 for £18,000. I sold it two years later for £42,000. I then bought a private house for £52,000 streched to the limit on a morgage on fixed rate. then we had the thatcher boom and bust, and my morgage payments trippled. i was getting divorced and asked the building society for voluntary repossession, thinking i would get the value price which was £75,000. they repossessed for the value of the morgage which was £40.000 and i ended up with nothing, and had to pay the loan off for the double glazing for the next three years. lesson learnt, greed , profit and trying to live in a better area to get better schools doesnt pay. council housing should be just that, rented. the right to buy encouraged people like me to make a fast buck.
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I was amazed, but not surprised, to learn that this government doesnt let Council's keep any profits they may make to plough back into building of more social housing. The show's portrayal of who needs such housing was rather cliched. Most people who earn under about £40,000 pa can't afford to buy anything at all anyhow. Social housing has to be for people who don't earn huge amounts and not just recovering addicts, single parents or people with disabilities. Single people are discriminated against in the waiting list system and i spent many years on a Council's waiting list before moving sideways into a shared ownership scheme. I wouldnt be able to afford that now on my current NHS salary. Surely social housing is all about public's affordability. We are all entitled to be on this list but until more houses are built for rent in this way, usually at a subsidised rent, homeowners and buy-to-lets will profit.
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me and my partner are wating for a councle house and have no chance i believe the right to buy should be stoped and new aforderble housing be avalible and by to rent housing shoul be stoped aswel.
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right to buy is still a good idea. It provides a step onto the property ladder that some people may never be able to make in any other way. This right has been explioted by some people using it as a means to buy cheaply and sell on for high profit. But councils still need to replenish the housing they are losing. I'm 31, a single mum, i am self employed and i live at home with my mum. I have been on my local housing list for the past 5 years and have never been offered a property yet. Unfortunately i live in a very sought after area and the council housing has largely been bought up, sold on and rented out for student accomodation. The council has all but said that i have to move upto 20 miles away from my job, family and friends to areas that are more undesireable if i want to be housed quickly. Why should i be penalised and forced into high crime areas just because i don't earn enough to get a mortgage and private rents in my area would take every penny i earn before paying for basic utilities. I just want to bring my daughter up where i grew up.
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OK, ask this on a website for the whole country to see and give their opinion on:
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How many decent people out there have worked hard, got a mortgage, bought a beautiful house/flat/apartment on a new Estate by one of the "big 6" builders, only to have their life ruined by a nasty, good for nothing "familY" who have been given social housing on the same site. Social Housing that this govt forces private developers to fit into their new estates.
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Who thinks its right that you can work hard, pay £400'000 for a house to bring your kids up in a decent street, only to have the hell family of benefit scroungers be given thier house by a charitable houseing association, spoil it for you with their dodgy cars, greasy kids and lud music?
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Social housing perhaps, OK so youve made me think out of the box, but please, not near decent mortgage-paying folk who want to bring their children up properly.
Thats what should go, the requirment to build social housing on estates where the private buyers scrimp & save.
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Buld council/social estates on the Isle of Wight or soemwhere.
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I bought my council house for £13,000 and sold it 5 years later for £25,000. I then bought a ex council house for £28,000 and sold it 5 years later for £39,000. Then bought private house for £66,000 and sold it 8 years later for £220,000. Myself and husband work very hard and not on great earnings. God bless MT for giving us the opportunity.
My biggest profit was from a private house NOT COUNCIL PROPERTY.
Get off peoples backs that bought the only property they could afford. We worked and did the best we could for ourselves, not stayed at home on our backsides and scrounging off the benefits. I know of many people still in the same council houses who have never done a honest days work and don't pay a penny rent or council tax.
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Excuse me, but isn't that a bit of a steriotypical point of view? is this from personal experience?
So all council tennants are workshy? Everyoune who earns less than 20,000 pa chooses to be poor?
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With so many properties being re-possessed I hope the Housing associations are buying-up all the bargains for rent thus preventing the 'council estates' of the past and helping to prevent more of our beautiful countryside from disappearing.
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that would be too sensible
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What is often forgotten is that Council housing what historically, funded using loans from the Public Works Loans Board, over a 40 year payback. Properties built in the 1970s are still being paid for. But WE don't own them. No sensible person would do that and nor should our government have done so. We can blame the Tories but what has New Labour done about it for the last 11 years? Nothing that's what. We now have a generation of young people the large majority of whom have no prospect of social housing. The "lucky ones" might have bought at nigh on 100% mortgages with the commensurate risk of repossession. The rest are left to the devices of private sector landlords who again, have taken huge risks in the buy to rent market and will feel the pinch too - they have no choice (and I'm sure in some cases won't hesitate) but to pass that on to their tenants. As for them conducting safety checks, carrying out necessary repair work, etc - again, what can they do when money is tight? It's the tenant who suffers. Social housing by definition, is to meet an identifiable need, that we no longer address that need, we have allowed to happen and we should be ashamed.
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My mum and dad bought their council house and it ensured that our family would always have a roof over our heads. Without this option they may never have had the money to buy a house out right. It gave them security and always will into their old age. I think that everyone should have the right to buy their own council houses and that the revenue should be used to help build new houses for other people to live in.
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margaret thatcher said right to buy your home but the right to buy system is used by some individuals to buy more than one property and family members have been able to buy so it opened up loop holes for individuals to profit and it should have just been the one chance for existing tenants and then if sold back to the council rather than individuals becoming rich on council rights
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I always felt guilty about buying our Council house - it really was against my principles - but friends said we would be foolish not to take advantage of the enormous discount !
However - Council houses were built for people who couldn't afford to buy and Margaret Thatcher's motives were entirely political - it was a way of getting more people to vote Tory wasn't it ? It added insult to injury to stop Councils from benefitting from the sales and thousands of people are now deprived of homes ....
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Della 89
Your parents used it correctly. I have known a case of a adult child buying the parents council house through the right to buy when their parents were getting on a bit. They then evicted the parents and expected the council to re house them and then sold the house making a huge profitt.. Is this ok?
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Chooses to be poor ? ? ?
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Here's a test for you.
Go to any working mens club or inner city pub tonight and ask those people who have sat there all night, drinking tens of pounds worth of beer and smoking their many cigarettes (outside, of course) whether they have a mortgage or are in a council house. Bet you 95% are the latter.
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I barely have enough money to buy tea bags yet alone beer, but I do have one thing they dont, that is PRIDE that I own and pay for my own home. I'm not a scrounger who pleads poverty, yet is always in the pub, affords holidays to Ibiza, has the newest clothes and the Plasma TV, or amazingly always seems to have 06-07-08 plated cars in the council driveway.
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I'm sure there are a 2% minority who dont fit in this category, but 2% isnta lot.
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my parents were never brought up on a council estate. Yes council housing estates do carry a stigma and bad eggs are rehomed in affluent areas which i too am not in favour of. But i'm forced in to a corner, if i want to live in my own home i need council housing. I just can't afford anything else. I've hard worked since leaving school, i did buy a house(NOT council my i add) with my ex but it wasn't meant to be, we split and he bought me out. I then had a baby with another partner but he left me. I was 27 not some 16 year old using it to get benefits and a house, i thought we were in a secure relationship. Does this mean now that i'm council scum, that i'll bring drugs and crime just because i'm a single mum? Do i need to run out and find myself a husband to look after me and provide? Please don't tar everyone with the same brush. I'm self empolyed running my own business, believe me if i could afford to buy i most certainly would! All i'd like is to have some affordable housing in a nice area, pay my bills and taxes and bring my daughter up with the same recpect and morals i was taught.
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Having lost my own home in the early nineties after the last spate of repossessions, (I really feel for those going through it now), I waited 10 years for a council home. Myself and my husband have worked really hard all our lives and when we finally got a place with the council were given a two bed place with ourselves and four kids to live in. I would love to know where these empty council places are as we are told at every turn that there is not suitable housing for us. I would love to buy again but it is unrealistic as we lost our home through no fault of our own. All the housing stock has been sold off and it is true people come from outside this country and are given everything.
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We bought our council house when Margaret Thatcher made it possible to do so and it was the best thing we ever did. We didnt buy it just to get on the property ladder and then sell it, we bought it to live in it, so our house wouldnt benifit anybody else because we didnt intend to move anywhere else, and we have been in the same house for over 35 years. Some of out neighbours just bought theirs to sell them which I dont agree with, because I knew what it was like to be homeless.
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From KJ MacDougall, Dundee.
What a load of nonsense. people who bought council houses would have been in them anyway, so it doesn't take away from the total houses. They then quite often go on to sell them on and buy a more expensive house in the private sector making a bigger housing stock. make housing affordable by subsidising the individual and not property that goes empty like here in Dundee and is demolished after 30 years - not even paid for. On a BBC "This Week" show some months ago a guest was John Bird, Founder of The Big Issue. He said that The Right To Buy was the best thing that ever happened to working people in this country. He should know. Austing Mitchell is a blether sometimes.
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Boozy-Suzie
If you never intended to move why buy? What will happen now when you pass away, your house will go to your estate and maybe sold. If you intended to live in it forever why not rent from the Council, when the time comes it would have gone back to the Council to help another homeless family... As you say you know what it is to be homeless but now that house will not go to another homeless family...
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RIGHT -TO-BUY SHOULD NOT BE SCRAPED AS IT GIVES INDIVIDUAL THAT ARE ON LOW INCOME THE OPPORTUNITY TO GET ON THE PROPERTY LADDER. THE COUNCIL/GOVERNMENT SHOULD BUILD NEW HOMES.
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JADEGBENRO
Where is this money meant to come from??
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If immigration had been kept in check we would not be in the situation we find ourselves. We must keep our resources for the British people. We must not only stop importing bodies we must re-patriate those who have entered the UK illegally along with bogus asylum seekers. This includes those coming from the E.U. For those who plead for their Human Rights I would like to point out that we have the first Right to a job, house and country. Had our politicians and liberal thinkers not opened the floodgates of immigration we would be in such a mess. An Englishman's home is his castle and will strive to keep it, we must keep the right to buy. Thamehampden
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I believe people should only be eligable for the right to buy after living in council property for at least 10 years and are unable to sell it for an additional 10 years. They should not be sold on for the buy-to-let private landlord market. Any new council housing being built should be exempted from the right to buy for the foreseeable future. There are 10,000 empty housing association property's that have been empty for over 6 months. The government should buy these cheaply and hand them over to council's to become council housing. These measures would go a long way to easing the shortage of council housing.
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Its far more complicated than scrapping the right to buy.We should be looking at the social housing stock right across the board.Social housing no longer means council owned property it also includes housing association developements.Stock from the private sector which the councils rent and lease from the owners.In many areas of the country there is a surplus of social housing, but these are Not in the areas which migrant workers come to live in as most come to over crouded areas of the south and the larger citys of the midlands.Very few migrate to the north of england. Until we address the migrant work situation we cannot tackle the housing problem.Stopping the right to buy will not solve the social housing situation well not for a long time it would take some 30 years before we see the benifit.What would help however is the government freeing up the councils from having to hold on to the money recieved from the sells and letting the councils build houses again with this money.We do have a lot of housing developments going on but they are the wrong sort of accommodation for those who need it. Private developers are very good at building offices and apartments with no room for family's.They also build in areas where conjestion is allready at a high so agrivating the situation.
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Cancelling the right to buy seems to have no logic, it has been a successful means of allowing long-term tennants a foot on the housing ladder, freeing them from reliance on councils to carry out maintenance, and generally improving the housing stock that would otherwise be run down similar to the recent problem with servicemen's accommodation. The problem is exacerbated by the increase in single people/single parents requiring homes and a huge increase in population generally at the lower end of the employment market. The government pumped money into the economy, unsustainable mortgages have been provided resulting in a mad dash for property pushing prices beyond the first-time buyer. Now in a falling market few first-time buyers will risk buying. Some means of stabilising the houing market is required but please not more large-scale council house building again.
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RE-PLYto 190.
Have you looked at getting anouther flat on your own grounds instead of waiting for the council .Find one then go into the council and ask for their help with a deposit loan to secure it .The council don't charge interest on the loan and will help you to work round your finances.This is far better than sitting there moaning and not getting anywhere.Also if you collect concrete proof of dangers you are living in and can prove you and your family have been targeted this will increase your points and can move you into a differant catorgary on the housing list.But you yourself have to be more proactive to get your self out of the situation you are in. There are no free rides in life if your parents taught you that there are they are living in cloud cukoo land.
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Well done the one show for this article on the Right to Buy. As a Housing Officer for over 20 years in my opinion the RTB should be scrapped. I've spent many days during my career explaining to desperate customers why they cant have a house that they have expressed an interest in. I have known 350 expressions of interest for one property which equates to one very happy customer and 349 very unhappy customers. The demand for low cost social housing far outstrips supply. If people can afford to purchase then there are plenty properties for sale on the open market.
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If you live in York you have absolutely no chance of getting a council house unless:-
1. You are foreign and just having arrived in the uk have no place to stay.
2. A registered alchoholic, (Unemployed).
3. A registered alchoholic, (Employed).
4. A registered drug user, (Unemployed).
5. A registered drug user, (Employed).
6. Meet York City Councils Priority table.
7. Know someone in the YCC Housing office.
8. Aged 16 and pregnant.
9. Homeless, inc beggars.
The list goes on.
I hae been on their list for many years, being born and bread in York have absolutly no chance in this world of getting a property, although I did say to the lady that I would like to have a property before I die, chuckle she did, so a tip for foreigners, polish and the like, move to York, Quick.
KB
York.
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My partner and I are both in our early 40's. We are victims of the credit crunch. I have lost my job and am still looking for another one and my partner pays a huge amount of his wages to the CSA for his children. We were privately renting as we could not raise a deposit it buy a house. We had to move out of our house and into a house share. We have no room to have the children to stay at weekends and are stuck in one room for most of the time. We have no chance of getting a council house as there are young families still desperate for housing, so what chance do we have The right to buy should never have been brought in. There is a desperate shortage of affordable housing. We have worked hard all our lives, have always been careful with money and are now the forgotten ones in these hard times.
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I think council houses should only be rented out. I know a few people who bought there council homes years ago and still live in them now! But in my area there are loads of people who buy the council house only to rent it out or sell it making a profit! My brother bought his house on RTB a few years ago(still paying) the three bedroom property is sitting empty because he is renting privately closer to his work, no one wants to buy/rent in that council estate!
Just wanted to point out that not everyone in council homes are scroungers or claim benefits! Im fed up of hearing it!
I am a council tenant, married, now have three children, we both work our arses off! I do not claim benefits, money is tight for me but my children will never go hungry!
My three children are crammed into one bedroom, me and my husband are in the other. A women down the road told a little white lie about having her boyfriends children living with her as well as her own, She got given a 5bedroom house from council(when there was really only two children living with her) She is now buying through RTB!
Single pregnant women with no other children are being given 3bed houses before baby is even born, whilst my family is crammed in a 2bed house!
I'm not complaining we could be living in a cardboard box!
I just think if you can afford to buy, you should buy privately!
I will never buy a council property, not in a million years, there is too much things wrong in my house, ie mould etc
I will get my money together and go private when the time is right!
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Right to buy should be permanently binned. It was wrong to start with and is wrong now.
The social housing stock should be reserved for people with genuine housing need owing to their circumstances.
When someone is back on their feet or there for a couple of years and gets better job or higher pay they should move out to give someone else the leg up that the house gave them.
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There are many people about to be repossessed why not let them stay where they are and change their properties over to council ownership allowing them to pay a rent instead of a mortgage.Also possibly use the part ownership options that already exist.This way stocks of council houses will be added to and people will not have to leave their homes and add their names to the council listings making the problem worse. Also it would stop the banks selling properties off cheaply to get their money back quickly by letting opportunist individual or professional buyers get a cheap deal. Instead the government and therefore the tax payers would get the benefit. This way council properties would not be lumped together or catagorised by position instead they would be in all areas of the country and impossible to know if they were council or private. Much better surely to have the government as landlords if organised well and fairly.We need to be more like Europe and realise not everyone wants to buy but we all want decent accomodation we can afford.
Yes stop the sale of council houses--renovate,restore,and replenish. Give everyone the chance of a decent home and a decent life.
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Why when home owners run into dificulties and are having their homes repossessed?
Couldn't the council buy the houses from the people, and rent them back to the families? After all the council has got to rehouse them especially if they have children. This means uprooting families taking children away from their schools and their friends this can lead to all sorts of problems for children settling into another area. Chucking people into the street and then having to rehouse them somewhere whilst leaving good houses empty is crazy
As far as I can see it is a win win situation for everyone involved.
Councils have houses
Families can stay in their homes
Banks get their money
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I cannot believe all this nonsense on this blog.I have just retired from a local authority housing dept after 25 years.The main problem with the right to buy is the non use of funds received to maintain and build new housing stock! Another terrible problem is the number of people who seem to think that being offered a council house or flat is their right!! The whole principle of `Social Housing` is just that,people in REAL NEED only should be considered.There are plenty of private renting properties available and Housing Benefit is also available for these properties.It seems many people have the attitude that they are owed something for nothing,try getting off your b..and working,just think how good you would feel. CP
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I have been reading some of the comments from other people wether it was a good idea to buy or not to buy by M T and I dont believe makes any difference now because it was in the past and there wasnt as many people out of work and on benefits then as there is now. Now it seems like its the fashon to try and put a claim in to the goverment or council for reduced council tax etc. People seem to be claiming for anything they can think of instead of sorting themselves out and standing on their own 2 feet. I am sorry if I sound bitter but myself and my husband have worked ever since we have been married to bring our children up and keep a roof over our heads, and I feel we are stronger people for doing it. My husband used to work 7 days a week so we could but our own house and when he came home I went to work myself.
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in the eighties that old capitalist git thatcher sold of all the sosial housing at a rediculassly low price
and now we are all paying the price
greedy private landlords charging what they like build more councle housing ban the right to buy that will force prices down
and make a leval playing field and maybe me and my partner will have a home its our birth right as when i was born i owned all the social housing with the rest of the population in this country till she stole it off of us.
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At one time right to buy was a just reward for those who had lived in a property for years, at times struggling to pay rent as there was no benefit 'class'.
HOWEVER, times have definately changed.
I work for local government and as part of my job I help many people including those who cant write english to complete their housing applications. Almost everyone I see is getting income support or jobseekers allowance yet when I ask if they would be willing to accept a housing association property if offered, an estimated 90% refuse - and their reason is that they would have no right to buy it!
These are people living totally off the state (some of which havent even been in the country for 6 months) who wish to be handed the right to own their own home whilst those trying genuinely desperately to pay their mortgages by working for poor wages are risking losing theirs. To make matters worse, they possibly wont be entitled to social housing once their home is repossessed as they could be seen as 'intentionally homeless' due to falling into arrears with mortgage payments.
Bear in mind that you only have to be a tenant in some cases for a minimum of 2 years before getting the right to buy. Also, very often the property is purchased with the intent of letting it out in the long term.
Scrap right to buy as it no longer helps this selfish and greedy society.
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Has anyone stated that the Right to Buy does not preclude you from selling your house ( usually after a given number of years) keeping the cash and applying and getting another council property. I was amazed to learn this but as it seems fairly rife in East Anglia it is obviously legally correct. This really is a case of having your cake and eating it. Also it does not free up any council property.
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I can't help feeling that there is a simple solution to the problem - one that makes sense from both an economic and a political perspective.
There are very long waiting lists for social housing at a time when the government is keen to boost public spending.
In view of the above, surely it is a sound move to build low cost affordable housing in the areas in which people want to live.
Most people look after their homes and would really benefit from having a place of their own - they shouldn't have to rely on profiteering buy to let landlords.
Unless we demonstrate that in a democracy, it is for the government to fulfil the wishes of the people, we can hardly be surprised if we raise a whole new generation of disenchanted and disaffected people.
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you go around alot of towns and estates and you see houses boarded up that are council houses and are not in use. there are private properties boarded up, why are these not used? i went around one estate in Bristol and there were 10 + houses boarded up and on one road in Taunton there were at least 5+ boarded properties.
also where does the money go frm the sale of the council houses? why is this not reinvested in houses that are sold at auction?
there are plenty of houses that are not being utilised just lazy councils who wont get their fingers out and reinvest the money to get them back into homes.
i do think that the right to buy should be only for British and not for all the EU workers who come over, i heared that one Russian woman turned down a council house as it wasn't what she was used to back home and they put her into a county cottage worth 1/2 a mil??? what is this country coming to? and the other people out there who own a property in one partners name and get a council house in the other partners name, they live in the council house while getting a nice income in rent!!! these people should be classed as fraudsters!
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The right to buy policy was and is a bad policy, but unfortunately it's too late to stop it now. The selling of council houses under Thatcher's government was in my opinion the beginning of the demise of our sense of society and gave rise to the 'me society' in which we now live.
I think government/councils should buy people's homes before they are repossed. This would stop families being made homeless and often ending up in overpriced substandard accommodation. It would mean that they could continue with their lives - ie. children wouldn't have to change schools etc. It would save a lot of upheaval and distress and probalby wouldn't end up costing much more.
It would stop landlords getting richer on the backs of others misery.
The government has bailed out our financial sytem - even though they have had many years of high profits and high bonuses so why should people who have been unlucky enough to have been caught out in the housing crisis not be treated in the same way. It is after all many of these financial institutions who have been helped out who will in turn make these people homeless.
Councils should be able to use the money from the sale of council houses to build new council houses which should not be allowed to be sold.
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Whether or not someone has bought their council house they will still be living in it. The problem is not the right to buy it is that councils are no longer building new homes.
Once someone has bought their home they will cherish it and eventually the neighbourhood has pride in itself.
If you suspend the right to buy you will not have more housing just tenents who have no interest in improving the property.
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My parents bought their council house through right-to-buy and when they died I inherited half with my brother. I bought out his half as he wanted the money. I then leased it back to the council my parents had bought it from. I have had the money back my parents paid over and over and over again. The homeless have a home isn't this how it should work? It gives me an extra pension now I am retired. Winners all round thanks Maggie.
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Without doubt there should be a right to buy. However to assist in maintaning rentable council state owned property people in arrears of their mortgage should not be evicted but should remain housed in the same property paying rent at an affordable price possibly in tow with the interest on the outstanding amount, with the title of the property being held be the state until such time as the tenant can afford to buy again.
This woud avoid the high cost of rehousing evicted persons, would stop repossesed property going to auction to be bought by investors who will then sell them on at a profit.
Eviction just exacerbates the housing problem!
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Rigt to Buy was a good idea and I took advantage of it. BUT it is abused. Where I live so many people bought their houses and now let them to students - one house had 10 people in it. We are losing our community. As much as 50% are now 'lets' Some people are buying up houses as they come on the market - one guy owns 6 houses on this estate. The Council should write a clause into the contract forbidding this.
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I tried listening two or three times for the logic behind the 'Remove the right to buy?' piece and I just couldn't find any.
The only way it adds up is if there is a hidden motive against council housing in general.
Point 1: If there aren't enough council houses anyone can see that one possible remedy is to build more.
Point 2: Anyone knows can see it costs more to buy a house than it costs to build one. *Most* people can then see that if you don't have enough money to build more, the most obvious source is the money paid by the people who buy them.
Point 3: It follows from points one and two that the more council houses you sell, the more money you receive (and the more PROFIT you make!) with which to build new ones.
Therefore, if you want to do away with council housing, why not remove the right to buy? This reduces the money available to build any more, and makes people less keen to move in because as prospective tenants they can see they're condemning themselves to a life of renting, with no chance to better themselves unless they move out.
It also makes sure that council estates become sink holes, full only of no hopers devoid of the slightest hope of self-improvement.
The thing to change to make for more socially affordable housing isn't to cut off the right to buy; for heaven's sake, the houses can only be bought for MONEY...
The thing to change is to ensure that all money returned by purchasers of (ex)council houses is ring fenced exclusively for the purpose of building or buying and renovating replacements. Council housing is then instantly transformed into the enormously profitable business of building for sale, and grows at a good rate of knots. Eventually there is more affordable rented accomodation than the population requires, and no more homeless people.
Does it seem out of reach? Do the mathematics!. What's more, it's all free, paid for by happy people successfully climbing onto the housing ladder.
The only problem with the current setup is the government being allowed to cream off the price paid by the buyers and use it to cover up their own ineptitude, instead of using it for its real purpose; to build more houses.
As an added benefit to the sell/build-more cycle, the flow of buyers will help stave off the likely housing crash from fewer and fewer people being able to afford their first dwelling place.
I'd have expected better from the presenters of this show. How can you miss the fact that even at a 'social housing' price, people still have to pay more than it costs to build a house, even for a council dwelling, and that having plenty of buyers *guarantees* the necessary cash to (re)invest in creating more of the same.
How can you miss that? You can't. It's like first year logic for remedial primary pupils.
I sincerely believe this deserves a *broadcasted* follow up, to illuminate and correct the stupendous
logical errors. Read this if you like :-)
Gareth.
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Thatcher's Britain has created a monster with Right to Buy. It is probably good for people to own their home but there is an urgent need for social housing stock. Families all over the country need to be housed, indeed we have a grandchild who is unfortunately living with his mother and her family in what only can be described as cramped and unhealthy conditions. Young people have little or no hope of 'getting on the housing ladder' in the current climate. Not only that, there is such an unfair stigma attached to social housing. We pay sufficient taxes, hidden and direct, to ensure that the people of this country should have a decent home in which to live.
I am, and have always been, a supporter of Labour, but what planet are they now on. Instead of reducing VAT by an amount that frankly would not entice me to buy more, why don't they look at kick starting the building industry, thus reducing unemployment somewhat, and providing much needed homes for those who don't particularly want to invest in buying a property.
On the other hand, Governments in other countries in Northern Europe, provide the mortgage funds for people to buy homes should they wish.
Wake up Alatair, Darling......
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we was forced to buy a house after being refused a council house (we have been on the list 5/half years now)as the house we was in was privately rented and the landlord was selling it off. i wasnt even going to entertain buying it as it was totally rotton through and through and he refused the repaire after us complaning for 4 years and going to several council environment departments and some other reasons. now 2 years on we are able just to pay it all. we dont have the money for reapirs and it was a botched survey .my partners hours changed this april and he lost £250-£300 per month in wages.i was forced to give up my job last nov 07 due to being bullied at work. i have since been to the council to ask them if we sold our house would we get a council one, the answer was not eligible. yet i know stacks of folk in our situation who have got council houses, one family even had so much money after selling their house they brought a thirty thousand pound caravan and got a council house. in my area there is lots of ethnics getting the houses, council and private.i regret buying now and we seem stuck. there are council houses about ,the local council here are more bothered about ethnics than british folk. i have worked all my life and so has my fellar apart from when he got made redundent 11years ago. the system is all wrong.
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I spent 38 years working in Social Housing, 20 odd years of which was as the CEO of 3 major Housing Associations. The Right to Buy was not welcomed when Thatcher introduced it. But RTB was not the total cause of the current problems.
All governments have subsequently restricted what local authorities can do with the cash proceeds and have removed those funds from the authorities. The cash over the years could have provided thousands of new homes.
Similarly most governments have under funded the provision of new homes. So whilst I disagreed with RTB when it was introduced it is here to stay what is needed is more money both by that nice Mr Darling and from the sales proceeds that LAs should have in their Housing Accounts over the last 25 years.
Your readers may be surprised to hear that many Chinese tenants have the RTB after Thatcher sold the idea to their Government some 20 years ago!
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I live in a council house and have done for 30 yrs, I think that the right to buy should not be scrapped as I don't see what difference it would make anyway. The reason why we don't have enough properties is due to flats being demolished and making way for private developers and for giving priority to people who enter this country under immunity, instead of putting the people who have lived here all there lives first.
The goverment are quick enough to help other Countries financially and I think it's about time it started helping the people of Britain and putting money back into this country.
They all sit in there Ivory Towers and posh houses and they don't give a hoot about anyone else.
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“High levels of homelessness, scarcity of social housing, lack of availability of affordable rental and private housing are some of the problems the Labour Assembly Government has not got a grips with. There are a number of communities from throughout Wales where affordable housing is a scarce commodity. Too many families are living in bed and breakfast accommodation.”
“Plaid wants to see an increase in investment in social housing, the expansion of the homebuy grant and the cancellation of the right to buy. There has been a 47% decrease in the number of council homes available in Wales as a result of New Labour continuing with the Conservative right to buy policy. This is another example of a Labour broken promise. In 2003 they included in their manifesto the pledge to cancel right to buy in areas of housing pressure, the people of Wales are still waiting for action on this promise.”
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As far as I can tell, the only people who seem to be entitled to social housing are the unmarried mums, ex-drug addicts or youngsters who were in care all their lives. Whilst I don't object to these people getting housing, I feel that the bias is against the regular couple/single person. I think the best way forward is for council houses being abolished. Most councils cannot afford the upkeep. My Son and his wife were laughed at when they applied for a council property despite they were both earning the minimum wage and could not afford to buy. The Council's could also free up the existing council houses by building sheltered accommodation to get the elderly out and get the unmarried mums in! That'll do it.
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One of the issues with council housing / Housing Associations is that they tend not to move people on when the property they are in becomes too large.
For instance, a family with three teenage children will need a four bedroom house. However, once they have grown and left home, few, if any, of the social housing groups will downsize the property requirements and free up the house for the next family. Of course, it could be argued that it is "the family home". But it isn't! It's the councils property and, as such, should be available to the most needy.
Right to Buy has tended to take the best and the biggest out of the market (they also tended to be the ones on which the biggest profit could be made, too!)
Right to Buy also increases the disadvantages of those that cannot get social housing. As many respondents have already stated, these tend to go anywhere but to employed, stable family units who have the misfortune to earn less than required to obtain a mortgage, or in areas where the housing market is completely out of reach.
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I was brought up on council estates and have always been against the Right to Buy on principle as I feel that council housing is for people who cannot afford to buy. Mrs. Thatcher is partly to blame for the massive increase in the price of housing because people bought their council houses and then sold them, wanting to move into something better. This created a housing shortage and this pumps up the prices. People who moved into 3 bedroomed council houses when they had young families should be encouraged to move into smaller properties. In Exeter there's a scheme to pay tenants £4,000 to move into smaller properties. The French have the right idea and rent their homes much more than we do so they don't have so many mortgages. The current economic crisis is partly because of the selling of council houses forcing people to take out mortgages they can't afford and so we have the banks selling debt and now we're all suffering. It's madness.
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My parents married in 1939 - they rented private housing until 1953 when they managed to obtain a council house - the house they left was classed as "condenmed" - there was no electricity, no bathroom or inside toilet. They continued to rent their Council house until 1988 - one of the final things my father did before he died was to sign the forms for the "Right to Buy". My mother then had nine years until 1997 "rent free" when she also passed away. When we tried to "sell" the council house back to the Council they were not interested - I'm talking about £20,000 - not a fortune in today's market. We eventually sold it for £19,000. I do not think that people buy their council homes to make a large profit. These houses I am sorry to say, are usually in areas where more affluent people do not want to live and the majority of purchasers have already lived in the house for many years and do not wish to move away, because they know their neighbours and have friends there. Even with the allowance they get for having lived in the council house it is not really a "bargain" as many people think, because they have paid the rent and made many improvements the council would not do. In fact, originally when the authorities built the houses after the first World War they were actually meant for tradesmen, police, schoolteachers, firemen etc. not the unemployable.
Regards
Margaret Williams
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I have been following the latest news on this subject because I believe it is important that the right to buy is kept as a possibillity.
I live in Belgium, where people can only obtain a council house by renting. The right to buy has been removed. This does ultimately condemn people to a life of renting or to move out.
It's been some years now since the government did away with RTB.
In Belgium, we have an added problem whereby the local governments are being imposed by law to take in a number of foreign people and get them settled with a council house, mostly paid by the local center for social welfare.
This is a risk of course, where you tend to get an estate that becomes a ghetto, I am sorry to say.
On the other hand, we see a new kind of social housing emerge.
The new houses and flats that are being built, are always, or almost always, being rented out to pensioners who sold their own house and moved in a council flat, brandnew and very expensive. This is of course a source for the limited lucky few; I do not object to the way the council is managing the system. I do object to the fact that a large majority of the population that really need a council house or flat, will not even stand a chance of getting one because of the prices councils are asking. And yes, they keep building new ones, but I doubt it will be socially affordable housing for most people.
So, on the one hand we have ghetto's and on the other we have the exclusive ones.
I do know one thing: it will not get any better by doing away with RTB.
I was always under the impression that council housing was a right for everybody.
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I worked as a local authority conveyancer dealing with Right to Buy during the 90s. At that time, R to B was available to tenants who had lived in a council house for a very short period. Discount was on a sliding scale according to the length of tenancy, the maximum 52% discount being available after, if I remember rightly, 3 years, with, until 1993, a simple right to a Council mortgage. (After 1993 legislation, the mortgage situation became more complicated). Thus the price received was only48% of the value of the house. This was not usually available for rebuilding social housing. After another 3 years the tenant could sell for full value on the open market. This meant that a R to B house was lost to social housing stock. A house let to a Council tenant would, when it became vacant for whatever reason (often the death of a tenant), become available for letting to another tenant, so at any given time there would always be Council houses becoming available.
Right to Buy was great for those who could afford it, not so great for those who could afford it but had rapacious bullying children with an eye to inheritance, and a disaster for those who were applying for social housing from a rapidly dwindling stock.
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My parents married in 1939 - they rented private housing until 1953 when they managed to obtain a council house - the house they left was classed as "condenmed" - there was no electricity, no bathroom or inside toilet. They continued to rent their Council house until 1988 - one of the final things my father did before he died was to sign the forms for the "Right to Buy". My mother then had nine years until 1997 "rent free" when she also passed away. When we tried to "sell" the council house back to the Council they were not interested - I'm talking about £20,000 - not a fortune in today's market. We eventually sold it for £19,000. I do not think that people buy their council homes to make a large profit. These houses I am sorry to say, are usually in areas where more affluent people do not want to live and the majority of purchasers have already lived in the house for many years and do not wish to move away, because they know their neighbours and have friends there. Even with the allowance they get for having lived in the council house it is not really a "bargain" as many people think, because they have paid the rent and made many improvements the council would not do. In fact, originally when the authorities built the houses after the first World War they were actually meant for tradesmen, police, schoolteachers, firemen etc. not the unemployable.
Regards
Margaret Williams
(Previously Rochdale, Lancashire, now Chadderton, Oldham)
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The whole basis of this programe was false and a complete waste of time. It matters not one iota whether 'the house' is owner occupied or tenant occupied, it is OCCUPIED.
If there is a queue for council houses (and I shall be joining the queue next year), the only solution is to build more, or, renovate empty property.
So please more thought before putting such reports together!
pedroc
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How can it make sense to build thousands of houses on land needed for producing food when there are thousands of properties already built being left empty to go derelict? Why don`t councils take these over, as well as buying up houses that have been repossessed. It must be cheaper and better for the environment.
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The problem is NOT the right to buy, it is the failure of local authorities to replace the houses which have been sold with new builds over the last 25 years.
We should be looking at building massive numbers of new council homes now - with the recession on, this would have a two-fold effect, helping the economy (especially the construction industry) and giving people suitable housing.
Although it is much derided, has any thought been given to using the Public/Private partnership model used for schools and hospitals for housing? This would allow the houses to be built.
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I was an estate agent in the eighties before the big slump. We used to deal with a lot of right to buy Council Houses and it was understood that all the money that the Councils made was to go to build new houses, as the council of that time was saying that they could not afford to do up the stock they had. The money they made went into there bank accounts and that was the end of that. The right to buy was a good thing and helped many people to buy there council Houses at a nock down price and are now worth a fortune to day. What the Goverment should have done, was the people who wanted to buy there council house should have been passed over to the Houseing Association and helped them to buy one of there houses and that would help on the demand for Council Houses.
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Being a council tenant and on the waiting list I feel that the right to buy should go especially when there are so many properties out there that are either lying empty or are under occupied. I know of at least 2 people where I live where there is only one person living in a 3 bed property when there are hundreds of people waiting to be moved out because they are in either overcrowded or poor living conditions - such as dampness or subsidence. It takes a lot of fight to get out of poor living conditions when you are in a council property - it shouldn't be like that. Because we are the victims of Anti-Social Behaviour we are finding it very hard for the council to re-house us because they keep losing our paperwork and refuse to nominate us to a housing association. I do hope that no-one else has to go through what we went through. So unless the councils sort out the empty/underoccupied properties or build new ones then we will get nowhere with the council housing crisis.
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Surely this is an easy one.
People should be allowed to buy their council house, as for some this is the only way of being able to get on the proprty ladder.
The responsibility lies with the council, use the money that they gain from the selling of the house to then build more houses, this way although more houses are being bought, more a being built to cope with the number lossed! If their selling them then it is their responsibility to build more.
Hayley Bradbury, West Sussex
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If the right to buy were suspended it would not free up property as the tenants would not be able to aford to buy on the open market. I think the answer is that for every property sold another should be built & he vast array off empty property should be utilised. All new development should include at least 40% social housing in order to obtain planning consent. It is only by giving the right to buy that lower paid have a chance to buy their own property.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Not many council Houses are now sold under Right to buy in my authority we only sold 8 last year. Many of those who bought their council houses were long term tenants and therefore were never available for letting for over 30 years in many cases, (Tenants have secure tenancies) therefore it was better they maintained them rather than the taxpayer. This Government does actually have a surplus in its housing budget due to the fact that it now takes 75% of the money from any sale and from those authorities who still hold their stock and take millions from the income from rents, ( in our authority's case it is £1204 per property which is over £5 million per annum). We have requested that this money is used by the local authority to invest in new housing or to buy those that are not selling or from developers who cannot sell to provide more homes for rent. The government has not responded. You should have had a longer interview with Austin Mitchell MP who was about to tell you that unless you edited it out.
The money allocated for social housing by the government is issued by the Housing Corporation and it is very difficult to obatin due to its criteria especailly here in the south west. Their criteria is in favour of building on green field sites rather than brownfield and they do not seem to issue it for demolishing inadequate council housing to provide new through housing associations. The Government is against a council building homes it wishes everyone to use housing associations.
this government favours the North and inner city regeneration sschemes rather than rural councils similar to South West.
This subject should be an issue for a Panorama programme - the failure of Government.
Jill Elson, East Devon District Council, Portfolio Holder for Communities.
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Where i live the house prices are so high and the wages so low that ex council houses have been the only properties that first time buyers can afford. Instead of doing away with the right to buy why dont the government reinstate the percentage discount they took away and remove the restriction of having to keep the property for a certain number of years before selling. This would bring income in which could be used for empty properties etc as many have already said & would also kick start the housing market!
Diane, Plymouth
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The fundamental problem is not 'right to buy' but the fact that central governemnt took the proceeds of sale instead of putting the money back to the councils (who owned the houses) to use to build more!
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My son and his family had there house posessed and they were homeless, they had there name down on the local housing athority when they new there would be in trouble. We had to fight for 14 months to get them a council house until then the family were living in six seperate places with family and my son was sleeping in his car. They have now living in a council ,house but the sepperation had caused problems with the children and they are not doing well at school and are very with drawn.
The house was auctioned and is now empty waiting to be put into flats. This was bought very cheap £95.000. Why cant the goverment buy theses homes and then they would have more social housing and less homelessness?
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Jim from Rotherham
Most people who have bought their council house are still living in them. Mostly they are people who would never have managed to get together the deposit to bye on the open market, or without the the discount could not afford the mortgage payments,therefor if they had never bought them they would still be in the same house only paying rent. Where ex council houses come up for sale (which is usualy on the death of sitting owner) they are usualy at the bottom end of the market and are taken up by people who cannot afford anything else. If these people could not get these houses they would end up on council housing lists, so stoping the sale of council houses would not free up any more homes.
The real reason for the shortage of homes is that councils were not allowed to use the money raised by sales to build more homes, and the government stoped investing in new social housing for rent. Another side of the housing isue is that a lot of vacant houses are in the wrong place and of the wrong type, many authorities outside London and the south have been demolishing surplus houses for years as their is no call for them or they are of the wrong type. Also the housing problem has been made much worse by the demand for single persons homes and families breaking up, both parties have acses to the children and so they both want a home to take the children too.
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i am a father of 5 children and we have 7 living in a 3 bedroom house and are told we will be very very lucky to ever get a council house and we have been on the list for 9 years as a family. the right to buy doesnt really affect me as we probably couldnt afford to buy anyway, however it does in the sense that, as we are in private rented home and to be told that we will not get one as the property has a garden, mainly because the council has no properties to be given out, which i know is false as there are empty houses all around. i understand that there maybe arent that many properties but if the council got us a council house to live in they would save themselves probably £400 a month which they have to pay for the private rented house, if you times this by the amount of families who are in private rentals the saving the councils would make would be phenomenal
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It is a fact now that social housing is dimminishing severely and although I wouldn't deny anyone the right to buy there is a growing need for social housing.
I this time when building is being halted and houses unsold surely the government can help by releasing the profit from the sales to purchase some of these homes for those on the various lists.
In this town (Colchester) there is not a waiting list but a needs register for social housing and you would have to be in severe need to be chosen.
Kev Colchester
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The right to buy policy is a very good one as people have the chance to better themselves, otherwise they need not bother and rent the council house for life which will have exactly the same effect on the shortage problem. The shortage problem is made worse by the massive influx of legal and illegal immigrants, immigration must now be tightly controlled as it is in Ausralia. Also the revenue raised from the sale of council houses should have been spent on new council houses, both councils and central government have failed dismally in this area.If the population expansion of GB is not propery controlled soon there will be no space left for anymore house building.Please can we have some countryside left for a little recreation?
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The "right to buy" was always a misnoma. Council tenants always had a right to buy any home for sale at the market price, the same as anyone else, if they could afford repayments etc.. What was changed was the compulsion to sell communal property at knock down prices.
Those homes were already owned by citizens paid for through council taxes and it was there, though never enough, to help ordinary people have the dignity and security of a roof over their heads.
Many who bought their council homes could ill afford the repayments and lost their secure homes to lenders who repossessed and sold it on at a vast profit. Desparation to pay as interest rates rose cntributed to latch key children as mothers desparate to keep housed were forced to return to work sooner than they wished.
And those who could afford were by definition no longer in need. Many moved away to retire out of the cities after as little as 3 years, selling them to entrepeneurs buying them out so that the poorer people who were further behind in the housing queue never found affordable rents and security.
Not just the family silver but that basic necessity was sold for votes.
I have known many cases; an example of which is a London flat bought by a fairly rich relative of mine who had tenancy through her mother and bought for £17,000 to resell at £120,000. It is now let out to holiday makers while the homeless sleep in doorways or friend's settees.
This has been a large contributory factor to the lack of social workers, teachers and nurses within London boroughs bringing many disasters as the infrastucture has been undermined for short term gain.
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Build more social houses. Private rentals are just not affordable to working people on low incomes in Cambridge. Not everyone living in Cambridge is in high paid techy jobs! Most of us are poor (especially the ones who work for the NHS!).
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Why dont the councils/government buy up the houses that are being reposessed at a reasonable price and rent them back to the people living in them. This way the mortgage lender recoups its money and poeple are not made homeless. Also the reposessed houses are not left empty to deteriorate and be vandalised.
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I know it is very simplistic but ther are thousands of people with small homes to sell that would like to move on but cannot find a buyer.
Why don't the government buy these houses and use them for council renting.
This would provide houses for the councils and boost the housing market.
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I am an advice worker in central London and I visit clients who are elderly or disabled or caring for someone who is. I frequently see the impact on a family which is living in an ex-council property, the parents may well have bought their home but their adult children are then stuck and unable to be housed and cannot afford to buy at the high prices in the area. I have held the belief for some time that the 'right to buy' should be abolished. The council tenant should instead be incentivised to buy a property in the private sector with a grant of a similar size to the discount they would have received under right to buy scheme. This would enable councils to maintain their stock of social housing and offer the property to another family on their housing register. It may also provide a small boost the the currently ailing property market.
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I have been a housing officer for 35 years and have worked for two London boroughs. I am very dispirited by the comments I have read on the blog, as it only serves to show what a disaster the Right to Buy has been. By a process of clearance areas and new council building we were getting away from the stigma of living on a council estate.To build new housing stock,councils had to take out a loan from the government.The 1981 Housing Act meant that all the 'nice' housing stock on which the loans had been repaid and therefore profit was being made, were sold off - at a discount! We were left with the 1960's and 1970's stock which have now reverted to being council 'ghettos',if they haven't already been demolished.Meanwhile in my job I deal with a lot of private-rented addresses which I can identify as being ex-council,now in owned by private landlords instead of being there for the community,which they were built for. The families in this accommodation are on short-term contracts and spend their lives moving every few months instead of putting down roots.The damage to society will become apparent in the next few years.
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I am currently a council tennant in Gosport but I work near Reading and would llike to move up here so the travelling isn't too costly seeing as I am a single mum. I have been on the exchange list for over 6 months as you can no longer do direct transfers from council to council. The only problem is that I have not had anyone interested in my property at all which is also costing me money to advertise on the housing exchange register on line. I have no option but to look at the private renting market for somewhere to live as even though I am also on the waiting list up in Berkshire (I have 0 points) the likelihood of being able to swap is zero. Private renting would increase the rent that I would have to pay by 3 times.
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I do not see a problem with right to buy schemes so long as the properties are sold with covenants only allowing them to be re-sold in the future at a reduced market value (i.e. affordable) as they are bought from the council at a reduced rate.
Also, to maintain council stocks, homes that are lying empty for extended periods of time going to ruin should be allowed to be "taken over" by the council to be used for social housing.
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I was brought up in council housing right up to the age of 30. And I think the right to buy policy was the worst thing that could have happened for the people council housing was meant for. Those in society that could not afford to buy a house privately. A lot of the people who did excerise the right to buy were offered the house at a rediculously low price, only to sell it on at a much higher value. And then the very same people wonder why there is no affordable rented accommodation for their children now.
The whole system was based on greed, and the 'I'm alright Jack' mentality. My own family were offered the right to buy our council house, but did not argee with it in princible and saved to buy one already in the private sector. It's nice to think that we past on an affordable house to a less fortunate family, and thus keeping the social housing system going.
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Hi OneShow
It was the Governments action of destroying Council Housing that has in the main caused the present problem, without Council Housing most people had no choice but to buy, if they had not reduced Council Housing to needs based Social Housing then most communities would have been able to spot and deal with things like baby ‘p’ & the Sheffield man who spent 19years abusing his children. We now have thousands upon thousands of local, regional and central Government civil servants that are well paid to follow guidelines, meet targets, penalise communities but crucially not provide services or support the citizens of our country.
Mike Carr
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As a homeowner who bought under right to buy I fully support the scheme. However what I have noticed in our area is a large number of council owned family homes with single occupants. In my street alone of 24 houses I know of 4 with a single occupant. Two of whom moved into the house with their familes and have since divorced, the families are now in one council house with the sole occupant in another. Apparently if you are a named tennant you are able to occupy the property whatever the change of circumstances.
There are also occupants whose children have now left home and are still in 4 bedroom houses on their own. Whilst I would never condone evicting people for no reason surely a change of circumstance such as divorce should be a reason to move people into smaller accomodation and open up family homes for families. A friend of ours waited 12 years for council accomodation and had to wait for someone to die before the family got a house.
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When a property is tenanted, it returns to the Council on the death or transfer of the current tenant to more appropriate housing. When it has been bought under the Right to Buy, under the same circumstances it reverts to the private sector, often at a greatly inflated price and still out of reach of most first time buyers.
We also have a serious situation at the moment that many tenants who purchased their Council home in the last 3-5 years, paying out at least double the value of their rent in mortgage payments and also being encouraged to take out additional secured debt, who are now being repossessed. Their property was never going to be affordable to them but they were lured by the promise of an additional £20,000 or so to spend on "improvements", many of which have not increased the value of their home. These same people are approaching their local Councils for assistance and cannot understand that due to them buying their home, they have not only lost the security of tenure but also are not guaranteed to be offered social housing due to the lack of available stock.
The Government needs to re-examine the rules on RTB and also on the amount of money it gives back to Councils to build or purchase replacement properties. Either that or change the rules on Assured Shorthold Tenancies which would allow private tenants greater security rather than the current 6 months tenancy and a "no blame" accelerated possession procedure which would encourage more people into the private sector.
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given that the houses are sold at a considerable discount, the councils are never going to have the cost to build a replacement even if it was allowed.
You can't have a free market on housing when demand is so artificially increased through immigration.
However, before any cessation on the sale of council houses it would be more social responsible to outlaw the ownership of second homes, and buy to let should only be permitted by non profit organisations.
MP's are not likely to agree when they can fund their housing investments on expenses!
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I believe everyone has the right to own their own property should they wish to do so. Although I don't agree council tenants should be able to purchase their rented property at a reduced cost. I feel this is discriminate to those that join the property ladder in the conventional way.
Perhaps a solution or certainly something worth looking into is for each council to check who actually lives in their properties. It wouldn’t surprise me if people listed as being council tenants were renting them on to gain a profit.
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My two disabled children and i have been on the housing transfer list for eight years we have had 1 offer up till two years ago when i got my MP involved and 2 since then but all three totally unsuitable. The council put all propertiies on the sales register even those which have been previously rented and i was told if they don't sell in six months they may come back to lettings. what this tells me is anything that will sell is sold and anything that doesen't sell we get offered, i have asked to be nominated to another council but they have said to go to another council myself. I did contact two other councils but they said it wasen't worth it as they coulden't help me either. I originally was transfered from a high rise but you have one offer only and took my current property underderes as i new it woulden't work in the long term the council gave me the impression that taking it and going back on to transfers would be the best idea. as with one offer only they can chuck you off the list for another year if you refuse the property. Even though they have excepted my reasons for the properties being unsuitable and told me i would not be penalised we are still waiting and in the last contact with them they told me i was a serial refuser. They have no clue that this is for life my children are still going to be with me when their forty and beyond and if i don't fight for what they need who will i can't take anything if that was the case they have offered me one house but with twelve concret staires direct too the front door my children have suffered horrendous injuries from falling down our current internal staires including broken bones adding more outside as well as inside would be mad. It had a back gate onto the road and the garden woulden't have got a table and chair in it. it was also opposite a house where my younger sister was assaulted when she was younger so she would not have come round with her two disabled children as the family are still there. I diden't give that as a reason but i would have had to if they had pushed it further. The right to buy was suppossed to give the council a chance to buy them back if the person wanted to sell within 3 years i don't know if that was inforced and i am not against tenants buying if they have lived in them but taking from lettings and selling everything when the current tenant mainly older people have gone into a home or maybe died is wrong.
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RE....... At 12:02pm on 26 Nov 2008, misterbadger1 wrote:
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Once agin we have the real problem evidenced here. The above entry is a typical boo-hoo from someone with too many children (5!!!) who expects the State (ie: decent tax paying citizens who know when to stop making babies) to bail them out an dprovide a 4,5,6 bedroomed house for cheap rent. Rent that is usually refunded in housing allowance.
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The Govt should have a rule. No morgage, no children allowed. And for Gods sake, limit Child Benefit to the 1st child only ! This would stop scroungers like this and many more. This country is going down the pan pandering to people who cant stop having kids yet expect everyone else to subsidise their houses. Right to Buy ? No way. These people should be given one choice. A 1-bed prefab, or nothing. Just watch the pro-creation stop.
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in oneway the right to buy was a good idea it turned scruffy no go council estates into neater ones as council tennant tried to keep up with those who had brought their houses also most council houses would not going on to the waiting list as the people living there usualy stayed all there life and the a son or daugther could take the tennancy over i have heard that there are third generations living some
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Having read most of the comments before mine I only found two that identified the problem.
Everyone else is applying logic to the comments from the show, and there is no place for logic today. Of course selling or not selling homes makes no difference to the number of homes occupied.
i.e. if we have say 3,000,000 homes occupied and we sell off 1,500,000 of them how does this course a shortage? It doesn't.
The shortage is not due to the number of homes it is due to the number of people.
As this and previous governments refuse to stop immigration and refuse to actively reduce the number of illegal immigrants this situation will not change.
Perhaps if we stopped calling it a Housing Shortage and called it an Over Population Problem then the answer would be easier to see?
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Council housing is provided for those who can't afford to buy or rent property. Selling council housing stock smacks at the whole ethos of council houses and it should be stopped.
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As someone, who has been opposed to the policy of Right to Buy, from its inception, I am pleased you have raised the issue for debate.
I speak as someone raised in a council house.
It was patently obvious to anyone, that the available stock of council housing would be diminished by this policy, and now the chicken has come home to roost.
I remember the time, when councils were able to give mortgages to council tenants, who were able to buy their own home in the private sector and therefore free up a council house for future tenants.
In the current climate and for the future this policy should be resumed.
Consider the financial implications of should a change in policy.
Instead of the government giving billions of pounds of our money,to the banks, on the understanding that they would resume lending, take that money back from them, if some banks "go to wall" as result thats is their problem. It is patently obvious, again, that the so called "free market economy" has failed us,
Let councils borrow money from the Bank of England at base rate and then issue mortgages to suitably qualified applicants at base rate plus 1/2% above base rate, which would allow council tenants and young first time buyers, the opportunity to move into the private sector housing, in the case of council tenants, this would then free up council houses.
When a council tenant buys a council house they are usually given a huge discount against the market price, we may as well give them that discount, to enable them to use it as a deposit on a new home in the private sector.
The benfits to us as taxpayers and council tax payers, would be immense.
One, the money used to bail out banks would not be put at risk due to the vagaries of the "free market"
Two, the interest paid above the base rate, after costs, could be used by councils to offset raises in council tax.
Three, the government and housing associations would not need to build so many new houses to fulfill the demand for housing.
It seems so simple to me, or am I missing something ?
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I don't understand why everyone is starting to pick on people in council houses. I have waited for my council house for 10 years and am very happy here. My four children, my partner and I have been pushed from temp house to temp house and the thought of moving again fills my heart with dread!! If my partner and I could afford to buy our home then we would, so that our children wouldn't have to go to a different schools, make new friends and start a new life again. My eldest daugther has been to 7 different schools and lived in 10 different flats houses and bedsits and shes only 10. Now she finds it hard to settle and won't make friends as she thinks we will move again.
I think if you have lived in your council house for more than 5 years then you should get the right to buy because you pay for the house to be decoarted and I have just paid for a new bathroom because the council refused to change to disabled shower to a bath, its your home you should beable to own it and with that money the council should re-invest it in new housing.
I think councils should build more houses for the future and so that no one else has to go though what my family and I have been though. I think we all pay enough council tax for that at least.
The councils won't rehouse anyone who has got themselves behind on their mortgage or rent arrears, as they say they made themselves homeless. So worrying about where these families will rehoused should be number 1 for the goverment as I know from experince the councils aren't accommodating and in some cases underhanded.
from
Kelly Marks
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I know of lots of O.A.Ps in 3 bedroom council housing is being taking up with little old ladies and men who can't even go upstairs and only use one room to live eat and sleep and use the downstairs toilet as a bathroom, I have seen lots of this in all the years of waiting for a house myself and working as a health care worker maybe councils and other people should consider these people for more suitable housing before having ago at large families who have waited for housing. This should also free up alot of larger council homes.
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Kelly Marks
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Longer lists, fewer homes... How can we change that? We can't! No matter how we claim otherwise, the same situation will always arise.
To me the only question we should be asking ourselves is should we get into home mortgages or land loans ? Waiting for anything to fall off the sky would be just like me daydreaming about a knight who came and took me away from my lousy job.
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