Mortgage & Home Buying Information & Advice | Mortgage Calculators

Buying A Council House

Right to Buy
The Right to Buy scheme was first introduced in 1980, it is aimed at secure tenants of local authorities (councils) and those assured tenants of registered social landlords/housing associations who previously held secure tenancies with local authorities. It is also open to virtually any secure tenant who can afford to buy.

Tenants must have at least two years tenancy with a public sector body (or five years in the case of new public sector tenants who take up their tenancies after 18 January 2005).

Some properties are exempt from the Right to Buy. These include dwellings occupied in connection with a tenant's employment, and housing specially provided for older people and (in certain cases) people with disabilities.

What is the Right to Buy?
The present Government is totally committed to the principle of the Right to Buy scheme. It contributes to the Government's aim of a decent home for all, offering everyone the opportunity of a decent home and so promote social cohesion, well being and self-dependence.

The Right to Buy Scheme has helped some 1.6 million council tenants in England to realise their aspirations to own their homes. In many cases, it has encouraged more affluent tenants to remain in the neighbourhoods they have lived in for many years, helping to create stable, mixed income communities.

The Right to Buy scheme enables local authority tenants of two years to buy their homes at a discount. It is targeted at well-established public tenants, with the discount increasing in rough proportion to the years they have been paying rent.

Most Right to Buy sales are of local authority properties. Sales now exceed 60,000 a year. Since the introduction of RTB, in excess of £45 billion has been generated as a result of the sales of local authority dwellings. These funds have been used to repay debt and finance further capital expenditure.

This scheme is open to virtually any secure tenant who can afford to buy with the exception of dwellings occupied in connection with their employment and housing specially provided for older people and (in certain cases) people with disabilities.