Right to Buy

The Right to Buy scheme is a policy in the United Kingdom, with the exception of Scotland since 1 August 2016 and Wales from 26 January 2019, which gives secure tenants of councils and some housing associations the legal right to buy, at a large discount, the council house they are living in. There is also a Right to Acquire for assured tenants of housing association dwellings built with public subsidy after 1997, at a smaller discount. By 1997, over 1,700,000 dwellings in the UK had been sold under the scheme since its introduction in 1980, with the scheme being cited as one of the major factors in the drastic reduction in the amount of social housing in the UK, which has fallen from nearly 6.5 million units in 1979 to roughly 2 million units in 2017, while also being credited as the main driver of the 15% rise in home ownership, which rose from 55% of householders in 1979 to a peak of 71% in 2003; this figure has declined in England since the late 2000s to 63% in 2017.

Right to Buy is the jurisdiction of the Minister of State for Housing. Critics claim that the policy compounded a housing shortage for people of low income, initiated a national house price bubble, and led ultimately to what is commonly recognised as the displacement and gentrification of traditional communities.

History

Local authorities have had the ability to sell council houses to their tenants since the Housing Act 1936. Many were sold under the discretionary powers of Housing Act 1957 (S104)(1). Sales under this act contained a pre-emptive clause requiring the tenant/buyer to offer the Council first refusal within five years of purchase. Any sale within five years of purchase was restricted to the acquisition value plus the value of any improvements. but until the early 1970s such sales were limited: between 1957 and 1964, some 16,000 council houses were sold in England.