blackpoolCentral Housing Regeneration Area c blackpoolcouncil

The government wants to make it harder for council tenants to buy their homes. Credit: Blackpool Council

Right-to-Buy reforms at a glance

The government has set out its plans to overhaul the current system that allows tenants to buy their council homes in a move welcomed by the housing industry.

Registered providers have long called for reforms to Right-to-Buy, introduced by Magaret Thatcher, to slow down the rate at which it loses housing stock.

Under the current rules, tenants can acquire their rented home at a discount once they have been there for three years.

Since its introduction some 2m homes have been sold into private ownership via Right to Buy but only a fraction have been replaced.

The initiative is often cited as a contributing factor to the housing crisis and long local authority housing waiting lists.

The changes proposed by Labour are as follows:

  • Increase the eligibility requirement for Right-to-Buy from three years to 10
  • Prevent existing property owners, or those that have previously benefitted from the scheme, from exercising the Right to Buy unless there are exceptional circumstances
  • Amend discount rules so that discounts start at 5% of the property value and increase by 1% for every extra year an individual is a secure tenant up to the maximum discount of 15% of the property value or the cash cap (whichever is lower)
  • Exempt newly built social and affordable housing from the Right to Buy for 35 years
  • Increase the period from five years to 10 years that the council has the right to ask for repayment of all or part of the discount on the sale of property.
  • Extend the period in which a local authority has the right of first refusal when a property previously bought under the Right-to-Buy is sold so that it applies in perpetuity.

 

Your Comments

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Amazing that Angela ( deputy prime minister)
Bought her property under this scheme but is now against it! Maybe she would look at giving the profit back she made upon the sale of her right to buy home.

By Anonymous

Timid – just do away with it

By Anonymous

Anonymous – you should know by now it doesn’t work like that.

By Anonymous

Anonymous at July 03, 2025 at 12:10 pm, but this isn’t getting rid of it, it is simply changing some of the key criteria that sits behind it. Is there anything on the list in this article that you don’t think is a sensible change?

By Anonymous

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