Trowers & Hamlins

Moves to suspend tenants’ “right to buy” council homes in Wales could open the floodgates for other local authorities across the UK to press for the same changes, warns Trowers & Hamlins, the Commercial law firm.

The Welsh Assembly Government is applying for powers to suspend tenants' right to buy in some areas of Wales.

Christopher Munday, Partner at Trowers & Hamlins, comments: “If Wales is given permission to remove the right to buy, it will open the floodgates for any local authority that has its own affordable housing shortfalls to put pressure on the Government for a similar ban.”

“If this goes through in Wales it could sound the death knell for the right to buy as we know it.”

“Significant reforms were made to slow down the pace of right to buy purchases in 2005. The maximum discount in some areas in the South East that tenants can get on the purchase of their property is now just £16,000. So the attractions of the right to buy have been naturally eroded by house price inflation.”

“Although large percentages of social housing stock have been lost via the right to buy, future losses are going to be at a much slower rate.”

“The right to buy is a significant asset if you are a local authority tenant and for people to lose that right entirely would be a big shock.”

“Many tenants in local authority housing have stayed where they are for the last few years precisely because they have been saving to take advantage of the right to buy.  This is a controversial way to deal with the pressures which are building up in the housing sector.”

Christopher Munday says that those who argue in favour of the right to buy point to the evidence that once the tenant takes ownership of their property then they take far more pride in their property and begin to see themselves as a stakeholder in their wider community.

“Increasing the mix of privately owned properties in local authority owned estates has always been a positive force for change,” adds Munday.