AIBU to totally disagree with 'the right to buy'?

Including Tony Blair, patriciageegee. 27 flats to rent out in the North West. I assume they are also renting out some of the ten houses they have between them.

Still aliveandk. Was it ever any different?

There's been a lot of posts citing immmigration as a major factor in the housing shortage but no mention of the overheating effect of the huge amount of buy to let properties shrinking housing stock and pushing up prices and rents. Back in the day you could have one mortgage and that was it. Now greedy individuals hold 'portfolios' sometimes of hundreds of properties. And don't let's be fooled into thinking they're all good honourable landlords taking care of their tenants homes. There's been a large increase in good tenants being evicted because they've dared to ask for severe problems to be sorted and the landlords not interested in spending money on essential repairs because they know there's a queue of desperate people just waiting and willing to step into the tenants shoes.

Maybe if council were able to build more single and or double person accomodation many more family homes could be released .I also know of two council houses where for one reason or another the family have left /died and the one person remaining (in 3 bedroomed property s) refuses to move .This surely shouldnt be allowed to happen when so many families are homeless ?

Shanma, WElcome and, no, it isn't always like this, try some of the other threads. There is one on 'Why I like Gransnet'. It will tell you about all the other threads where we offer help, advice and support to each other, and make friends.

Political issues do get rather heated, but then, that is politics and even at our snippiest, we are angels of restraint compared with the language used on many other sites.

I am new on here, just started reading and posting today. It is early days for me, but what alot of vitriol I have seen so far, even directed to individual posters . I do hope it isn't always like this?

Social tenant payers have probably not been paying anything like as much as they would if they had a mortgage and all the other costs of owning the home.
But let's close down the NHS and most of London as well Peaseblossom. The immigrants are only here because the economy (and the NHS) needs them. That being so, having a government that brings home building to the lowest level for many decades, pretty much stops the building of social housing and tries to extend right to buy is just plain bad government. Along with the Help to Buy scheme that gives a 10% subsidy to people who can afford a big mortgage. (or a subsidy to the house builders, as some would have it).
Most EU migrants do not come her to settle - they are young and they just want to rent in the private sector. i dread to think what kind of awful overcrowded accommodation many are living in in London - if you work in a coffee shop or restaurant, what kind of rent can you afford?

No your not being unreasonable at all . I didn't know that about Arthur Scargil if he can afford a £2million property then surely he can afford to buy a less expensive private sale property however there's probably more to that story. I live in council property and if I won any monies under £100,000 (only way I could afford property ) I couldn't afford to buy private so yes I would buy my council home to give my children at least some inheritance as at this rate they'll have nothing BUT we definitely need to build more HA and CC houses

By the way, you also seem to have forgotten that many of those immigrants have actually helped to build the houses.

Sounds a reasonable idea, Welshwife. Housing associations aren't cheap rent any more. They have to charge economic rents.
In two months time there are going to be lots of HA residents who are not going to be able to afford their rents because the government is cutting the amount of housing benefit.
It's going to be frightening. They are not all immigrants.

Immigrants to blame again, eh, peaseblossom.

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/25/is-immigration-causing-the-uk-housing-crisis

Don't suppose you'll read this, but it's not true.

You are also wrong about the amount of land built on for housing.
Of course, if we didn't allow middle eatern and Russian billionaires to buy up all the expensive blocks in London, we could solve the London housing crisis.

When a family member was given a Housing Assiciation house after a divorce - his wife had the house - he was a good tenant - so after a number of years he received a letter telling him he was now eligible to buy the house at a discount. When he said that he would buy it the association then said they would rather help him buy a house he chose - they in effect paid the deposit but kept an interest in the house - which only he could live in and when it was sold they had their money returned with some interest.
This method allowed him to buy in the area and a house he liked and was suitable - none was lost from housing stocks and the association was part owners of a well maintained house which they did not need to fund the improvements and then received a small profit.

No I'm not against it, because I think a lot of people have paid so much rent over the years that they've covered the cost of their house! If stupid governments didn't keep
allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants there would be NO housing shortage. I'm sick of all the houses and flats being built reducing open land. We're a small island, stop letting people in! Anyone that buys their council house should be British born. My mum bought hers and I was very proud of her. My dad did a runner when we were 7, 9 and 11 and paid no maintenance. They were buying their house, but the council then bought it and charged mum rent.

Is it still the law that if a council tenant dies, their children can inherit the lease? I know it used to be.

"if someone has a house they like enough to want to buy then they are highly unlikely to be leaving it and making it available to anyone else" - If they have bought it, it has left the rental stock for ever, but if they have not, it would eventually revert back to be rented, when the tenant dies, goes into care or moves in with family.

And to say what a wonderful socialist Scargill has turned out to be, Blair has a property portfolio worth £27 million.

When you look at it objectively, Scargill hasn't done anything that an MP hasn't done over the years.

MPs have a house, live in another in London, get the tax payer to pay the rent or the mortgage, then, when they stop being an MP they sell the spare house and keep the profit.
Scargill represented a lot more people than any MP.

I have always thought that Council housing should always be to rent only, therefore I don't agree with any selling of them.

Arthur Scargill evidently tried to get the NUM to buy this Barbican flat for him many years ago, and said he intended it to go to the NUM on his death. An ex colleague said the Arthur he knew wouldn't have given anybody anything. However, he managed to get the NUM to pay the rent and ancillary charges for him for life, but according to the Times last week, his daughter and her husband have bought it in his name. (What a wonderful Socialist you have proved to be, Arthur). As for right to buy, I have mixed feelings, because if someone has a house they like enough to want to buy then they are highly unlikely to be leaving it and making it available to anyone else. If local councils put the money gained from sales back into building more social housing then this might be a way forward. They have tried to get people to move to smaller accommodation but there has been an outcry about 'bedroom tax'. No easy solution.

Daddima - same thing here. I haven't read all the posts yet but this is something that has annoyed me for so long. Our neighbour and his brother bought their parents house extremely cheap and are now reaping the rewards, enjoying exotic holidays and expensive home improvements. A lady I work with boasts about how cheap she got her house for whilst having pots of money. Sour grapes from me, probably, but having seen other people struggle to get housing I do get 'wound up'.

Luckygirl, it is indeed true that the majority of properties in Europe are rented, and that the mentality on the whole there is different from here. There is a reason though that it works very well over there, and that is that people who rent in Europe have many more rights than over here. People in this country renting from a private Landlord have very few rights at all.

I totally agree that the 'right to buy' is verging on immoral. It was a Tory government ploy to get votes from the so called working classes and it worked. Now of course there is a serious lack of affordable rented property as a result.

omajane if it was money your husband had earned I am surprised that he didn't tell you to take a running jump that he wanted to help out his parents despite your principles.

Just in the interests of fairness, the following is an old report about Arthur Scargill trying to buy a London flat which he used but on which the NUM paid the rent, not Scargill himself.
I presume it's the same flat but it does beg the question whether he was entitled to buy it at all, as the NUM was the 'tenant' paying the rent, he just was promised the lifelong use of it for him or his widow.
In the report he allegedly said that he would sign the flat off to the NUM later in the report it says permission was refused because it was not his main residence at the time (2014).
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/former-num-leader-arthur-scargill-tried-to-buy-london-flat-under-margaret-thatchers-right-to-buy-9061392.html

Presumably it must now be his main residence as he has managed to purchase it at 50% discount.

But you can't buy anything that you can't afford to fund, gillybob.
I might want to buy a sports car, or a holiday home, but I know I can't afford the repayments.

Marie, Housing Trusts are not council housing. They might have been once but are now housing associations.

I feel sorry for anyone living in a housing association house and having to claim housing benefit.

As with most things, there is not a black and white answer, but many shades of grey. Since council tenancies do not seem to be reviewed if circumstances change, then a house is taken from the system for many many years, so is unlikey to be available for rental to new occupants anyway. At least if it is sold some cash is generated.
Lilyflower is absolutely right with her sympathy for DD flogging herself to death with the travelling and stress of getting to work in London. From time to time there are news items with tenants in London being offered homes further away, and the indignation from those living in these (now expensive) areas is laughable. I don't understand why some folk think they have a right to live wherever they choose and for as long as they choose .