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

ethel For the first 25 years of my life I lived in council houses. Near us lived a teacher, a nurse, a driving instructor and a lawyer who later became the town clerk of a Scottish city. There is so much prejudice about council tenants! If they are thought to be only for "the poor" (like workhouses) then no wonder anyone who doesn't feel that label fits them is not going to live there unless they are absolutely on their beam ends.

It is just like the prejudice against state schools - if they are shunned by all who can scrape up the money for a private school, then it is a self-fulfilling prejudice and they do become schools for "the poor" or houses for "the poor". Then those who are not "the poor" resent their taxes being spent that way.

exactly! elegran, I agree totally. That is why maybe its time to stop selling them off but not building huge new estates where people can be labelled. Smaller developments mixing in with large upmarket houses would be better, better for tenants social esteem and giving the area a healthy mix of population

I don't think anyone blames people who bought their own council houses. Just blame the politicians for trying to buy votes while ignoring the need for more social housing.
You are absolutely right about the advantage of having mixed housing rather than huge council ghettos.
As I write - - on the radio - - 15k homeless "households" including an awful lot of children. No doubt vast numbers of single people are not counted in these figures.

I have often been in 2 minds about it. Friend of mine bought her council house when RTB was first introduced. She had lived there her whole life - nearly 40 years - and is still there with no intention of selling.

But there has been too much fraud with RTB - I have seen a TV prog. where property speculators made an 'arrangement' with a tenant to fiddle the system in order to be able to sell at a large profit later, and apparently it happens a lot.

When it was first introduced I don't suppose anyone ever imagined that council properties in certain areas would become so sought after and expensive.

I certainly think this govt. should put a stop to it, or at least restrict it severely, when there is such a shortage of social housing, and private renting in many areas is very expensive, with very little protection for tenants against bad landlords, or LLs who simply decide to sell at relatively short notice. After their 10 years in office, I can't think why Labour did not do it. They are only too happy to bang on about the evils of Thatcherism, but did not take this obvious step even when house prices began to soar to crazy levels.

I think I read somewhere that the annual. housing benefit bill is now around £23bn. To me it is a national scandal that so much of this vast sum of money goes into the pockets of private LLs, instead of into maintaining and increasing social housing stock. What is more, it makes absolutely no long term financial sense. (Except for the LLs who are making money, but of course an awful lot of MPs, including Labour ones, have buy to let properties.).

One of my dds is in the process of buying an ex council house. Dh had a nose on the Land registry and found that the previous owner had bought it in 1971, freehold, for just over £3k. It's on a street of similar, now largely ex council homes, and I would guess it was built in the 50s.
But 1971 was long before mass RTB was introduced, so presumably some councils were selling off at least some houses previously.
The same owner had lived in it since the purchase, and presumably for some time before that. The house has been very well cared for and has obviously been loved.
Current price is 100 times (!) what the former owner (it's a probate sale) paid.

yes, YABU !!

Why AIBU grannylynn?

I met a woman a few years ago who lived in a small castle on the coast, she told me it was council owned. She showed me around, a great hall which they used as a living room a small kitchen, lots of passaages and draughts and in the tower were three bedrooms. Fabulous. I visited the day after halloween and her teenage kids were clearing up after a party which must have been the best party ever. The hall was dressed up with skeletons and pumpkins and lots of church candles and the whole slightly damp atmosphere due to a sea fret outside made it really creepy. I asked her if she would ever buy it and as she was a single parent she said it was only a dream.
A few years later I passed and it was privately owned with lots of security signs and cameras and keep out signs. I wonder who bought the only council castle I have ever seen. Wish I could have afforded it.

For a couple of years after my father was demobbed in 1948 I lived with my parents in one of nine flats in a converted mansion that had once belonged to Kate Meyrick the "Nightclub Queen". Housing was scarce then, so the council had bought this cheap and converted it. The ceilings were high and the rooms big. Our downstairs neighbours had the ballroom for their sittingroom. It stood in its own grounds, which were heaven for us kids - a lawn big enough to play cricket on, a shrubbery with winding paths, trees to climb, a stone gazebo on a hill, the ruins of the bombed-out house next door (which was forbidden territory, but . . .) The drawbacks were trying to heat it, and the rent - £3 a week when the average council house rent was £1. It was a relief when a new estate was built on the edge of town and we could move to a cosy bungalow, but I did miss the freedom to run wild.

Totally against right to buy. I live in a HA flat. I was lucky to only have 2 years wait. I know people who have been waiting 8 years for one. I was left in a crappy situation after my ex left us homeless and had taken nearly all the money out of my bank account. I ended up at 45 living with my elderly dad for 2 years while waiting to be re-homed. I was desperate for some space of my own after what I'd been through and for somewhere my DD could visit.
If everyone who is in a position to buy their council or HA property does that, then people who are in need of housing will be waiting forever. When I shuffle off, I want my flat to go to someone who really needs it.

Well said Seizetheday and I hope you have a long, happy tenancy.