Today the right to buy social housing ends in Scotland

Lady Porter, I believe. Scandalous!

I do agree with most of the posters, have always Disagreed with the huge discounts offered to sell off of council houses.
Often the children of tenants Bought their parents house as an investment for themselves. Some bought their own place cheaply and moved on as a friend did, and managed to buy a detached house in the West Country from the proceeds of the sale of her small London flat. Others bought, moved on and sublet the council property, thus becoming a landlord and second home owner.
Because many council properties have been sold cheaply they , or rather we, now have to pay massive housing benefits to private landlords who have stepped in to fill the gap instead of using this money to build new reasonable priced housing.
Does anyone remember a female conservative leader of Westminster selling off homes for 1p.? In Westminster???? Lady p? Certainly helped the Tory govt to gain votes from labour in the next election. Disgraceful.

They should have stopped it in England years ago. They system is often abused for a start, and secondly, a good percentage of the housing benefit bill - 23 billion a year? - goes straight into private landlords' pockets, when that rent money could have been spent on maintaining and increasing social housing stock.

If we didn't have a housing crisis, too many rogue landlords and little security of tenure for so many tenants, it wouldn't matter, but we do.

I don't know about all authorities, as it has been fifty-three years since I lived in a council house (I'm damned if I will call it anything else, it was a council house then, whatever it is now!)

I imagine it does vary from one area to another, if only because funds vary, but it does seem to me that outsourcing the maintenance is a bad move. Keeping it inhouse means employment for a lot of people, and it means that the elected local authority has responsibility for the work, instead of some company who are in it to make as much profit as possible for as little outlay as they can get away with.

Thank you gill and elegran for further explanation.

Is standardisation and maintenance guaranteed? Or is it patchy according to which local authority is the landlord? On the council social housing estate where I live, the LA is no longer providing the maintenance, it has been outsourced. With that has come a drop in overall standards.

Not everyone is able or willing to buy a house. House ownership is a middle-class concept which Maggie Thatcher wanted to extend downwards. As a theory it would indeed be wonderful if everyone owned their home and were able to maintain it themselves, but in practice it is not so simple. People may have no savings for a deposit, be insecure in their employment, not confident that they will be able to keep paying a mortgage, uncertain about whether they will stay in that area and unwilling to have all the upset of selling and buying elsewhere, or just not want the responsibility of all the details that follow from owning.

In other countries, the balance between owning and renting is not the same as in the UK.

If you don't own, the alternative to council houses social housing is private rental, with a huge variation in rent levels and quality. Social housing at known rents is standardised and maintenance is guaranteed, and moving to another town is relatively easy, you can arrange a swap with someone who wants to move to your town, (with LA approval).

Grannyknot "Social housing" used to be called "council houses" which was a practical description, as they had been built by the council to rent out. The new term now includes housing association rentals too.

This has not come without warning, there has been time for those who were planning to buy to organise things, and those who were "poised to buy" will see the deals completed. 1st August marks the end of any new sales.

If the receipts from the sale of council properties had been able to be used to provide more housing then I dont think most people would have a problem with right to buy. Two examples known to me, personally: Aunt and uncle, finally given brand new council house in early 50's after years of overcrowding/post war slums. They lookd after it, planted the garden, decorated etc., and were finally given the right to buy. On retirement, they sold it and bought a small bungalow with the proceeds. I have no problem with this situation as they had likely bought the house several times over during the 35 years they paid rent. Example 2: woman who worked with me. Her parents, in their late 70's were given right to buy.She helped them to do so despite their failing and serious ill health and sure enough, within 3 years they both died and she inherited a 3 bed house in a London Borough ( £££££££££). Same person then spent most of her working day moaning because her newly married daughter couldnt afford anywhere to live, couldnt get social housing......just didnt see that people like her had caused the problem in the first place.

Unbelievable in this day and age that there should be so many people without homes. Selling council houses instead of building more!! How disgusting.

I think a roof over the heads of people who just cannot manage to house themselves, is far more important, for them and their children, than any high ideals about home ownership.

I was just interested in why you disliked it, because it doesn't seem horrible to me.

Council houses should not have been sold off, without a plan in place to continue to provide affordable, low-cost housing to those who need it.

Giving people the opportunity to own their own home, is equally as valuable.

@Daphne, I don't have to have a reason for disliking the phrase.

Council houses should never have been sold off. There is a need, and always will be..

Why's it a horrible phrase? It's better than homeless.

Daphne it was a thought, a suggestion. I don't have all the answers (they'd have to get someone like Kevin McCloud to design low-cost construction dwellings), but I am not convinced that keeping people in "social housing" (horrible phrase) is the only way.

're Scotland, people who were planning (or poised) to buy their properties must be very unhappy. It seems unfair.

@Grannyknot

Lower cost housing where I live costs about £250,000. How much deposit would you provide? More importantly, how would somebody on minimum wage afford the repayments?

15,500 is better than nothing in a population of 5 million.

Cathy Come Home on BBC 4 now.........portrait of homelessness.

Making interest-free loans as deposits available (for lower cost housing), repayable upon sale of the property, now that would be a good idea.

Re my post of 14:14, I should have added that at the time we bought, we could not afford to buy "on the open market". As I understand it, ex-LA houses follow the rise and fall of house prices on the open market, but always at a lower level overall.

Oops, that should be "will not solve anything".

Absolutely agree with Scotland. Should be the same in England. Give Theresa a few years and she should sort it!

15,500 houses over 10 years will not solve nothing. Drop in the ocean, given that the demand will not be static.

Thank you elegran for expanding.

jane10 your comment 're the problem being the relative unavailability of lower cost housing makes sense to me.

No the houses have not evaporated, you are quite right, they've been sold and often sold again to people who could afford to buy any house on the open market.

Even 'lower cost' housing requires deposits and mortgages.

Those who are not so fortunate have less options. LAs were not allowed to use the revenue to build replacements to house those in need. Thus lower cost rented housing is not available.