The matter of Angela Rayner's house sale isn't going away.....

True Iam when have the poor and underprivileged been helped by the tories

You have a short memory Annie.

But they are not politicians who ‘champion the poor and underprivileged’, are they?

So GSM, any politician who champions the poor and underprivileged should not have two houses? Is this what you’re saying?

You know exactly what I’m saying, and about whom I’m saying it.

What dubious methods? The Housing Act 1980 gave five million council house tenants in England and Wales the right to buy their house from their local authority. Why were the Rayners’ purchases dubious? One may not agree with the sale of council homes but doing something that is allowed under the law isn’t a dubious act by the individual provided it is funded by legal means.

Tenants had been able to buy their council houses at a discounted price long before 1980. The Housing Acts of 1936 and 1959 allowed them to do so. Under the first, councils needed ministerial consent to sell stock. The 1959 Act removed the need for consent - the decision to sell resting solely with local councils.

Statistics on sales prior to 1980 are not easy to find. Between 1957 and 1960, 16,000 homes were sold in England. The 1980 Act lead to a surge in sales, around 100,000 a year in the first three years. Since 1980, over 2 million council homes have been sold.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 abolished right to buy in Scotland.

The Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Act 2018 abolished right to buy in Wales.

After March 2017, there was a downward trend in the number of sales. There was a particularly sharp decline in 2020-21 due to Covid restrictions but numbers are rising again. In 2021-22 there were 10,878 sales, in 2022-23, 24,392.

Rayner hasn’t robbed a family of having a home. At worst, she, along with two million other individuals or families, have removed homes from rental stock managed by councils or housing associations.

As an aside, the Chartered Institite of Housing have estimated that around 40% of former council housing is now owned by private landlords. Many of those have acquired the properties by dubious means. They lend tenants the capital to buy their homes at 60% discount, give them a short hold tenancy until the debt is repaid and then evict them.

LizzieDrip

^Angela Raynor by dubious methods, has robbed a family of having a home. One each for her and her husband^

Is this a serious comment? If so, please also direct it at the many second home owners who post on GN!

When anybody buys their ex council house under the Right To Buy Scheme there are several conditions attached and paperwork to be completed honestly. AR would have known this but chose to ignore it.

If she had done everything correctly she would have nothing to worry about. Simple as that! Keir Starmer knows this but is not man enough to insist on seeing the evidence. I guess he is just hoping it will all fade away.

I imagine most honest people would just show the evidence rather than prolonging this.

Why should she show evidence, to whom should she show evidence ?

You asked that yesterday and I replied.

When anybody buys their ex council house under the Right To Buy Scheme there are several conditions attached and paperwork to be completed honestly. AR would have known this but chose to ignore it.

So, is there now a suggestion that AR didn’t comply with regulations when buying her ex-council? Could you eleborate Primrose?

Iam64

Fascinating that the conservative supporters on here are so outraged by a woman buying a house.

How on earth have you reached that conclusion? 🤣

How exactly has Rayner been in breach of the terms of her Right to Buy agreement?

I wish people would provide substantiated evidence when making allegations.

Germanshepherdsmum

I agree, Primrose. Alan Johnson did very well for himself and knew how to fit into his ministerial role. A decent man and I have always admired him. Rayner just seems to delight in being coarse. If she were going to grow into her position, as he did, she would have made the effort to do so long ago.

Grantanow, if it is shown that she broke electoral law that doesn’t mean that there is no criminality. It means that there can be no prosecution. As regards tax evasion, HMRC have 20 years to investigate if they believe there was deliberate tax evasion. Her refusal to disclose the alleged advice in itself raises suspicion. An intelligent person in possession of advice to the effect that no tax was owed on the sale of their house would surely disclose it in the face of media speculation.

Criminal status requires conviction. No prosecution equals no conviction.

I’m afraid you’re wrong there.

TinSoldier

How exactly has Rayner been in breach of the terms of her Right to Buy agreement?

I wish people would provide substantiated evidence when making allegations.

Aha! Another allegation! Is there any end to them? I repeat ... according to all the reliable reports I've read. the current police involvement concerns possible electoral fraud because allegedly Rayner put the wrong address on her nomination form ... nothing else! Not misusing Right to Buy, not avoiding capital gains tax, not being a gobby northern woman, not having a child out of wedlock when she was 16 or being coarse ... none of that!

To be honest, if the media was harassing me to disclose any financial advice I'd received, I'd tell them to mind their own business. Any HMRC investigation is separate from the current police investigation.

Germanshepherdsmum

I’m afraid you’re wrong there.

Who is wrong where about what?

It's hard to follow a thread full of obscure responses..

LizzieDrip

^But they are not politicians who ‘champion the poor and underprivileged’, are they?^

So GSM, any politician who champions the poor and underprivileged should not have two houses? Is this what you’re saying?

Of course they shouldn't! They should know their place and even if all around them are getting richer by some means , they should be content to live in a rented hovel.

Rayner has criticised those who take advantage of right to buy.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/angela-rayner-labour-lord-ashcroft-b2502151.html
Blatant hypocrisy.

My understanding is that Rayner bought the house in 2007. She married in 2010. She should have sold the house five years after she'd bought it - otherwise she would have been liable to pay back some of the discount. If she'd sold it in 2012 - before she'd been married two years - she wouldn't have been liable for Capital Gains Tax. After she married in 2010, her brother apparently lived in the house rent-free.

I don't know whose responsibility it would be to investigate the above - the local council? Whoever it is, it's not what the police investigation is about.

If she is found to have broken the law in some way - and it's possible - she should pay the money back, which I'm sure she could afford. She's also promised to resign.

What really sticks in the craw is the way Rayner has been hounded for something(s) she might (or might not) have done and even if she did whether she acted as she did through ignorance/misunderstanding of the rules or deliberate intent. None of us really knows.

growstuff
To be honest, if the media was harassing me to disclose any financial advice I'd received, I'd tell them to mind their own business. Any HMRC investigation is separate from the current police investigation.

Agree growstuff why should anyone give in to demands
from the press

Germanshepherdsmum

Rayner has criticised those who take advantage of right to buy.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/angela-rayner-labour-lord-ashcroft-b2502151.html
Blatant hypocrisy.

Ah! Revealed by the "holier than thou" Lord Ashcroft, who has, I'm sure, never conducted a dodgy deal in his life. Hasn't he got anything better to do than dig up dirt?

Aha! Another allegation! Is there any end to them? I repeat ... according to all the reliable reports I've read. the current police involvement concerns possible electoral fraud because allegedly Rayner put the wrong address on her nomination form ... nothing else! Not misusing Right to Buy, not avoiding capital gains tax, not being a gobby northern woman, not having a child out of wedlock when she was 16 or being coarse ... none of that!

👏👏👏 Growstuff and what about the following things that AR has done ‘wrong’ for which she deserves to be publicly pilloried:

*not bettering herself
*having long red hair
*not talkin’ proper
*having been divorced
*having looked after herself and her children
*having been a union rep
*worked in low paid jobs
*having had a life before politics
*wearing skirts in the HoC so the poor little Eton boys get distracted!

Incidentally, is Ashcroft still a lord? I thought he resigned his seat in the House of Lords after questions were asked about his place of abode.

Deflection again growstuff - the weapon of those who have no valid argument.

Here are the simple facts as stated in the Telegraph:
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/12/angela-rayner-council-house-police-probe-explainer/

Ha, ha GSM ‘Deflection, the weapon of those who have no valid argument’. Thanks for that phrase - I’ll remember it. The Tories are masters of it! You can’t move for dead cats at Conservative Party Headquarters!