Tenants offered chance to buy council houses 1 pc at a time
FAMILIES will be able to buy as little as one per cent of their council houses every year as part of a bid to boost home ownership, the Government has announced.
James Brokenshire, the Housing Secretary, said he wants to give more people the “opportunity to build a better life”, as he launched a social housing Green Paper to consult on the policy of allowing people to buy small parts of their council homes under “shared ownership” with their local authority or housing association.
At present, people have to buy at least 10 per cent of their homes at a time, making home ownership beyond the budget of many. The idea has echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s “right to buy” policy in the Eighties which first allowed tenants to buy council homes.
Mr Brokenshire has also vowed to introduce “landlord league tables” to name and shame the worst social housing providers and measure how quickly landlords responded to complaints, conduct repairs and tackle anti-social behaviour.
He said he wants to “rebalance the tenant-landlord relationship”.
The Government says residents will be empowered to hold landlords to account and seek redress when things go wrong. Mr Brokenshire said: “Our paper offers a landmark opportunity for major reform to improve fairness, quality and safety for residents living in social housing.
“Regardless of whether you own your home or rent, residents deserve security, dignity and the opportunities to build a better life,” he added. Other proposed measures include giving the social housing regulator “sharper teeth” to ensure social homes are well managed and of decent quality. The Government will also consult on enabling councils to offer residents greater security through fixed-term tenancies.
In a separate move a consultation into how councils spend money from right-to-buy sales has been launched with proposals to make it easier for councils to replace properties sold under right to buy.
Judith Blake, the Local Government
‘Regardless of whether you own your home or rent, residents deserve security, dignity and a better life’
Association’s housing spokesman, said: “The paper is a step towards delivering more social homes but it is only a small step, compared with the huge and immediate need for more genuinely affordable homes. There is a desperate need to reverse the decline in council housing.”
She added: “The Government must go beyond this, scrap the housing borrowing cap and enable councils to borrow to build again. This would trigger a renaissance in council house building and help people access genuinely affordable housing.”
John Healey, the shadow housing secretary, called the paper pitiful. He said: “After eight years of failure on housing, ministers should back Labour’s long-term plan for a million new, genuinely affordable homes.”