Constituency Casework
Published Thursday, 18 February, 2021
The 2015 Government committed to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants. An agreement was reached to do this on a voluntary basis. This page outlines what has happened so far.
This information should not be relied upon as legal or professional advice. Read the disclaimer.
Most assured tenants of housing associations don’t have a statutory Right to Bu y. Some assured tenants may have a ‘preserved Right to Buy’ if they were secure tenants of the local authority when ownership of their homes transferred to a housing association.
Assured tenants who don’t have a statutory Right to Buy might have a statutory Right to Acquire if their home was built after April 1997 with public funding. There are exemptions to the Right to Acquire, e.g. where the property is in a designated rural area.
The National Housing Federation (NHF) and the 2015 Coalition Government entered into an agreement to extend the Right to Buy to assured tenants of housing associations on a voluntary, rather than a statutory, basis (PDF 337 KB).
Five housing associations piloted the voluntary Right to Buy (VRTB) – these schemes closed in October 2016. The Autumn Statement 2016 announced Government funding for a large-scale regional pilot of the VRTB for housing association tenants. After some delay, the Autumn Budget 2017 announced the pilot would go ahead in the Midlands with £200 million of Government funding.
The pilot was launched on 16 August 2018. Guidance for housing associations (PDF 966 KB) taking part in the Midlands pilot scheme was published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) in May 2018. The pilot focused on two aspects of the voluntary agreement that the original pilots didn’t cover, namely:
The Government confirmed that the VRTB scheme will not apply to shared-owners (people who part own and part rent their homes).
An independent evaluation of the pilot scheme was published on 8 February 2021.
No date has been announced for the full roll-out of the VRTB. The 2017 Government said that the impact of the Midlands pilot would be assessed before deciding on the next steps.
The Conservative Party Manifesto 2019 (PDF 4.65 MB) committed to an evaluation of the Midlands pilot scheme and to the evaluation new pilot areas “in order to spread the dream of home ownership to even more people.”
The Housing Minister responded to a Parliamentary Question in December 2020 on the conclusion of the pilot scheme and the potential for it to be rolled out more widely:
The final sales under the Voluntary Right to Buy Midlands pilot are due to conclude in 2021, following some delays to sales caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The pilot is being fully evaluated, and the results of this evaluation will be published.
The Government’s Right to Buy website allows interested parties to sign up to alerts: click on the link entitled ‘housing association tenants’ at the top right-hand of the page and complete a pop-up contact box.
The Commons Library does not intend the information in this article to address the specific circumstances of any particular individual. We have published it to support the work of MPs. You should not rely upon it as legal or professional advice, or as a substitute for it. We do not accept any liability whatsoever for any errors, omissions or misstatements contained herein. You should consult a suitably qualified professional if you require specific advice or information. Read our briefing for information about sources of legal advice and help.
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