A council in London is attempting to become the first to bar social tenants that take up the right to buy from ever letting the property to private tenants according to Inside Housing:
In a bid to crack down on poor housing conditions in former council houses Camden Council is consulting lawyers to try to find a way to make it illegal for tenants to buy their homes at a 75 per cent discount and then let them out.
The ‘no buy to rent’ policy would exclude council properties bought using the £100,000 discounts from then being privately let. This would apply to new sales under the reinvigorated right to buy policy announced in 2012.
‘Often former tenants have sold their homes on to buy-to-let landlords and this leads us into difficult legal territory,’ said Julian Fulbrook, cabinet member for housing at Camden Council.
There are around 9,000 right to buy leaseholders in Camden – one third of whom are absent, many having bought the home to let out.
Mr Fulbrook added that former right to buy properties in the borough have been used as brothels and to house up to 12 people in a two-bedroom house.
Meanwhile:
Nearly half the homes sold under right to buy in some of London’s poorest boroughs are now owned by private landlords, a new report has revealed to Inside Housing:
The research revealed 52,000 council homes sold in the capital under right to buy are now rented out privately.
This represents 36 per cent of the homes sold since the policy was first introduced in the 1980s.
In Enfield and Tower Hamlets, two of London’s poorest boroughs, 50 per cent of the homes sold through right to buy are now estimated to be in the private rented sector.
The research, conducted by Labour London Assembly Member Tom Copley, said 271,438 home have been sold through right to buy in the capital with only 880 replacements built by 2011.