You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Just £10m allocated in Voluntary Right to Buy pilot
Only 5% of a £200m pot for a pilot scheme to extend the Right to Buy to housing association tenants has been spent since its launch last summer, it has emerged.
A response by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seen by Inside Housing has revealed that £10.2m had been paid out on the Midlands Voluntary Right to Buy (VRTB) pilot as of last month.
Meanwhile, only 181 sales had been completed by 10 June. However, MHCLG said that “several hundred” applications are at the formal offer stage.
Tenants attempting to buy through the VRTB pilot have until next spring to complete their purchases.
Before the pilot began last August, the government anticipated that 3,000 homes would be sold, with the £200m fund paying for the discounts.
READ MORE
At the end of April, more than half the 6,000 housing association tenants who had succeeded in the pilot’s ballot had not yet applied to buy a home or had their application cancelled.
In the subsequent 41 days, participating housing associations entered just seven more applications on Homes England’s system, while 77 were cancelled, leaving 2,756 applications open.
Inside Housing has reported previously on the unexpectedly low take-up for the VRTB pilot, which some housing associations have attributed to a lack of demand for ‘portability’ – tenants purchasing another home at a discount if their own is exempt from the scheme.
Tenants also did not have to demonstrate that they could afford a mortgage when applying for the ballot.
Listen to a podcast on the Midlands VRTB pilot:
A spokesperson for MHCLG said: “We are closely monitoring the Voluntary Right to Buy Midlands pilot, which will give thousands of tenants in the Midlands the opportunity to realise their dream of homeownership.
“Applications under the pilot are progressing well. Several hundred applications have already reached the formal offer stage, which we expect to convert to sales.”
The working group for the pilot, which includes representatives from MHCLG, participating housing associations and the National Housing Federation, discussed holding a second ballot due to the weak demand.
However, MHCLG’s FOIA response stated: “There are no plans to run a second ballot – if this position changes, the government will make an announcement.”
