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Right to Buy: tenants will able to use housing benefit to pay for homes
Tenants will be able to use their housing benefit to buy homes as part of Right to Buy extension plans set to be announced by Boris Johnson today.
According to a report by The Times, the prime minister is expected to say that he wants to change the rules so that people can use welfare payments to go towards a mortgage instead of rent.
He will say the £30bn in housing benefit, claimed by three million people, could be better spent helping tenants get on to the housing ladder.
As part of the plans, depending on how long they have lived in a property, tenants will have the opportunity to buy their homes at 70% of market cost.
According to The Times, housing secretary Michael Gove is said to have secured an agreement that every housing association property sold must be replaced to avoid losing social homes.
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The details form part of wider formal announcement on Right to Buy, which includes extending the policy to housing association tenants.
Mr Johnson is expected to draw on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, whose government introduced the key Conservative policy through the Housing Act in 1980.
It comes after the government hinted that the Right to Buy could be extended to housing associations in early May, just before the local election took place.
The upcoming announcement comes after Mr Johnson survived a vote of no confidence on Monday, despite an unexpectedly large rebellion.
He won the support of 211 MPs, but 148 (41%) of his party voted against him.
The Right to Buy currently only applies to council homes, but an extension to housing associations has been proposed by ministers several times.
David Cameron announced ahead of the 2015 general election that he would do it the first 100 days of his term, but nothing came of this promise.
In 2018, Theresa May’s government launched a pilot in the West Midlands to test the policy, though much fewer homes were sold than the government expected.
In its 2019 general election manifesto, the Conservative Party promised to “evaluate new pilot areas in order to spread the dream of homeownership to even more people”.
After the news of a potential extension emerged again last month, experts raised concerns to Inside Housing about the workability of the policy, including cost, legality and the loss of social housing.
Since the policy was first launched, 1.9 million homes have been sold to tenants through the Right to Buy.
