星空传媒

The government is to allow all social housing tenants to buy their homes under radical proposals contained in deputy prime minister John Prescott鈥檚 housing blueprint Homes for All.

Housing Today understands the landmark move 鈥� to be called 鈥渟ocial homebuy鈥� 鈥� will form a key section of the ODPM鈥檚 five-year housing strategy that was due to be published next Monday but has been put back one week to 24 January.

One million housing association tenants will effectively be able to purchase their homes if they can afford to 鈥� although the plan won鈥檛 go as far as the proposal by Alan Milburn, who is coordinating Labour鈥檚 election campaign, to extend the right to buy to all tenants of registered social landlords. Council tenants will retain the right to buy but will also be able to access the new scheme.

Allowing all tenants to buy their homes 鈥� originally proposed by economist Kate Barker in her report into housing supply last March 鈥� is certain to enrage the sector.

When the Conservative party made the same proposal in its document Right to Own in October last year (HT 29 October 2004, page 8), Jim Coulter, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, derided its approach as 鈥渃ompletely deficient in addressing the critical housing shortages in many parts of the country鈥�.

But Barker argued that the scheme could allow landlords to 鈥渞elease equity, while retaining some stake in the value of the housing they had sold off鈥�.

The plan will be based on the Homebuy scheme now in operation. This allows households to buy private sector housing through shared homeownership.

It is understood the ODPM will consult on the scheme but plans to allow tenants to initially buy between 50% to 75% of their homes, before purchasing 100% if they can afford it.

The social landlord will retain complete ownership of the freehold. If tenants wish to move house, a quarter of the sale price must be repaid to the social landlord concerned.

Councils will be able to keep proceeds for more affordable housing. The same criteria are likely to apply to housing associations.

The ODPM will pilot the scheme in selected areas in 2006. It is unclear where these will be.

Prescott鈥檚 plan will also expand the number of areas that receive government funding to tackle falling housing demand. Only nine areas in the North and the Midlands now share 拢500m in government funding, but it is likely that in 2007/8 areas such as Tees Valley, West Yorkshire and the Black Country in the West Midlands will also receive it.