The Government’s Social Housing Strategy 2020, published in November 2014, includes a commitment to introduce the new scheme for the tenant purchase of existing local authority houses provided under Part 3 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 by the second quarter of this year. The scheme will operate along the lines of the incremental purchase model. As with the existing incremental purchase sales schemes for local authority apartments and newly built local authority houses, Part 3 of the 2014 Act provides that, where the tenant purchaser complies with the conditions of the sale of the house, the incremental purchase charge on the property will reduce annually by the equivalent of 2% of the value of the property, thus eliminating the entire charge by the end of the charge period. Where the tenant purchaser, with the consent of the housing authority, resells the dwelling within the charge period, he or she must pay to the council the value on the date of resale of the remaining incremental purchase charge on the property.
Full details of the new scheme, including the income related discounts available to tenant purchasers, will be set out in regulations that I will make in advance of its introduction.
