Tenant Purchase Scheme Data

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Questions (239)

Dessie Ellis

Question:

239. Deputy Dessie Ellis asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the number of houses estimated to have been sold by local authorities since the introduction of the tenant purchase scheme. [24175/15]

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Written answers

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government

National tenant purchase schemes have been in place since the early 1970s, enabling local authority tenants the opportunity to purchase their homes. The most recent schemes have been the 1995 Tenant Purchase Scheme for existing local authority houses and the 2011 Fixed-Term Tenant Purchase Scheme for long-standing tenants, which closed in June 2014 and June 2013, respectively. There are incremental purchase schemes currently in operation for the sale of newly-built local authority houses and existing local authority apartments, which came into operation in June 2010 and January 2012 respectively.

The most recent returns from local authorities indicate that 24,439 houses were purchased by tenants under these schemes to the end of 2014.

Part 3 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 provides for a new tenant purchase scheme for the purchase of existing local authority houses along incremental purchase lines, similar to the schemes currently operating. The Government’s Social Housing Strategy 2020 includes a commitment to make the Regulations necessary for the scheme’s introduction, in the second quarter of 2015, which will set out the full details involved. It is expected that the new scheme will commence at the earliest possible date following the making of the Regulations which are at an advanced stage of drafting.