Right to Buy - so you want to buy your home?
The government has introduced changes to help ‘reinvigorate’ the scheme and the Right to Buy discount is now up to £77,900 for council tenants living in Kent.
Most council tenants have the right to buy their home at a discount as they are secure tenants. You are not a secure tenant if you live in a hostel, bed & breakfast hotel, short-life property, or similar temporary letting.
Council’s Right of First Refusal
If you buy your Council property and wish to sell it within 10 years, the Council has the right of first refusal. This means that you must first offer the property back to the Council before you are permitted to sell to a third party. You will need to submit an offer notice to the Council providing certain information. The Council’s legal services team can give advice and provide you with a notice form. If the Council decides it would like to buy the property from you it will arrange a valuation of the property. If you are unhappy with the valuation you can appeal and arrangements will be made for the property to be valued by the District Valuer. This valuation will be binding on you and the Council.
This section explains the main points about the Right to Buy Scheme including:
- The Right to Buy Discount - explaining how much you may be entitled to receive off the purchase price of buying your home from the council
- Applying to buy your home - outlining the main steps of the Right to Buy process and what happens along the way
- The costs of buying your home - setting out the true costs of becoming a home owner
- Useful questions about Right to Buy - read the frequently asked questions about buying your home
- Important changes to Right to Buy - From April 2015
