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Government considering measures to reduce dropouts in future VRTB schemes
Ministers are considering measures to minimise dropouts in future Voluntary Right to Buy (VRTB) schemes.
Ministers are considering measures to minimise dropouts in future Voluntary Right to Buy schemes #UKhousingOptions being explored include “backfilling” dropouts in a bid to make sure the largest number of housing association tenants are able to buy their home at a discount.
Housing minister Chris Pincher told a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference last week that he wanted to “reinvigorate” the Right to Buy.
In response to a question from Inside Housing about what measures he was proposing to do so, Mr Pincher said: “Well, as you probably know, we have run some pilots on Right to Buy to ensure that the very important opportunity that people have to buy their home, the home that they live in, their home that they’ve possibly improved, maybe even extended, should be given to them.
“I think we can do a number of things, I think we can look when we run future pilots at backfilling any dropouts in the total number of opportunities to Right to Buy that are in that particular scheme, so you maximise the opportunity for Right to Buy.”
Between 2018 and 2020, the government ran a large-scale pilot allowing housing association tenants across the Midlands to enter a ballot to become homeowners at a cut price.
Around 1,900 homes were sold, less than the 3,000 initially anticipated.
In May 2019, Inside Housing reported that more than half the tenants who had been successful in the ballot dropped out without continuing their application to buy.
That was largely down to a lack of appetite for portability, where discounts could be used to buy a different housing association home in cases where the applicant’s current home was exempt from the scheme.
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The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) would not provide further details on how the “backfilling” mentioned by the minister could work.
A spokesperson for DLUHC said that further details on the future of the VRTB, including options for minimising or backfilling dropouts, will be announced “in due course”.
The department also did not answer a question from Inside Housing about whether tenants in the Midlands who missed out in the previous ballot could get another shot at the VRTB.
David Cameron announced a plan to extend the Right to Buy to all housing associations in the first 100 days of his term ahead of the 2015 general election.
The policy has had an uncertain future since the government scrapped a plan to force councils to sell off their more valuable homes to fund the discounts in 2018 under Theresa May.
In its 2019 election manifesto, the Conservative Party promised to “evaluate new pilot areas in order to spread the dream of homeownership”.
At the fringe event last week, Mr Pincher added: “We could also look at the advice that we give to local authorities about how they communicate the rights – and indeed housing associations – the rights that residents have and the opportunities that should be afforded to them so that they can make crucial decisions about choosing to pursue the opportunity to Right to Buy.
“So there are a number of things that we can do and those are the sorts of things I’m considering.”
In 2012, the government significantly hiked the value of the discounts available to council tenants under the Right to Buy – and the maximum is now £112,800 in London and £84,600 in the rest of England.
That led to a surge in sales, with 96,126 council homes purchased through the policy in the years since, but the numbers have dwindled since 2017-18.
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