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Historic trust landlords seek legal advice on Right to Buy
Four housing associations established by Victorian philanthropists have taken legal advice on the government’s proposed Right to Buy extension and have ‘not ruled out a challenge’.
Guinness Housing, the Peabody Trust, Affinity Sutton and Southern Housing met recently with top housing lawyers to understand how the policy would affect their historic charitable stock.
The government is preparing to extend Right to Buy discounts of more than £100,000 to housing association tenants, and currently intends it to apply to all housing association stock.
The four organisations, which together own around 180,000 homes, were all established by philanthropists who invested their fortunes to help house poor residents of London [see box].
The organisations have specific governing instruments, with Peabody incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1948 stipulating that it should work solely in London for the relief of poverty.
Keith Exford, chief executive of Affinity Sutton, said: ‘We have met together to consider what steps we might take to protect historic legacy stock [from the policy].
‘The conclusion was that we need to see exactly what the government is planning, but we have not ruled out a challenge.’
Simon Dow, chief executive of Guinness, added: ‘We met with a range of lawyers to talk about the Right to Buy and the impact on our governing instruments.
‘We thought we might have some legal issues surrounding our legacies, but we concluded there was little we could do until we had a better idea of the detail.’
He said there was ‘no appetite for a legal challenge’ unless the government proposed something ‘entirely unworkable, and weren’t prepared to listen’.
The extension of the Right to Buy was included in the Queen’s Speech in May. The government is currently preparing a housing bill to introduce the policy.
Philanthropic roots
- Sir Edward Guinness set up The Guinness Trust in 1890, donating £200,000 to the Trust in London to provide decent and safe homes for working class people.
- William Sutton, a parcel-delivery entrepreneur, donated his fortune to provide ‘model dwellings and houses for occupation by the poor of London and other towns and populous places in England’ on his death in 1900, founding the organisation which eventually became Affinity Sutton.
- In 1862, London-based American banker George Peabody gave an initial £150,000 to a trust to provide housing to ‘ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy of this great metropolis, and to promote their comfort and happiness’. He increased the gift to £500,000 on his death in 1869.
- Southern Housing Group began as the Samuel Lewis Housing Trust in 1901 when Samuel Lewis, an English money lender died and left an endowment of £670,000 to set up a charitable trust to provide housing for the poor. All the donations are worth many millions in modern terms.
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