Council Houses

For those who have never lived in a council house, council houses have a bad reputation. In truth, council houses have as wide a variance in quality as with private housing. There are some excellent quality council houses about and some very bad ones. Council houses can be found on large and small council estates and in cities where land is at a premium, council houses can be find mingled with private houses. It is only the very bad council estates that make it into the news.

On the whole councils are better landlords than private landlords, usually you can expect better service and better treatment from your local council.

Over the last 2 decades there has been a great reduction in the number of council houses available. The main case of this has been the right to buy laws. This has led to residents buying up council houses and councils not being able to replace them at a similar rate.

One of the biggest attractions of council houses is the right to buy usually on very reasonable terms and at a good price. To find out more about right to buy, contact your local council or look at this UK government web site: Booklets for people interested in the right to buy. Due to the increasing shortage in council houses, the UK government is beginning to consider ways of reducing the number of people buying their council homes.

Some summary points you should consider when buying a council house:

If you have been a tenant for more than 2 years, you are entitled up to 32% discount on the market value of your home. This increases to 60% if you have lived in your house for more than 30 years. Recently, due to the huge increase in house prices, there has been a cap introduced to the discount in some areas. If you have been a tenant for 2 years, this cap is typically £16,000. The cap is £30,00 for people who can claim up to 60% discount.
You can only buy the council house that you are living in at the time. You do not necessarily have to have lived in your current house for more than 2 years. You can have the right to buy if you have lived in certain other kinds of public housing.
If your application to purchase a council house is accepted, the council is under obligation to offer you a mortgage up to 100%. Though consider offers from other lenders first as the council offer may not be the best.
Consider any other costs involved, there are costs involved in purchasing your home and costs in running your home afterwards. Purchase costs include solicitors fees, surveyors fees and other house-buying fees.
When you own your own house, you are responsible for the maintenance for your own home. There may be other services the council provided which you will have to cover the costs yourself.
For people living in council flats, you will obviously not be able to buy the freehold, though you still have the right to buy a long lease which is the next best thing.
Certain special need properties cannot be purchased under right to buy. These include homes that are specially adapted with disabled facilities for example.
There are some housing association properties connected with council housing that fall under the right to buy scheme, though others do not - contact your housing association for more information.

Some points to consider, if you are thinking of selling your council house after you have purchased it:

You are entitled you sell your home to anyone except for a very small number of exceptional circumstances. For example, your house may be situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty and your council may insist on having the right to prevent any purchaser of your property they do not consider desirable. In practice, the only reason councils enforce these rules is to prevent sales to property developers.
If you sell your house within three years of purchase, you may have to repay some of the discount given to you by the council.
If you have bought your house with an intention to sell it consider the following: if the house is on a less than desirable council estate, the value may not be as high as that of a typical private house. Also, rate of price rises of your house may not be as great as that for normal houses due to its location. A last point is that, council estate can change enormously in character over the years, it may have been a very attractive place when you first bought your house, but a few years down the line, less desirables neighbors may move into your estate thereby devaluing your house.