Conservative ministers are facing fresh criticism over the extension of Margaret Thatcher's flagship right-to-buy policy, as new data appear to show homes sold under the scheme often end up in the hands of private landlords charging several times social housing rental rates.
Information gathered through Freedom of Information requests to 91 councils by trade magazine Inside Housing found a total of 127,763 leasehold properties have been sold under the rules, with 47,994 of leaseholders now living at another address. This, the magazine says, is a strong indication that 37.5 per cent of homes sold are "being sublet".
Where homes have been rented on they are likely to be fetching far higher rates, with some ex-local authority homes in London "advertised on Zoopla for more than four times the average social rent", the magazine says.
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Not all of the homes will have been bought by private landlords. Speaking to The Independent, Nick Atkin, chief executive of Halton Housing Trust, which owns 6,400 homes in Cheshire following a transfer from the council, said that one in four sales is made to someone in receipt of housing benefit. This means tenants are often not buying the home themselves. "It can be friends and family, but it is also companies who offer to purchase the home on their behalf," Atkin said.
The Times adds that in some cases where the home is being rented, the tenant may simply "have moved out to stay with friends or family and sublet their home".
Even so, the figures have been seized on by those who are sceptical about the Government's plan to extend right-to-buy to private housing association tenants, and to force councils to sell vacant high-value properties to fund one-for-one social housing replacements. Critics also noted that one property, acquired for £130,000 under right-to-buy in 1990, sold recently for £1.2m.
Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to scrap the extension of the right-to-buy scheme and instead consult on offering discounted sales to tenants of 'large-scale' private sector landlords.
