Right to Buy (Housing) Act 2017 1

MODEL
HOUSEOFCOMMONS

BILL 501

BILL
TO

Reintroduce a right to buy scheme, similar to that introduced in the Housing Act
1980, so that secure tenants in council houses can purchase their homes.

B E IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled,
and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1 Definitions
(1) Council home refers to a property that is publicly owned, and is being rented out
to a tenant.
(2) Secure tenant refers to a lifetime tenancy where one can only be evicted in certain
situations.
(3) The term market value refers to the estimated amount for which a property
should exchange on the date of valuation between a willing buyer and a willing
seller in an arm's-length transaction after proper marketing wherein the parties
each had acted knowledgeably, prudently and without compulsion.
(4) The term right to buy refers to the ability of secure council house tenants to
purchase their current residence from their respective local council.
(5) The term local council refers to the relevant unitary authority council by which
the council house is maintained and owned.

2 Right to purchase council homes

(1) If an individual has been a secure tenant in a council house for at least 5 years from
2 Right to Buy (Housing) Act 2017

the day they received the key to the house, they will be entitled to purchase that
council house from their respective local council.
(2) Local authorities will have the power to freeze the right to buy scheme in their
respective area, as long as approval is granted by the Department for Communities
and Local Goverment.
(3) Local authorities must reinvest at least 90 percent of revenue gained from the sale
of council houses into the building of new council houses, and
(i) the Department for Communities and Local Government will be responsible
for ensuring that local authorities are reinvesting at least 90 percent of
revenue generated by house sales, but
(ii) if a local authority is found not to be spending at least 90 percent, the
Department for Communities and Local Government will have the power to
either seize the remaining funds and give it to surrounding local authorities,
or they can take control of the house building in the offending local authority,
using the remaining percentage of the funds below 90 percent to do so.

3 Discounts
Discounts on the market value of the home will be applied for purchasing. The
discounts will be as follows
(i) if the secure tenant has lived in the home for 5 years or more, they will receive
a discount of 10 percent, and
(ii) an additional 2 percent discount for every year the secure tenant lives in their
home will be applied until the discount reaches 40 percent or the discount is
worth 60,000 (85,000 in London boroughs), whichever is the lowest in
value.

4 Full title, commencement and extent

(1) This Act extends to England and Wales.
(2) This Act will come into force immediately upon Royal Assent.
(3) This Act may be cited as the Right to Buy (Housing) Act 2017.