Right-to-buy extension to be announced in Queen's speech

Under the housing bill, housing association tenants who have been in a house for three years will get a discount worth 35 per cent of the market value, while tenants living in a flat will get a discount worth 50 per cent of the market value after the first three years. The discounts will be capped at around £102,700 in London and £77,000 for the rest of England.

To help fund this extension, councils will be forced to sell about five per cent of their most valuable properties when they become empty, which is estimated to raise £4.5 billion a year. This money is then to be used to replace properties sold as a part to the right-to-buy scheme, which the government claims will increase the national housing supply.

Property company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) has criticised the proposed plans, claiming that it will not address the housing shortage. Head of residential research for JLL Adam Challis said: "A failure to address elevated house price inflation is the most pressing challenge facing Government and the industry. The housebuilding industry is not set up to get anywhere close to housing targets and even radical solutions would take several years to improve the current state of affairs."

Communities secretary Greg Clark countered criticisms that the new plans would lead to a net fall in affordable property and claimed that the new plans will increase housing stock.

He said: “Where the flat is sold to the existing tenant it is not lost, it does not evaporate, and it is sold to someone that has means to pay for it, so then what is released in terms of the sale can then build an extra home – so it is adding to the housing stock. Every housing association property that is sold will be replaced one for one for a new property, so it is not only allowing people to meet their housing aspiration, but to increase the housing stock as well.”

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