Higher Value council sell-off

By: Sara Mahmoud
Published: May 2016

Higher value council homes - how to make 4.5bn

The government is proposing to force local authorities to sell 'higher value' council homes in order to fund the extension of Right to Buy to housing association tenants. A recent amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to demand that any council sell a yet to be defined proportion of their vacant stock.

This analysis finds that in order to raise the £4.5bn per year needed - as calculated by the Conservatives - each local authority could be asked to raise an average of £26 million.

In total, this corresponds to the sale of 23,503 council homes per year - six times more than was estimated would be sold under the previous threshold regime.