Ministers have confirmed a further overhaul of Right to Buy in England, with the stated aim of slowing the loss of council housing while preserving a route into home ownership for long-standing tenants. In a government announcement issued on Tuesday 28 April, the scheme was presented as part of a wider attempt to help councils protect and rebuild social housing stock. Right to Buy currently allows eligible council tenants in England to purchase their home at a discount. The new package builds on the government’s consultation response published last year and signals a tighter policy settlement, with more emphasis on stock retention, replacement and protection of recent public investment.
Three rule changes sit at the centre of the reform. The minimum qualifying period would rise from three years to ten years before a tenant can apply. Discount rules would also be reset so that the discount starts at 5 per cent of the property value and then rises by 1 percentage point for each additional year, up to a maximum of 15 per cent of the property value or the applicable cash cap, whichever is lower. The government has also said that newly built social homes should be excluded from Right to Buy for 35 years from the point they are built. That exemption is intended to stop councils from losing replacement stock soon after delivery, an issue that has weighed on confidence in new supply.
These proposals sit alongside changes already made to the scheme. Maximum cash discounts have been reduced to between £16,000 and £38,000 depending on the area, and councils are now able to retain all receipts from sales. The government has also allowed those receipts to be combined with grant funding when councils build or acquire replacement homes. A separate protection known as the cost floor has already been extended from 15 years to 30 years. In practice, that means landlords can limit the discount if the sale price would otherwise fall below the amount spent on building, repairing and maintaining the property. Ministers also said they are considering whether the cost floor should be strengthened further.
For tenants, the practical effect is straightforward. Entry to the scheme would remain open, but it would become slower and materially less generous than under the previous rules. A tenant would need a decade of qualifying tenancy before applying, and the starting discount would be set at a much lower level than under the earlier framework. For councils, the package is designed to alter the balance of risk. A longer eligibility period should reduce the pace at which homes leave the social rented stock, while lower discounts and a longer cost floor give local authorities more protection over assets funded through public money. The 35-year exemption for new build homes is especially significant for development planning because it reduces the chance that newly delivered social homes are sold before councils have recovered their investment.
The announcement also points to two areas where policy detail is still being developed. Ministers said they are carrying out further work on fraud prevention, particularly where vulnerable tenants may be pressured into buying. That suggests the review is not limited to formal eligibility rules and is also concerned with how the scheme operates in practice. The government is separately reviewing how Right to Buy applies in rural areas. That matters because in smaller settlements and high-pressure housing markets, each lost social home can be harder to replace and the effect on local supply can be more severe than in large urban authorities. No detailed rural package has yet been set out, but the review indicates that further safeguards remain under consideration.
From a delivery perspective, the policy direction is towards stock preservation rather than rapid sales. Ministers have framed the reforms as a way to give councils more confidence to increase social housebuilding, using retained receipts and grant in combination. Whether that results in materially higher output will still depend on funding, land, borrowing capacity and the speed of legislation, but the government’s intent is clear. The timing point is important. The government has said the changes will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows, which means councils, landlords and tenants do not yet have final legislative wording or commencement dates. For now, the announcement should be read as a confirmed policy intention rather than a set of rules already in force.
Sector response has so far been measured but supportive. Gavin Smart, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said the government’s approach recognises the need to better protect and rebuild social housing. He described the measures as a positive step towards correcting the long-running gap between homes sold and homes replaced, and he also welcomed the additional work on fraud prevention and rural impacts. For housing teams, the next questions are procedural as much as political: which legislative vehicle will be used, whether transitional arrangements will apply, and how any further safeguards on fraud, rural stock and the cost floor will be drafted. For tenants, the message is that Right to Buy is not being removed in England, but it is being reshaped around longer tenancies, lower discounts and stronger protection for scarce social housing.