Labour promise to give tenants the right to buy their rented homes at discount.

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Right-to-Buy:

In a continuing war on buy-to-let landlords, Labour’s shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said he could give tenants the chance to buy their rented homes from their landlords at a discounted price. He stated that such a policy would be a “great and radical” solution to the “burgeoning buy-to-let market”

McDonnell said he hoped it would reverse the fall in
affordable housing seen after the Thatcher government’s decision to allow
council housing tenants to buy their homes. Speaking to the Financial Times,
Mr McDonnell said:

“We’ve got a large number of landlords who are not
maintaining these properties and are causing overcrowding and problems. In my
street now… a third of the houses are right-to-buy, badly maintained,
overcrowded. It’s horrendous. You’d want to establish what is a reasonable
price, you can establish that, and then that becomes the right to buy.� The
Government would set the criteria. “I don’t think it’s complicated.”

Although this is not yet Labour Party policy Jeremy Corbyn had
raised the prospect of introducing a tenants’ right to buy policy back in 2015
and a report commissioned by Labour earlier this year recommends rent caps for buy-to-let
landlords, indefinite period tenancies and an end to no-fault evictions.

Michael Fabricant a Conservative MP, a former vice-chairman
of the Conservative Party, hit back on the policy, telling the MailOnline:
“McDonnell has promised he would overturn the mixed-economy capitalist
system if he came to power. This manoeuvre is just the start. It would decimate
the rental market in the UK, creating a shortage of properties available to
rent.”

Responding to McDonnell’s proposal, David Smith, Policy Director for the Residential Landlords Association said:

“Labour’s proposal would effectively kill off a large part of
the private rented sector denying a home to many thousands of people. If there
was to be any chance of this becoming law, there would be a mass sell-off of
properties in advance.

“The RLA is all in favour of landlords selling to sitting
tenants but it must be entirely voluntary. Anything else amounts to a form of
compulsory purchase.â€�  

The RICS’ latest Residential Market Survey can be accessed here  It warns of rent increases as a result of the demand for private rented housing outstripping supply.

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