What dubious methods? The Housing Act 1980 gave five million council house tenants in England and Wales the right to buy their house from their local authority. Why were the Rayners’ purchases dubious? One may not agree with the sale of council homes but doing something that is allowed under the law isn’t a dubious act by the individual provided it is funded by legal means.
Tenants had been able to buy their council houses at a discounted price long before 1980. The Housing Acts of 1936 and 1959 allowed them to do so. Under the first, councils needed ministerial consent to sell stock. The 1959 Act removed the need for consent - the decision to sell resting solely with local councils.
Statistics on sales prior to 1980 are not easy to find. Between 1957 and 1960, 16,000 homes were sold in England. The 1980 Act lead to a surge in sales, around 100,000 a year in the first three years. Since 1980, over 2 million council homes have been sold.
The Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 abolished right to buy in Scotland.
The Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Act 2018 abolished right to buy in Wales.
After March 2017, there was a downward trend in the number of sales. There was a particularly sharp decline in 2020-21 due to Covid restrictions but numbers are rising again. In 2021-22 there were 10,878 sales, in 2022-23, 24,392.
Rayner hasn’t robbed a family of having a home. At worst, she, along with two million other individuals or families, have removed homes from rental stock managed by councils or housing associations.
As an aside, the Chartered Institite of Housing have estimated that around 40% of former council housing is now owned by private landlords. Many of those have acquired the properties by dubious means. They lend tenants the capital to buy their homes at 60% discount, give them a short hold tenancy until the debt is repaid and then evict them.
