Since the ‘Pay to Stay’ provisions in the Bill are now voluntary for Housing Associations, my Tenants Association in Kennington has joined with others in Stockwell to write to the Board of our HA, the Hyde Group, calling on them not to implement it. Our letter and Hyde’s reply can be found here.
It’s worth all HA tenants’ reps doing the same. You don’t win anything if you don’t try!
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The Kill the Housing Bill campaign has produced an excellent briefing on the Bill – click here
and Vivienne Lewis has written this note about the effect of the forced sale of ‘high value’ housing in Lambeth –
The forced sale of Council housing means there will be less housing for people who need it
The forced sale of empty Council homes to finance the housing association right to buy means there will be fewer lettings available for people on the Council’s housing register and for existing council tenants who need to move to another home
Lambeth Council have estimated that they will be forced to sell 120 properties every year on the open market simply to meet the Government’s demand for cash
They also estimate that most of the homes (approximately 3/5 of the total) that they will have to sell will be family homes with two or more bedrooms
Last year Lambeth was able to provide housing to 1,200 households – so the forced sale of 120 properties means a reduction of 10% in the number of properties they will be able to offer to tenants
However, reduction in the number of homes becoming available for letting to new tenants could be even more than 10%.
This is because the changes being introduced by the Government are likely to reduce the number of lettings which become available as a result of tenant transfer.
Lettings which result from the transfer of the previous tenant account for around 30% of new lettings and include lettings of family-sized homes which become available for let as a result of local policies which encourage tenants to move to smaller homes after their families leave
The bad news, both for council tenants who want to transfer to another home and to overcrowded families on the Housing Register, is that these kinds of relets are likely to dry up as a result of the Government’s proposals.
This will happen for two reasons
– Firstly, because tenants who transfer to a new tenancy will have poorer terms and conditions than they do now so will be less willing to move and
– Secondly Councils will think twice about offering transfers to tenants if they required to sell the vacated property and hand over the money to the Government
(NB at Committee Stage the Government refused to accept an amendment which would have excluded properties becoming vacant as a result of tenant transfer from the enforced sale of high value Council properties)
Joan Twelves 