Right to Buy: a realistic guide

Right to Buy lets qualifying council tenants in England buy the home they live in at a discount to its market value. It has put millions of tenants into ownership since the 1980s, and it remains live, but it's a markedly less generous scheme than it was: maximum discounts were cut hard from November 2024, and further reform has been consulted on since. If you're weighing it up, work from the current rules, not a relative's experience from 2015. (Scotland and Wales have ended their schemes entirely.)

Who qualifies

Broadly: you're a secure tenant of a council (or were a tenant when your home transferred to a housing association, with a "preserved" right), the property is your only or main home, and you've spent at least three years as a public-sector tenant, not necessarily consecutive or in the same property. That qualifying period and other eligibility rules have been under active review, so check the current position with your landlord before planning around it. Some properties are excluded, sheltered and adapted housing for example, and tenants with certain court orders or undischarged bankruptcy issues may not qualify. Housing association tenants without the preserved right may instead have the narrower Right to Acquire, with much smaller discounts.

How the discount works

The discount has two layers:

• A percentage based on your years as a tenant, with houses and flats on different scales (flats accrue faster but both scales have caps).
• A cash ceiling that overrides the percentage. This is what changed dramatically: from November 2024 the maximum discounts were cut to between roughly £16,000 and £38,000 depending on the region, a fraction of the previous caps. Your council will confirm the exact figure for your area.

A "cost floor" rule can also shrink the discount on homes the council has recently built or spent significantly on. The practical takeaway: the discount is still worth having, but it no longer does the heavy lifting it once did, so the affordability of the purchase has to stand up in its own right.

The process

1. RTB1 form to your landlord, the formal application.
2. Landlord's decision, normally due within 4-8 weeks depending on tenancy history.
3. Offer notice (Section 125): the landlord's valuation, your discount, the price, and any known service charge estimates for flats. You typically have 12 weeks to accept.
4. Challenge if needed: disagree with the valuation and you can ask for an independent determination by the district valuer, noting the result binds both sides, up or down.
5. Arrange the mortgage and conveyancing, then complete like any purchase.

The mortgage side

Plenty of mainstream lenders lend on Right to Buy, and there's a significant practical advantage: many lenders treat the discount as your deposit, lending up to the full discounted purchase price, so tenants without savings can often still buy. Criteria vary, some lenders want a small cash contribution, flats above certain heights or with high service charges narrow the field, and affordability is assessed exactly as for any borrower. Be wary of anyone who appears unsolicited offering to "help" fund or structure your Right to Buy, often in exchange for a future interest in the property; these deals can breach the scheme's rules and rarely favour the tenant. Advice from an expert broker with no stake in the property is the safe route.

The strings attached

• Sell within five years and you repay discount on a sliding scale (all of it in year one, reducing each year). The repayment is based on the discount percentage applied to the value at resale.
• Sell within ten years and you must first offer the property back to your old landlord or a local social landlord at market value.
• Flat owners become leaseholders, service charges and major-works bills follow, and council blocks can generate substantial works invoices. The Section 125 notice gives estimates for the early years; read them carefully and budget beyond them.
• All of ownership's costs land on you: repairs, buildings insurance, and the protection (life cover, income protection) that keeps the mortgage safe if your income stops. Renting hid those risks; owning doesn't.

Right to Buy can still be an excellent route into ownership, you're buying a home you know, at a discount, often without needing savings. It just deserves the same cold-eyed affordability work as any purchase, which is exactly what a 15-minute conversation with us will give you.