Section: Right to Buy

New Regulations

The Housing (Right to Buy) (Priority of Charges) (Wales) Order 2005 SI 1351 (W.99)
The Residential Property Tribunal (Right to Buy Determinations) Procedure (England) Regulations 2005 SI 1509

These Regulations, which apply to England only, regulate the procedure to be followed for applications made to a residential property tribunal under paragraph 11(4) of Schedule 5 to the Housing Act 1985. That Schedule sets out exceptions to secure tenants' right to buy their home under Part 5 of the Act.

The exception in paragraph 11 of Schedule 5 concerns properties particularly suitable for occupation by elderly persons. An application under paragraph 11 of Schedule 5 is the means by which a secure tenant may question the landlord's decision that the exception in that paragraph applies to his claim to exercise the Right to Buy.

An application must be made before the end of the period of 56 days beginning with the service of the landlord's Notice under section 124 of the Act.
The Housing (Right to Buy)(Information to Secure Tenants)(England) Order 2005 SI 1735

Part 5 of the Housing Act 1985 confers on the secure tenants of certain landlords a right to buy their homes, subject to specific exceptions.

Section 189 of the Housing Act 2004 inserts new sections 121AA and 121B in Part 5 of the Act, replacing the duty in section 104(1)(b) of the Act regarding provision by landlords of information in connection with the Right to Buy. Under these new sections, a landlord of secure tenants must now supply those tenants with a document containing information on the matters (and restricted to those matters) specified by the Secretary of State in an Order.

Landlords may provide information in the form that they consider appropriate, so long as it covers the specified matters. The document must be available at the landlord's principal offices and at such other places it considers appropriate. A copy of the current version of the document must be supplied free of charge to any person requesting it.
The Housing (Right to Buy) (Prescribed Forms) (Amendment) (England) (No.2) Regulations 2005 SI 1736

Regulation 2 of these Regulations substitutes the form of Notice to be used by a landlord in admitting or denying a tenant's claim under section 124(1) of the Housing Act 1985 to buy the freehold or purchase a lease or leasehold interest of his or her property.
The Housing (Right of First Refusal) (England) Regulations 2005 SI 1917

The landlords of secure tenants buying their homes under the Right to Buy scheme (the terms of which are contained in Part 5 of the Housing Act 1985), are required by section 156A of the 1985 Act to impose a covenant in conveyances and grants of leases to the effect that, for a period of ten years after the property is transferred to the tenant under the Right to Buy, there must be no relevant disposal which is not an exempted disposal (these terms are defined in sections 159 and 160 of the 1985 Act respectively), unless the prescribed conditions have been satisfied (a "right of first refusal covenant"). This instrument contains the prescribed conditions.

These Regulations require that the owners of properties bound by the covenant who wish to make a relevant disposal which is not an exempted disposal, must first offer the property for purchase by its former landlord, its successor in title or a person nominated by it.

In relation to a leasehold property, the Notice must be served upon the former landlord, or the current landlord under the lease if that is not the former landlord (Regulation 5).

If the property is freehold, the Notice must be served upon the former landlord if that person is still in existence, otherwise upon the local housing authority for the area in which the property is situated.
The Right to Purchase (Prescribed Persons) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2005 Scottish SI 275

Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, qualification for the right to purchase and entitlement to discount depend inter alia on occupation as a tenant of a house, or of a succession of houses, provided by the landlords mentioned in section 61(11) of that Act.

This Order adds another person to the list of prescribed persons in the Right to Purchase (Prescribed Persons) (Scotland) Order 1993, namely a person that has become the employer of a former employee of a local authority managed school, where such an employee lives in a house provided by the local authority to enable that employee to better perform their duties and has transferred to the employment of that person and that person has become their landlord.

An example of the effect of this Order is that an employee, such as a janitor, can count the time spent in occupation of a house that they used to occupy as an employee of a local authority and now occupy as an employee of a new person.

RTB in Brief

East Renfrewshire Council became the second Scottish local authority to apply for pressurised area status, which would allow it to suspend the Right to Buy (RTB). The Scottish Executive has been requested to class four areas of the district as pressurised, which removes the RTB from tenants who signed tenancy agreements after September 2002.

Section: Right to Buy

New Regulations

RTB in Brief

Housing Monthly Diary

Issue: September 2005 Reporting on May-August 2005

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