"Right to Buy" council homes

Some people believe that the selling off by councils of their stock of council homes has left the UK with a real problem in providing affordable rental properties. Do you think that the "Right to Buy" is a good or bad thing? Should everyone be given the right to own their own home? Or is it more important that good quality, affordable properties are made available to everyone? Should local councils really be expected to give such big discounts to people wanting to buy their own homes? Do you think that the "Right to Buy" scheme was abused?

"Right To Buy" was introduced by Thatcher in order to allow more people to become home owners, and so making them feel more middle class. This was one of the most destructive ideas to society that has happened in this country in many years.

As a consequence of this legislation, local council stocks of affordable rental properties was devastated, leaving many families homeless; house prices increased, pricing out first time buyers; people that couldn't really afford it suddenly found themselves having to pay mortgages that they couldn't afford (help with paying rent is available to those on benefits, but not help with paying mortgages), leading to more repossessions; many families abused the system by buying up several homes rented by older members of the family, then reselling upon the death of the old person; banks were lending much more money than before, influencing interest rates; and many more effects.

Another effect on the local societies was that self-owned properties were now more widespread amongst council estates, causing friction with the neighbours as the new owners suddenly started becoming more fussy about the local area (complaining more about kids playing outside, where bins were put on bin collection day, and other petty matters that did nothing except irritate the neighbours).

Local councils lose huge amounts of money on each "right to buy", as the property is sold off with a hefty discount to the tenant but the council has to pay full price to replace the space left in their rental properties. Most councils do not replace properties sold through "right to buy", so their stock of affordable rental properties dwindles more and more.

Margaret Thatcher actually introduced this policy so that people could buy their own homes and become less dependent upon the state. It enabled people to own their own houses and to take responsibility for their lives.

So your argument states that, because of that a lot of people are facing homing issues because they can't afford their own house and can't get a council property due to a shortage. If these houses were not available to buy in the first place surely the amount of people on the property ladder would be less in the first place and therefore the system would be even more impacted now?

Also, Thatcher hasn't been in power for a fair few years, so why blame her when the current government could have, and I thought they had decided, to abolish the idea completely. Thatcher hasn't been around since the early 90's, and over 10 years later you still "blame her" for doing something that was trying to free people from relying on the state....

Now, on to your "effect on local socities". I live in an ex-council house, I didn't buy it off the council, I got it from the family before me who had more kids than bedrooms....anyways, this is where I know you're completely wrong. I have never felt so bullied, harrassed and unhappy in a house as I do this one. The people who we are joined on to are now ok, but there are others, that still live in council homes across the road. I'm not noisey, never had any parties or anything like that, but since I've moved in I've had the council knocking on my door because the people across the road have complained about my front garden being too long (the grass was 5cm long) It got so bad I called the police for advice and I was told it was harresment. Since the council last called and I told them this they have left me alone.

There are other people who have moved in since, both council and privately owned ex-council homes, which have faced the same things, all from three houses, council ones, that believe they have a right to dictate how we live our lives.

I seriously want to move and have even offered this property back to the council and they are not willing to buy it back off me (Nothing to do with lack of money)

In conclusion, the right to buy WORKED, it allowed people who normally couldn't have afforded to get on to the property ladder to do just that. Blaming Margaret Thatcher, over TEN years since she had any form of power is rediculous, because those that carried on the policy are, therefore, just as "bad".

I was gutted when they took our "Right to buy" away. Means I have spent years paying dead rent and nothing will ever come of it. Yet another great money making scheme. It is awful. There property ladder nowadays is impossible to get on for a lot of people.

I merely stated that Thatcher had introduced the policy. I completely agree that you can’t just blame her for what has happened since, it is the fault of all the governments since then for not repealing it, they have continued the damage, just as they have continued to cause other damage, right across the board of society, by continuing bad policies and not correcting these mistakes. If anyone should take more responsibility for the damage than anyone else, it should really be the Labour governments, and more speciafically, Tony Blair, that truly did the most damage because they were the ones that everyone expected to fix the damage done. One expected it of Thatcher and the Tory governments, because they have always been about the abdication of social responsibilities, look after themselves and business now and let the Labour party fix the damage done to society when they come into power, but they didn't. Instead Tony Blair continued the policy of abdication of social responsibility and decided to leave fixing the damage to whoever came after him, which in turn Gordon Brown is doing as well. All this damage has been, and continues to be done, but the people that were expected to repair the damage and bring some healing to society again have continued on with the Thatcherite policies and so have compounded the problem further. Yet there is no hope for the near future either, because the next government looks as if it will be another Tory government, who are the ones expected to act like this, so it can only be hoped that there will be a agovernment after next that may begin to make the repairs (one can only hope).

There is more to taking responsibility than just looking after oneself, there is also the responsibility towards society in general and to those less fortunate within that society, and successive governments in the UK have encouraged the people to reject this form of responsibility and to only care about themselves and about the present, and not care about others or the future. Yes there would have been fewer people on the housing ladder now, and that would have been a much better thing, as we are seeing now with the collapse of the sub-prime market. It is better for those that cannot afford to buy a home not to do so, rather than the government to encourage them to put themselves into debts that they have no way of ever affording to pay back. The sub-prime market was all about selling houses to people that could not normally afford to buy one, and with that collapse, look at what has happened to the global economy. How can anyone possibly claim that putting people in more debt than they could ever hope to afford to pay back would be a good thing? It was all about the sort term, feeling good now and who cares what happens tomorrow, because someone else will have to sort that out.

Many people have difference experiences of similar situations, I was merely making the point that many other people have experienced the situation that I mentioned. That you experienced different situations only goes to show that some have good experiences, some bad, and some medium and that there can be no generality in anything, only an average of all the different experiences encountered. Just because you experience one thing, does not mean that others are experiencing different things in a similar situation.

Almost all sides agree that there is a serious lack of affordable social housing at the moment, and the fact that this scheme sold off vast amounts of council homes can only have made this matter much worse than it would have been without it.

Some people gained, personally, from this scheme, but society as a whole lost enormously from it.