r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	meepmeep13
Comment	The key reasons are that a) it effectively subsidises more affluent renters to buy a home through increasing the rents of less affluent renters; b) it transfers money from local authorities to government without anything going the other way; c) many properties are more valuable as rental properties and the people who bought them don't live in them as intended, in London for example they are often bought up by developers and then leased back to the HA at greatly increased cost; d) the discounting means the HAs never got the value of the properties and so could never replace the social housing stock they lost. So even if you're not a critic of social mobility (the idea that you improve working class people's lives by giving them the opportunity to become middle class - such as by owning a home - rather than bringing up the general living standard for everyone by providing greater access to cheap housing), the bottom line is that as a fiscal policy it has directly led to today's widespread housing crisis and is the predominant reason HAs struggle to provide enough homes to those that need them, and also contributes to the underfunding of local authorities, who again are often paying much more for housing support than they otherwise should. See https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-david-cameron-housing-crisis - but criticism of the policy is by no means only a lefty thing. It's also not the case that allowing long-term tenants to own their home is inherently a bad thing, but the way it was enacted by Thatcher was essentially a cynical welfare-destroying public cash grab.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/g5p1x6/i_know_the_right_to_buy_scheme_has_ended_in/fo6wpu6/
Created	Wed 22nd Apr 2020 4:09pm
Status	normal ()

The key reasons are that a) it effectively subsidises more affluent renters to buy a home through increasing the rents of less affluent renters; b) it transfers money from local authorities to government without anything going the other way; c) many properties are more valuable as rental properties and the people who bought them don't live in them as intended, in London for example they are often bought up by developers and then leased back to the HA at greatly increased cost; d) the discounting means the HAs never got the value of the properties and so could never replace the social housing stock they lost.

So even if you're not a critic of social mobility (the idea that you improve working class people's lives by giving them the opportunity to become middle class - such as by owning a home - rather than bringing up the general living standard for everyone by providing greater access to cheap housing), the bottom line is that as a fiscal policy it has directly led to today's widespread housing crisis and is the predominant reason HAs struggle to provide enough homes to those that need them, and also contributes to the underfunding of local authorities, who again are often paying much more for housing support than they otherwise should.

See https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-david-cameron-housing-crisis - but criticism of the policy is by no means only a lefty thing.

It's also not the case that allowing long-term tenants to own their home is inherently a bad thing, but the way it was enacted by Thatcher was essentially a cynical welfare-destroying public cash grab.