The Right to Buy Your Home

If you are a New Progress tenant, and transferred to the association from South Ribble Borough Council, and you have maintained a continuous tenancy with us, you may be eligible to purchase your home.

Any member of the family who is a joint tenant can buy with you, providing at least one of you lives in your home most of the time. The Right to Buy can also be shared with up to three family members who are not joint tenants, as long as they have lived with you for the 12 months immediately before you apply to buy.

Exceptions to the Right to Buy

You cannot buy your home if:

• You are an assured tenant who did not transfer from South Ribble Borough Council
• Your home is retirement housing for the elderly, or housing for the physically disabled, or the mentally ill or mentally disabled.
• There may be circumstances where you do not have the right to buy, for instance if you have had a court order for possession of your home. Please contact us for more information.

Right to Buy - Discount Rules

'Right to Buy' means you can buy your home for far less than its market value. The maximum discount available is £26,000.

Your discount is dependant upon your qualifying period which is the time spent in total as a public sector/housing association tenant.

You can count time spent in different homes, and with different landlords, and these don't need to be straight after each other. You may also be able to count a period when your husand or wife was a public sector tenant. If you lived with your parents after the age of 16 and you later became the tenant of the same house or flat, you may be able to count that time too.

Your time spent as a tenant of:

• Another 'Right to Buy' landlord, such as a District or County Council, or
• The Armed Forces; or
• A public body (such as fire or police authorities, British Coal and Gas Corporations, or the Post Office)

can also count towards your qualifying period.

If you are buying with someone who has a longer qualifying period than yours, you will benefit from their higher right of discount.

It is necessary that you have a qualifying period of at least five years to be able to buy your home. The basic discount after 5 years is 35% for houses and 50% for flats.

After 5 years, you obtain an additional discount for each extra year.

If you are buying a house, you obtain 1% more discount for each extra year, up to a limit of 60% (subject to the £26,000 maximum).

For a flat or maisonette, you obtain 2% more discount for each extra year, up to a limit of 70% (subject to the £26,000 maximum).

Moving later on

After you have excercised your right to buy, you may sell your home whenever you wish. If you wish to sell within 10 years, you must offer the house back to the association. You would be required to repay the discount on a proportional basis only if you sell your house within 5 years of having purchased it.

If you do not qualify for Right to Buy, you could be eligible for the Right to Acquire scheme. Click here to visit the Housing Corporation website to find out more.