Council to buy homes from landlords and allow tenants to stay

Back in the 1980s the Council's owned vast amounts of deteriorating houses that they had failed to maintain for decades. A combination of government overspending and high inflation in the 1970s and the ludicrously low rents meant there was no money to do anything more than the most basic emergency repairs.
Most of the houses bought in the early days of the Right to Buy scheme required huge amounts of work to bring them up to a modern standard. The discounts usually covered the cost of the required upgrades depending on how much work the new owners did themselves and how much they needed contractors for. Some people did better than others in that respect. My RTB had extensive dry rot and had to be completely gutted, a friend's RTB had had virtually nothing done in the 50 years since it was built and needed just about everything doing - replastering, rewiring, new kitchen, new bathroom, new roof, etc. Of course once the houses had been improved they were worth more, just as any other renovation project would be.

That’s because the public sector rewards incompetence

The more they spend the more they get next year , the whole system is broke

Time for ze great reset !

The selling of Council houses to the long term occupiers in my view was an inspired idea, however the execution of this idea was flawed. Within the contract should have been 'when the property was sold then the discount needs to be paid back to the Council, regardless of a time period'. I understand that this applied for 5 years though was not always enforced. Whatever the condition of the house these houses were sold at a discount, it was done to remove tax burdens from the government but also to give tenants an ability to have a choice of investing in their house and improve living conditions. It went wrong as a lot of these ex-tenants sold, especially around London for huge profit with no re-payment and the Councils instead of building new properties were incompetent. with their windfall and short sighted with their housing needs.

If council employees worked in the private sector they would have been sacked years ago

Agreed Jo, I bought one from Norwich City Council 10 yrs ago, built 1953, same tenants throughout , when cracks appeared in internal walls due to a damaged drain the tenants were moved to a house just around the corner, the house then sat empty for 3 yrs until I bought it at auction for £74k, Pipeline Bill then hand dug and replaced the section of drain for less than £500, I carried out the repairs to the house, I have had very happy tenants living there since and no new cracks, the council could easily have repaired the drain when it was first reported to them, just shear incompetence on their part.

Andy, I agree that RTB was a great idea. Not only did it lessen the burden on the taxpayer but it turned the new homeowner into someone invested in society rather than a dependent on the state. Personally, I think one of the biggest problems we currently have is that of the entitled tenant and those that think that everything should be provided for them.