Apply for the right to buy your council home

The Right to Buy scheme means that most council tenants can buy their council home at a discount.  

You can apply to buy your home if: 

• it’s your only or main home 
• it’s self-contained 
• you’re a secure tenant 
• you’ve had a council, housing association or NHS trust landlord for at least 3 years - it does not have to be 3 years in a row 

Who does not have the right to buy 

You cannot buy your home if: 

• a court has made a possession order that says you must leave your home 
• you are subject to bankruptcy proceedings or if your bankruptcy is still in progress 
• you live in sheltered housing 
• you hold a service tenancy 
• we plan to demolish the building 
• there is less than 50 years to run on the lease of your flat, or less than 21 years if you live in a house 

Making a joint application 

You can make a joint application with: 

• a spouse or civil partner 
• family members if they’ve lived with you for the past 12 months 
• any joint tenants you may have 

You can only put 4 names on the application form. 

While the main cost of buying your home will be the ongoing mortgage payments, you must be able to meet the other costs of buying, maintaining and insuring your home. These include: 

• Stamp Duty which is a tax paid on property sales over a certain price 
• Land Registry Fees for registering your interest in the leasehold or freehold title 
• building survey fees 
• valuation fees and mortgage application fees  
• legal fees paid to a solicitor or licensed conveyancer  
• building insurance, contents insurance and life insurance 
• housing repairs 
• Council Tax and utilities 
• annual service charges and major works charges where relevant 

Repossession 

If you are unable to meet the costs of being a homeowner, you may lose your home. 
If you do not pay your mortgage, your lender may repossess your home and sell it to recover the cost of your loan. 

To apply for the Right to Buy scheme, you must print and complete the application form. 

If you do not have a printer, email [email protected] to ask leaseholder services to send you a copy.

Apply for the Right to Buy (PDF) 
 
Once you have completed and signed the form, return it by recorded delivery or by hand to: 

Leaseholder Services 
Crowndale Centre 
218 Eversholt Street 
London 
NW1 1BD 

Valuation 

When we receive your completed Right to Buy application, we arrange for a valuer to visit your home. Our valuer assesses the open market value of your property on the date that you applied. They disregard any improvements that you’ve made in their valuation.  

Once we have the valuation, we calculate the price you must pay and send you a Landlord’s Offer Notice, also known as a Section 125 Notice. We aim to do this within 12 weeks, or 8 weeks if you live in a house, rather than a flat. 

Following the government’s review of Right to Buy discounts, the largest discount is now £16,000 in London as of 21 November 2024.  

The price you pay for your home is the open market value minus the discount. 

Energy Performance Certificate 

You may need an Energy Performance Certificate. A surveyor will need to survey your home to assess how energy efficient it is. 

This is a legal requirement and it’s important to keep the appointment with the surveyor.  

Offer Notice 

Your Offer Notice is an important document. It tells you how much you will have to pay for your home and the terms on which you will buy it.  

If you live in a flat, we will sell you a lease which is usually 125 years. If we own your home on a lease, the period might be less. 

Your Offer Notice will include any estimated annual service charges that you might have to pay. It will also tell you about the estimated cost of any planned major works over the next 5 years to which you will need to contribute.  

We cannot charge you any more than these amounts during this period, other than an allowance for inflation. 

We will also tell you about any structural defects that we are aware of, but you should have your own survey done before buying. The survey arranged by your mortgage provider might not be enough. 

If you’re happy, you have 12 weeks to accept our offer. If you don’t respond within the timescale, we will issue you with a Notice giving you 28 days to decide. We will close your application after this time. 

Right to appeal 

If you’re unhappy with the property price set out in your Offer Notice, you have the right to appeal within 12 weeks of us sending your Offer Notice.  

The District Valuer makes the decision and is independent from the council. You cannot appeal their decision even if this valuation is higher than ours. Once we receive the new valuation we will send you a new Offer Notice. 

You must tell us that you accept the offer within 12 weeks of us issuing your new Offer Notice. If you don’t respond within the timescale, we will issue you with a Notice giving you 28 days to decide. We will close your application after this time. 

Most sales go through without any problems, but there can be delays. 

If we do not stick to the timescales or you think we’re taking an unreasonable amount of time to complete your sale, you may get compensation. We calculate this as the rent paid during the period of delay which we deduct from the price of your home. 

If you want to claim compensation, you must follow the process as set out below. If you do not do this, you will not be entitled to any compensation, no matter how long the delay. 

To start the process you must serve us with an Initial Notice of Delay, also known as an RTB6. The Notice gives us a period to progress your application. If we do not, you are then entitled to serve an Operative Notice of Delay, also known as an RTB8. 

If you follow the process correctly, any rent paid during the delay will be taken off the price of your home.   

Notice to Complete 

If you tell us you wish to go ahead with buying your home, but you do nothing after that, we will serve you with a Notice to Complete. This Notice gives you 56 days to complete the process.  

If you are unable to do this by the end of this period, we will serve you with a Second Notice to Complete. Again, this Notice gives you 56 days to complete. If you are unable to do this by the end of this second period, we will close your application. 

We expect that you will not owe any rent when you buy your home. We will refund any overpayments once we close your rent account. 

If you sell your home within the first 5 years after buying, you may have to repay some of the discount you received. We calculate the discount owed as the change in value of your home since your Right to Buy valuation date. 

If you sell your home within the first 10 years of your lease, we have the right to buy back your home. 

Breaching your lease

If you breach the terms of your lease, such as by causing a nuisance or failing to pay service charges, we may seek to take possession of your home. This 'forfeiture’ of your lease means that you could lose your home and receive no compensation for the loss.  

We use this as a last resort, but it does happen.