Increase in the number of council tenants buying their homes

There has been an increase in the amount of people buying their council homes according to statistics on Housing minister Mark Prisk's blog. A total of 5,942 homes were sold to council house tenants using the Right to Buy scheme between April 2012 and April 2013. This is more than double the number sold in the previous year and the highest number of sales since 2007. In this year's Budget the Government raised the maximum discount people can get off of a council property to £75,000, unless the property is in London, where the discount is now £100,000. There are also new rules to allow people living in a council property to buy their home after three years rather than five. Rob Campbell, a director at Shelter told the BBC: “Short-term quick-fix announcements may have stolen some headlines, but the reality is that a generation's hope for a home of their own is continuing to slip away because of our chronic shortage of affordable homes." May 17, 2013