I notice this idea was trashed in the Guardian but seems very similar to Conservative Party pronoucements – hardly social liberalism.

Tennants used to be able to move when there was more social housing stock. That is the real issue.

The beneficial effect of this proposal could be achived by allowing councils to purchase property on the open market for use as social housing.

The idea that the right to move would seriously impact on people “to stand up against antisocial behaviour” is wishful thinking of the worse new Labour style. Yet this is given as the 1st advantage.

What about people in shared ownership schemes ? What about people in key worker schemes ? If I downsize as a tenant in london and move to wales, do I keep the £500,000 difference in house price ?

The costs are much smaller. Stamp duty is not levied on SH purchases, so there are only surveys and legal fees. I would expect surveys and estate agents to be done in house, which would cut the cost dramatically. I estimate £1000 all in. A pilot is the only way to find out. Remember that if more people end up in work there are big savings to govt. Or if school results improve. £1000 is small in that context.

If you move to a cheaper house the SH agency keeps the difference. This would increase the stock of SH, esp as some people in central London would move out to the suburbs.

- Surveys
- Stamp duty
- Solicitors fees
- estate agents fees (?)
- costs of moving house (i.e. paying movers)

I also believe there are minimum standards required for social housing so as well as the new property having to be of the same value as the old one it would have to also meet these min standards or else there would be the additional cost of bringing the new property up to standard.

I would presume (correct me if I’m wrong) that social housing generally tends to be towards the cheaper end of the market, so what would be available at the same price? Do you envisage a kind of internal market where social housing landlords sell properties to each other, or would it actually be possible to break out into the wider property market?

And the new house can’t be more expensive, but can it be cheaper? e.g if Mr and Mrs X want to go and live near Grandma X, but Grandma X lives in a dodgier part of town, does the landlord have the right to refuse that sale?

Feel free to brush me off to the main report if these questions are answered therein, only had time to skim it.

First, thanks for your further comments.

I don’t differentiate between HA and Council financing because there is no need to in this context. (nb from memory Kingston Council alone pays £32m to central govt so as you can imagine this is a live issue). Under my scheme the council sell one house worth £100k and buys another worth £100k. They rent it out for the same rent as before. Nothing changes in financial terms for the council – they are in exactly the same position as before. The govt treats the council as now (there are good reasons to change that, but that is a separate issue). Ditto if the house is HA owned. The HA sell one house worth £100k and buys another for £100k. The HA continue to charge the same rent as they did before, and govt treats the rental stream the same. Nothing changes, and so the issues that you raise are not an obstacle.

Your second para is about stock transfer. No stock is transferred in my scheme.

Third para. There would be no time lag between selling one property and buying another – the tenant would end up in a chain, just like an owner occupier. Their property would be sold on the day the new one was bought. Otherwise there could be all sorts of problems.

Always happy to exchange comments – as you can see, I think I have the answers to allow this liberal scheme to be a practical one.

The other factor is the level of debt that a local Council has. Councils embark upon stock transfer not because they cannot borrow money (under prudential borrowing they are allowed to borrow provided that they have the revenue to pay back the money) but because their income streams are insufficient to borrow enough capital to carry out the necessary works, made worse when some of it is clawed back as negative subsidy. The only way that stock transfer works is that it takes the housing stock out of the subsidy system whilst the Treasury pays off the debt. In some cases up to half a Council’s income stream is used to repay debt giving them little choice when a house is sold other than to use the receipt to repay that debt.

There are also questions about the time lag between selling the Council house and buying the new one, especially when the Council home is difficult to sell because of its condition or because it is in a poor area. I agree that we need to break up monolithic estates but we can do so by selling them off in parts to other social landlords or for redevelopment, whilst using Social Housing Grant to buy up private homes for rent on private estates. That is the best way to achieve choice.

I do not want to pour cold water on what seems an attractive idea but I really do think that it is fraught with practical difficulties and is a distraction when Councils have far more pressing calls on their resources at a time of recession and during a slump in the housing market.

Peter,

Always a pleasure to reply to someone who is engaging seriously with the idea.

1) It requires that the 75% rule is abolished if another property is being bought in lieu. The point of being in govt is to abolish silly rules like these.

2) The money to buy the new house comes from selling the old one.

3) The new property will be let out under exactly the same terms (including rent levels as the previous one)

4) I am not sure which expectations you are referring to – tenants are told that they can move if they can find somewhere that they prefer that is no more expensive.

5) Statutory obligations to the homeless etc (which are critically important) are unaffected, and the resources to do so are unaffected.

These are important details, and I hope that my answers reassure you. The full version of the paper (available from Policy Exchange website) has a foreward by the chief exec of a Housing Assoc – she thought that it would work in practice, and that gives me confidence that they would.

Jock: as ever, I am always willing to listen to LVT schemes provided that they include some figures. People make claims for LVT but until I see some numbers I can’t judge whether those claims are sensible. I have asked every LVT fan who has ever written to me to do so. Some have said no, and others have sent numbers that were silly.

I don’t see how you can claim that LVT would help the 90 year old man I met recently, trapped in a first floor flat. He just needs to move downstairs. For him, and others like him, the right to move is the best and most efficient possible policy. Giving him the freedom to move would transform his life. Isn’t that what social liberalism is about?

The full version of the paper, including the foreword, can be found here: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/Publications.aspx?id=775 (click on “download” underneath the paragraph of text)